Entrepreneur

Innovator in health care

Teacher

John L. Earnest, Marion High School Class of 1962, began his professional career in education at his alma mater but went on to a long and distinguished career in medical management, bringing innovative care to the Marion and Grant County communities. He has also been a driving force behind community efforts to help improve Marion High School in recent years, as well as MHS alumni relations.
In the late 1970s, Earnest was involved in the start-up of Ambucare Clinic in Marion, Ind., the first walk-in medical facility in Indiana. That innovation, though, is just one aspect of his footprint in the medical field, both in Marion and beyond.
He has also been involved at the executive and administrative level in several other Marion-based businesses, including Ambulatory Care Solutions, which provides primary care services to the Veterans Administration; Able Ambulance, which provides convalescent transportation services; Preferred Medical Management, a physician group that staffed emergency rooms and correctional facilities; and Earnest Associates, which provides medical care to the Marion and Grant County community.
Prior to that, he worked with Multiphasic Medical Management in Houston, Texas, and Physicians Placement Group in St. Louis, Mo.
His professional life started, though, as a social studies teacher and basketball and baseball coach at Marion High School, just five years after leaving there as a graduate. Decades later, he remains heavily invested and involved in the city of Marion and Marion Community Schools and is co-chairman of Friends of Marion High School, a community organization founded to help improve and promote the school and encourage further community involvement.
He has also been instrumental in keeping his MHS graduating class in touch over the years, helping to organize reunions and class birthday parties. He is also president of the Marion High School Alumni Association.
He has also served on various other advisory boards for educational, business, religious and philanthropic organizations in Marion, Ind.
Earnest also has been involved in local politics. He refers to his involvement in politics as a being on a “hobby” level, but he has served in leadership roles for the local Republican Party.
He has been honored with a Sagamore of the Wabash award from the state of Indiana, as well as an Outstanding Achievement Award – Business/Professional from Indiana Wesleyan University.
Earnest earned a bachelor of science in education from Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, Ind., in 1967. He earned a master of science in education from Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind., in 1973.
He lives in Marion, Ind., with his wife, Linda, who has taught in Marion Community Schools for decades, and their three children are also graduates of Marion High School.