CYANMAGENTAYELLOWBLACK

D4 Herald-Banner Saturday, MarcH 31, 2012

THE FUTUREH e r a l D i n g

c o M M u n i t y & e d u c a t i o n

By Carol FergusonHerald-Banner Staff

Joe C. Johnson might well be considered the “poster boy” for Caddo Mills.

He currently lives “... 300 feet from where I was born, on land that’s been in the family for 140 years.”

He says teachers have been a major influence in his life.

“Miss Frances Lee and Miss Lorene Jordan were elementa-ry school teachers in Caddo Mills. Every time there was a program Miss Lee encouraged me to participate, and Miss Jordan was such an intellectual person — soft-spoken, but a lion when it came to teaching.

“Then my parents moved to Dallas, and I was miserable there,” he recalls. He wasn’t interested in his studies, and the school librarian at Sam Houston Elementary, a Miss Spruce, sensed his unhappi-ness.

“She got me interested in books, and I tell people that in the eighth grade I could travel with the Mohicans and go up and down the Mississippi River with Tom Sawyer. That was my escape. I still think of her and her influence.

“Mother and Dad were also concerned about me, so we moved back to Caddo Mills, and the ‘fog’ was lifted for me,” he said. He graduated from Caddo Mills High School at 16, in 1951.

After graduation he worked for H. L. Hunt Oil Company in Dallas. “They had me driving Mr. Hunt around in downtown Dallas,“ he said.

“When I decided to go to col-lege I went for one year at East Texas State, but I was still undecided about what I wanted to do. I had no girl friend — you could say I was foot loose and fancy free — so I joined the United States Marine Corps.”

From 1956-58 he served in California, Okinawa, Japan and the Philippines.

“After my discharge I knew I wanted to go back to college, so I want back to ETSU and majored in biology. Again I had two great professors there who influenced me — one was the late Dr. Arthur Pullen, head of the biology department, and the other was Dr. Fred Tarpley. At that time ET had a lot of country boys and girls, and Dr. Tarpley took the rough edges off a bunch of old country boys,” he said.

Graduating with honors, Johnson began teaching sci-ence at Greenville Junior High School. “I helped Ken Gibson with the junior high basketball

and football teams. At first I told him, ‘I’m a science major, not a physical education major,’ but he said, ‘You can handle it.’ I said no.

“Then he approached me a week later and said I’d only have four academic classes instead of five to teach, but I still said no. When he came back again, he said ‘I want you to help me. You’ll only have four sections of science and I will help you, plus it’ll be a $500 a year raise.’

“‘Where’s the whistle?’ I immediately said.

“We had very successful teams, but it was due more to Ken Gibson than to me.”

Johnson and his wife, Jean Anne, were the parents of three natural children and also adopt-ed three minority youngsters, two of whom were from El Salvador. All six now have col-lege degrees. “I needed more money, so after three years I quit teaching and went into the construction business with my father-in-law, J.W. Farr, and was in that for 26 years.”

Eventually he went to work in the facilities department at E-Systems in supervision, and retired after 10 years from Raytheon (now L-3 Communications).

In 1997 his wife died in an automobile accident in Rockwall. The library in Lee Elementary School, Caddo Mills, has been named after her, and the family has given more than $80,000 in scholar-ships to seniors at Caddo Mills

High School in her memory. Six years ago Johnson mar-

ried his second wife, Beverly.“Some men never get one

good wife, and I got two,” he said. “Beverly is a CPA and works in accounting at L-3. The kids and 14 grandkids love her. We’re a very close family. It’s not unusual for there to be 30 at our house at any given time.”

Johnson has always been enthusiastic about physical exercise, and he took up long-distance running in 1960.

“My first race was at White Rock Lake in January, and it was 32 degrees and the wind was whipping — cold, cold, cold. I said to myself, ‘What in the world am I doing here?’ It was a 5K race and when I won second place in my age group I was ruined,” he said laughing. “In my 60s I continued in all the major races in my age group in northeast Texas and won them.”

One day when he was run-ning, he said he could sense that someone or something was coming up behind him. “It was Mr. Rentfrow, the undertaker.

“‘James, what are you doing?’ I asked him.

“‘Joe,’ he said in jest, ‘busi-ness is slow and I thought maybe you’d get run over.’

“As I neared 70, there was no one else to run with in Caddo Mills, so I got into bike riding. There are a lot of riders around Greenville — Jerry Grady, Bill Rutherford, Bob Mudie. I joined up with them for companion-ship. With runners and bike

riders, you meet such great people. They’re all so upbeat, enthusiastic.

“Jerry and I went and did the 300-mile Bike Florida ride three times, and then we started going to Iowa for the 500-mile RAGBRAI.”

