Jerry “J.J.” Johnson knew the path he wanted to take before he left Munford High School in 1997. Part of the inspiration came, unfortunately, hand in hand with loss.
“The [Future Farmer of America] FFA officers came to his funeral,” Johnson said, “and that showed me how long the group’s ties can last. That made an impression.”
The other, more light-hearted part came from two teachers he encountered during his student years: Ann Johnson and Glenn Goulder, both of whom remain on the MHS faculty today.
“They always seemed to happy,” Johnson said, “so ready to teach, and always seemed to have fun with what they did. I learned later it’s not always fun, but I love what I do.”
Johnson joined the Covington High faculty in 2007 after a three-year stint with Humboldt High. Officially, he is an agricultural educator and the FFA staff adviser. Among his duties is the charge to help students find their passion among the 335 different career paths available to them in agriculture. He guides students as they learn to judge animals such as livestock and poultry; practical skills such as electrical wiring, mechanics, framing, and surveying; and improve their oratory abilities through public speaking and agricultural sales.
Johnson, a licensed bus driver, also handles some transport duties for the basketball and softball teams as needed. He could not help but brag on the teams for their conduct and class on trips.
“We went to Myrtle Beach, S.C.,” he said, “so quite a trip. We were in Georgia as one point on a meal stop and this gentleman paid for half of the team’s meal! He was impressed with how polite they were, everything ‘yes, sir’ or ‘no, sir.’”
He also took a stint at history teaching at CHS for a time.
As the FFA adviser, he oversees the group’s activities, such as year-long projects that see them raise animals like sheep, cattle, and poultry – chickens, quail, and pheasants remain the overall favorites due to size.
There is an emphasis on the scientific side of agriculture with Johnson’s teachings. Take this example of a dairy experiment: Dairy cows can taint their milk in the udder. Should they ingest too much wild garlic or onion or get an excess of salt in their diets, the milk goes off. Johnson helps his students learn to identify these defects, just as he teaches them to determine the fact percentages of milks, butter, sour cream, and cheeses. They even make butter in-house!
Meats and eggs are graded. Eggs are checked externally and internally for defects, and the small the air cell within the shell means the higher quality the egg. Hold an egg from your house to a light source and see for yourself!
The wildlife course, “not your traditional classroom material,” Johnson said, with a laugh, in his office in the Covington High workshop, gives students a chance to learn bow-hunting skills and shoot off muzzle loaders and shotguns – in the name of education, of course – and learn proper hunter safety lessons, including firearm maintenance and respect.
Those long-lasting ties, though? They continue after graduation.
“Jerry’s students call all the time, current and former,” said Mykle (pronounced “Michael”), Jerry’s wife of 11 years this year. “It could be for something personal like the birth of a child or how they bagged a deer or professional, like the start of a new business.”
Both Johnsons take great pride in the accomplishments of the students of Covington High and rattled off who owns an electrician’s business in the county, who can handle plumbing problems better than anyone else, or can tackle construction jobs of any size. Who became a veterinarian or who, like Max Turner, followed in Johnson’s footsteps, as he did his own teachers. Turner now teachers biology as Covington High.
“You know that stretch of land along Melrose and Highway 51?” Johnson asked. “Sean Donaldson, the first African-American state star farmer and one of my students: That’s his hundred acres there.”
With every mention of his students’ accomplishments, Johnson beamed like a proud father as he recounted his child’s latest feat.
The sharing of these stories is good practice: The Johnsons foster children in their home and recently adopted two young girls: Lacey, 5 (soon 6), and Analee, almost 3 (but not quite). The two joined their daddy for lunch as we spoke, played with miniature animals along the desks, and chimed in now and then to add their thoughts on just how special of a man he is.
If you ask Johnson, though, he simply uses the chances he finds. His belief is, that as a teacher, he gets the opportunity to make a difference every day. It could be something grand, like the chance for students to help fulfill requests for the community and make their own differences, or it could be something in an individual’s life that might spark something new. Students who could not work a saw properly at the year’s start can now build rafters. A visit to Fall Creek Falls can help them reconnect with nature, themselves, and each other: There’s no cell service!
Johnson doesn’t do it alone, though. He credits local businesses which help donate resources to the FFA, a community outreach that wants to see its children succeed and steps in to assist how it can, and “some of the finest ag teachers in the state, good colleagues and good friends.”
Just don’t ask him if that sentiment stands at competition time.
