George Johnson - 1963
BIO & Picture

George Johnson - 2003-11-30
After Hickman, I started MU with minimal diligence.  The result was flunking out, getting drafted, and spending a couple of years in Germany keeping the Viet Cong from crossing the Danube.  Then I went back to MU with enough fervor to finish undergrad and law school.  Along the way, I married Marcia Sublett from the class of ’64.  Due to remarkable perseverance on her part, and luck on mine, we are still together, living in Springfield, MO (the gateway to Branson) where I am practicing law and she is winding up a teaching career, with the last 15 years or so in a gifted program.

We have two boys.  Ben is 26 and is in his fifth year of a PhD program in English at Rutgers.  Nick is 21 and a senior at Truman State, majoring in music and having entirely too much fun.  He is a member of a very good funk band called Hazard to Ya Booty which plays some in Columbia, as well as Kirksville, St. Louis, KC and sometimes Springfield so that we get to hear them.  Fortunately, both kids got BS ability from me and intelligence and diligence from Marcia, so they have pretty much gone to school for free.  Ben did his undergrad work at Washington U. in St. Louis.  Nick is looking at Musicology programs at various places, including Indiana.  (Put in a good word, Dennis.)

My law practice is in a firm that represents Rural Electric Cooperatives, which is a very enjoyable practice that will never make me rich, but does keep us supplied in baseball caps with company logos.  I started with the Highway Commission and still do a good deal of condemnation work.  Marcia will probably retire in about three years.  As of now, I don’t see myself being tired of it for a while longer, so I plan to hang in for several more years. I have a partner who is 80 and still putting in very close to full time, so that sort of thing is possible in a practice like ours, but I expect to be out of here long before that.

In our spare time, Marcia tries to fit about 30 acres of flower gardens into a half acre lot, and expects me to be the spade man.  This is not something that was disclosed to me during courtship.  I do a little hunting, fishing, and floating and spend a lot of time with the Boy Scouts.  My scoutmaster days are over, but I am now our District’s Advancement Chair, which means that I sit on Eagle Boards of Review for kids who make it that far.  It is a great job.  I get to meet the best of the young men in our area, so I have some faith in the future.

On a sadder note, my brother, Clayton, from the class of ’62, died about two years ago of a brain cancer.  He left three daughters, now 20 through 29, who had also lost their mother to cancer a year and a half before that.  They are wonderful young ladies and have helped me get through it at least as much as I have helped them.  Clayton was a dentist in California, MO and, judging from the turnouts at his and his wife’s funerals, was a very valued member of the community.  I miss him every day.