The latter event was started in 1973 by two men on the staff of the Des Moines Register. The name stands for “Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa,” and that’s exactly what it is. Riders begin on the western edge of the state, tradi-tionally dipping the rear wheel of their bikes in the Missouri River, and finish on the eastern side, dipping their front wheel in the Mississippi River. Average speed is 15 to 18 mph, and riders begin at daybreak and are through for the day by 11 o’clock. They average 70 miles per day. Small towns along the route get in the spirit of things by making sleeping space and meals available, he explained.

“For two years we were the only ones from this area who went, but now there are about 10 or 12 riders,” he said. “I have ridden in it five times in the last seven years.”

He has also ridden in the 100-mile Hotter ‘n’ Hell event in Wichita Falls.

“I’ve been retired for 12 years, but I have to have a proj-ect,” he said. “I enjoy gardening and yard work — anything to do with horticulture.” He has planted and cares for 30 trees — peach, pear, pecan and plum

— and also raises tomatoes and okra.

This past year when so many gardeners were having poor luck with their tomato plants, Johnson said his were doing very well. “You have to go out and shake them a little to polli-nate them and talk to them,” he kids. “Shake them and talk to them.” Actually, he admits, his success is probably due more to the bags of oak leaves he col-lects in the fall and uses as a mulch.

“I like the outdoors, and my two favorite places in Texas couldn’t be more different: the Big Bend where I hike, back-pack and ride my bike, and the other is Caddo Lake. I take the kids and grandkids there twice a year and we stay three or four days.”

Over the years Johnson has also been involved in a variety of civic activities. He has been a member of the Caddo Mills Volunteer Fire Department, filled in for an unexpired term on the Caddo Mills City Council, served on boards of directors for FISH, the Hunt County Committee on Aging, Hunt County Appraisal District, Hunt County Fair and Hunt Regional Hospital District. He is also a member of the noon Rotary Club, and he is current-ly taking a non-credit writing course at Texas A&M University-Commerce under Dr. Tarpley.

Johnson is an avid photogra-pher, he collects soda pop mem-orabilia, and he still manages to work out four or five days a week at the L-3 fitness center.

“I’ve had people ask me why I exercise so much,” he said. “It may not allow me to live any longer, but it sure does feel good while you’re living.”

courteSy pHoto

Joe c. Johnson is shown at one of the rest stops provided by small communities along the long-distance biking routes.

courteSy pHoto

Joe c. Johnson takes time out to catch his breath during the 300-mile Bike Florida ride. the caddo Mills native enjoys physi-cal exercise, and in addition to biking, he likes gardening, hiking and backpacking.

PrOFile On

Joe C. Johnson

Mapping out the future: Woman has direction as 911 coordinatorBy Brad Kellar

Herald-Banner Staff

Never let it be said that Jackie Ray doesn’t know where she’s going.

She also knows exactly where she’s been.

As Hunt County’s 911 coordi-nator, it is Ray’s job to put an address on every home, busi-ness and other structure on every road in the county. It is a duty she has performed for almost eight years, the past seven of which as 911 Coordinator.

“I oversee the cities, too,” Ray said. “I work with the North Central Texas Council of Governments and they oversee everything we do.”

The addresses are included on maps of the county and are determined as Ray drives the

roads and notes the coordinates of the structures and driveways leading to the structures, on her GPS system.

“Then I come back and down-load it on my map,” Ray said.

Ray uses a fairly simple for-mula for determining an

address, based on the distance from one driveway to another on a county road.

“For every 100 feet, it is 10 digits,” Ray said.

Any road that has two struc-tures or more, even if it is someone’s extra long driveway, must also carry a specific name which can be added to the sys-tem.

“We also have to make sure the addresses and phone num-bers match up,” Ray said, not-ing the maps she creates are used to dispatch emergency vehicles to a location when a call comes through.

“The sheriff’s office has a copy of my maps,” Ray said. “Each fire department also has copies of my map.”

The maps are available at the county’s web site, www.hunt-county.net, under the listing for

“911 addressing.”As for what she would like to

see in the future, Ray is hoping everyone in the county learns to abide by the regulations for the posting of designated address numbers.

“People aren’t posting their addresses,” Ray said, noting it can make it more difficult for an emergency responder to find a location.

“The numbers need to be three inches tall and visible from the road, either on the house itself or by the drive-way,” Ray said.

Letter designations as part of the number address can also cause problems, as Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) systems have trouble reading them.

“They can’t be 301-A, it has to be Suite 1, Suite 2, or like that,” Ray said.

Brad Kellar / Herald-Banner

Jackie ray knows where all the houses, businesses and other structures are located in Hunt county, as she serves as the county’s 911 coordinator.

PrOFile On

JaCkie Ray

Teachers set path for Caddo Mills man

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