Howard L. Johnson didn’t step a foot inside a Wichita State classroom as a student, but no one was a more thoroughgoing Shocker than he. First and foremost, he was the proud father of WSU football player Ronald “Ronnie” Johnson, one of 31 people who were killed in the Oct. 2, 1970, plane crash in Colorado. Johnson, along with his wife Virginia and daughter Vickie, never did get over Ronnie’s death. Together, they never stopped working through their grief. One unexpected and creative result was the musical “Waltzing in Heaven.”
Johnson, who before retiring was a rancher who raised Charolais cattle and served as president of both the American Charolais Association and the International Charolais Association, was the force behind the writing and staging of the musical, which was written in memory of Ronnie and the other Shocker football players who lost their lives in the crash.
With its country and western music and setting, “Waltzing in Heaven” made its world premier on Oct. 2, 2008, in Wichita State’s Wilner Auditorium. “WSU musical theater is honored to present this uplifting tribute in memory of all the young lives lost that day,” said Marie Allyn King, the stage director for the all-student production. The musical is based on Johnson’s own poetry, which helped console him in his grief. To read more about the musical, search theshockermagazine.com for “Waltzing in Heaven.”
Howard Johnson died Nov. 27, 2014, in Pharr, Texas.
