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A K. 'Ken' Johnson Pasadena, CA QCWA # 04684 Chapter 7 |
Ken Johnson, a longtime college instructor and radio engineer, died Friday evening, October 2, 2009, at his home in Arcadia. He was 89 when he succumbed to esophageal cancer.
Born and raised in South Range, Wisc., Ken sought work in New York, where his sister and brother-in-law lived. Shortly thereafter, his brother-in-law told him he was too smart to be selling shoes and sent him off to college at Iowa Wesleyan.
College was cut short when Johnson was drafted into the U.S. Army in November 1941. Maybe the luckiest break in his life came when he was able to help a flustered Sergeant with some radio problems he was having. That Sergeant gave him the chance to join the Signal Corps and leave the rifle company and its 80 percent casualty rate. As part of the 5TH Division, he stormed the beaches of Normandy on D+2 [European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal].
He received the Bronze Star and was promoted to Sergeant during his brief military career during World War II. After the war, he joined his family in Los Angeles, working several jobs before finishing his degree and beginning to teach electronics at Pasadena City College. At PCC, he helped found the KPCC radio station and successfully coached hundreds toward their amateur radio licenses.
He left PCC to take a full-time job with the Los Angeles Dodgers as a radio engineer for the Spanish-language radio station KWKW. Working with Jaime Jarrin, he saw four World Series Championships and collected countless stories.