\nHarper and Elsie Johnson.\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
OXFORD, Miss. – For 93 years, University of Mississippi
\nalumnus Harper Johnson has watched the world change. He
\nremembers the tracks and locomotives that carried him to
\nOxford in 1935 to enroll at the university, and he recalls
\nthe building of highways back then that Ole Miss students
\nstill travel. He saw radio born, then television, and
\nlaughs now at the memory of a professor who told him both
\nwere fads. Behind every change he’s seen, Johnson has seen
\nsomething else: engineers.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n\n\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nIt’s the career he chose, becoming a successful electrical
\nengineer and making his home in Greenwood. Now, he hopes to
\nhelp other young men and women enjoy similar opportunities,
\nas he and his late wife, Elsie, have given $321,000 to Ole
\nMiss to create the Elsie and Harper Johnson Jr. Scholarship
\nEndowment in the School of Engineering.
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n\nIn other giving, Johnson is a member of UM’s 1848 Society,
\nwhich recognizes alumni and friends of the university who
\nhave either funded or planned a deferred gift, such as a
\nbequest or a life income plan.
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n\n“Mississippi in general is starving for engineers,” Johnson
\nsaid. “Without engineers we’re not going to grow. I want to
\nsee Ole Miss grow in the way of engineering. I want to
\nencourage students from Mississippi to stay in the state.
\nTo keep students in Mississippi, you’ve got to have
\nsomething for them. I want to help keep them in engineering
\nand give them somewhere to go.”
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n\nThe scholarship will be awarded to full-time electrical
\nengineering students from Leflore or Tate counties.
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n\n“What Elsie and Harper have done is exactly what the state
\nof Mississippi, and small towns especially, need,” said
\nFloyd Melton Jr., an attorney in Greenwood and a friend of
\nJohnson. “The goal of this scholarship is to see kids take
\nthe hard courses, become engineers and come back into our
\ncommunities to work and live.”
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n\nThe son of a lawyer, grandson of a judge and grandson of a
\ndoctor, Johnson said he never had any plans to enter the
\nfamily professions. “Mississippi has enough lawyers and
\ndoctors,” he joked.
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n\nEarly in his life, it was the shop next door to his
\nfather’s law office in Senatobia that intrigued Johnson
\nmost. The store specialized in leatherwork and he spent
\nmany hours there, marveling at how stuff was made,
\nobserving how things worked. When he boarded a train bound
\nfor Ole Miss, he knew engineering was his calling. Johnson
\nwas a quick learner, excelling even in the tough subjects.
\n“Studying engineering was fun for me,” he said. He had
\ncome to Ole Miss to study electrical engineering, but just
\na year into his schooling, the university dropped its
\nelectrical engineering courses. He left Oxford and took a
\njob in Greenwood with Supreme Instruments, a company that
\nproduced instruments for servicing radios. Johnson worked
\nat Supreme for one year before heading to Fort Wayne, Ind.,
\nto finish his degree at Indiana Institute of Technology,
\nthen one of the top engineering schools in the country.
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n\nWith his diploma in hand, Johnson returned to his job in
\nGreenwood with Supreme Instruments, eventually working his
\nway up as head of the service division. After a stint in
\nthe Army Signal Corps during WWII, Johnson went back to
\nGreenwood and to Supreme, where he met Elsie, and they
\nmarried in 1946. When Supreme was bought by Hickok in 1956,
\nJohnson took a job with Greenwood Utility, working there
\nuntil his retirement in 1980. Johnson also helped bring
\nMathCounts, a national math enrichment program founded by
\nthe National Society of Professional Engineers, to
\nGreenwood’s middle schools during his career.
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n\n“We are grateful for this generous gift, and we are also
\nappreciative of Harper Johnson’s commitment to the School
\nof Engineering and to engineering as a profession,” said
\nTom Black, development assistant to the engineering dean.
\n“This scholarship will allow more students to study
\nengineering and follow in the footsteps of a man who helped
\nthe state of Mississippi grow.”
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n\nThe gift is part of the university’s MomentUM campaign, a
\nfour-year initiative to raise $200 million. The campaign,
\nwhich ends in December 2008, already has raised more than
\n$180 million for scholarships, graduate fellowships,
\nfaculty support, a basketball practice facility,
\nresidential colleges and a new law school on the Oxford
\ncampus. Also in the plans is a cancer center at the UM
\nMedical Center in Jackson.
\n<\/span>\n<\/p>\n\nFor more information on how to support programs in the
\nSchool of Engineering, go to
\nhttp:\/\/www.olemiss.edu\/depts\/engineering?school\/campaign\/.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 Harper and Elsie Johnson. OXFORD, Miss. – For 93 years, University of Mississippi alumnus Harper Johnson has watched the world change. He remembers the tracks and locomotives that carried him to Oxford in 1935 to enroll at the university, and he recalls the building of highways back then that Ole Miss students still travel.Read the story …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[765,767,1297],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nGreenwood Couple Gives $321,000 to School of Engineering - Ole Miss News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/news.olemiss.edu\/greenwood-couple-gives-321000-to-school-of-engineering\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Greenwood Couple Gives $321,000 to School of Engineering - Ole Miss News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u00a0 Harper and Elsie Johnson. OXFORD, Miss. – For 93 years, University of Mississippi alumnus Harper Johnson has watched the world change. 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<\/p>\n