Margaret Brinkley Johnson

Mrs. Johnson received a B.S. Degree in Education from Georgia State College for Women and began teaching in Gadsden County, Florida. She met and later married local Thomaston firefighter and later Fire Chief James E. Johnson. They lived happily for 35 years. She taught in local public schools for 35 years before retiring, receiving the Teacher of the Year award in 1967 for the Thomaston City Schools. A year later was named Thomaston’s Woman of the Year. During her teaching career, Mrs. Johnson served at president of the Thomaston and Thomaston-Upson units of the Georgia Association of Educators (GAE) and later on the state legislative and other committees for many years. She was one of three directors honored by GAE. She served four years on the Georgia Teacher Education Council, was honored in 1973 with a member achievement award and worked with Georgia Department of Education on the Criterion Reference Test for beginning teachers, serving on the Governor’s committee of Education for two years. Mrs. Johnson was a supervising teacher from Tift College for ten years and chaired a committee to rewrite Tift’s Student Teacher Program. She testified for the national PTA on the negative effects TV has on children. Along with twelve other regional female teachers, Mrs. Johnson helped organize, in 1963, the Beta Gamma chapter of the Delta Kappa Gamma Society International and served as president for four years. Later that decade, she attended, by invitation of NASA, the launching of Apollo 11 in 1969. After retirement, Mrs. Johnson helped to organize the Thomaston-Upson County Retired Teachers Association and served as its president for the first two years. She would later serve as an area director overseeing 15 retired teachers units and received the Community Leader of the Year award from the Thomaston unit. Mrs. Johnson served as a member of the National Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs. When she was elected president of the Georgia Federation, her acceptance speech was entered into the Congressional Record. The Federation later bestowed upon her the title of Georgia’s Woman in History. She was president of the Thomaston BPW Club and remained active until the charter was surrendered. Mrs. Johnson held memberships in the American Association of University Women, the Eastern Star, United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Georgia Division of the Robert E. Lee Society, and the local Chamber of Commerce. She was honored twice with listings in Community Leaders of America and once in World Who’s Who of Women and was named Gracious Lady of Georgia in 1982. Margaret Brinkley Johnson was an active and faithful member of the First Baptist Church until poor health limited her participation. She received the Miss Congeniality Award when she participated in the Riverside Pageant in 2009. The legacies she hopes others will recall are her loving and caring nature and that she loved every child she taught. Mrs. Johnson is survived by nieces, nephews and many dear friends. She was preceded in death by her beloved husband James E. Johnson, her parents Mack H. and Nettie Wingate Brinkley, her brothers Lonnie E. Brinkley, Homer A. Brinkley, Robert T. Brinkley, Romulus Brinkley and Carl Devon Brinkley and her sister Mary Lee Betts.