Sgt. Eugene C. Johnson, a Melbourne, Florida native, graduated from Melbourne Vocational High School in 1950. In 1951, dissatisfied with his freshman year at Florida A&M University, he enlisted in the Air Force at the suggestion of friends.
The Air Force took him around the world and brought him back to Patrick Air Force Base in 1971. The family moved to Satellite Beach, where Eugene and his wife, Ionia, would raise their two children, Reginald and Regina. Ionia passed away in 2019, but Johnson remains in his well-loved family home.
After 31 years, Johnson retired from the Air Force, but that did not mean he left Patrick and his job with the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute.
He served as a trainer, facilitator, curriculum coordinator, and deputy director of academics before fully retiring in 1997, just in time for Gov. Lawton Chiles to appoint him to the board of Brevard Community College, now Eastern Florida State College. Gov. Jeb Bush re-appointed Johnson to the job in 1999.
For 21 years, he was the veteran coordinator for Piper-Gardner American Legion Post 191 in Melbourne and for 20 years he was in a similar role with the South Brevard Branch of the NAACP. As a lifelong Mason, he served the organization faithfully in top positions and is a pillar of Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church in Melbourne. In 2011, Florida Tech awarded him the Julius C. Montgomery Award for his exceptional service to the community.
© Florida Institute of Technology.
