Kermit Wells is a native of Lawrenceville, Illinois. He attended both Lawrenceville High School and The Kroeger School of Music between 1950 and 1954. Enrolling at the University of Illinois in 1954, he graduated in 1958, finding teaching work shortly afterward in the Moline (Illinois) public school system. Beginning at Moline's Calvin Coolidge Junior High in 1958, he also taught at Moline's other two junior high schools, Woodrow Wilson and John Deere, before moving to Moline High School. He retired from teaching in the Moline public school system in 1995. He began his work with The Moline Boys Choir in 1958, becoming its primary director in 1973, and retiring from that organization in 2012.