A Berea College (1952) alum, Dr. John M. Ramsay served as director of the Berea College Recreation Extension from 1973 to 1995. Ramsay also led the Berea College Country Dancers, founded and led Morris, Contra, and Oh Contraire groups, participated in leading the community-wide Adult Folk Dancing, and further strengthened the Danish American Exchange program. Dr. John Ramsay combined the values of teaching, traveling and performing in his work, especially through exchanges with Denmark. Dr. Ramsay organized various international dance tours to folk schools and festivals in South Korea, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, China, Denmark, El Salvador, England, Germany, Luxembourg, Scotland and Sweden throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.  During its founding in 1995, he was elected president of the New Folk Circle Association, a nonprofit organization  that acting as a clearinghouse for folk dance and recreation in the Berea region. As president he worked to preserve the folk dance heritage associated with Berea College by sponsoring dances and holding workshops.

In 2010, Ramsay received a Lifetime Contributor Award from the Country Dance and Song Society of America for his contributions to the world of country dance.  Ramsay received his PhD in Animal Breeding in 1960 from Iowa State University.