A native of the Rosewood Community of Wayne County, I grew up as a farmer and was active in 4-H Club work.  The son of David Aaron Johnson and Lillian Carter Hatcher Johnson, I have two sisters and one brother.  My step-mother, Annie Ruth Johnson still lives in the Goldsboro area.  I graduated from Goldsboro High School in 1953.

    I attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where I received the A.B., M.A., and the Ph.D. degrees.  I  held administrative and teaching positions at UNC-Chapel Hill and Clemson University before coming to East Carolina University in 1967.  I held the position of professor in the department of Health & Physical Education (currently the College of Health & Human Performance) until my retirement in 2001.

    My late wife, Nancy Adams Johnson, and I had four children, three sons and a daughter.  They have given me five grandchildren.  My current wife, the former Phyllis Lamm Wooten, has brought two sons, a daughter, and their families, to extend our family to its' current twenty-two members when everyone is here.

    After my father's death in 1971, I continued to manage the family farm in Wayne County until approximately seven years ago when my siblings and I began a residential development on that land.  I was the senior executive officer of Chestnut Hill Commerce Center, a commercial/industrial park just south of Richmond, Virginia which I helped to plan and develop over the last thirty years.  Both projects have now been sold.