Published: January 06, 2009 11:48 pm         

Pillar nominee Johns best known for her work on Enid’s Wall of Honor

Elaine Johns began her volunteer career like most — she got involved because of her children.

“Like a lot of volunteers you start out in your local school system,” Johns said. She calls her family her “greatest accomplishment.”

Johns’ volunteer efforts have earned her a nomination as a finalist for Pillar of the Plains.

Pillar of the Plains is an annual honor given out by the Enid News & Eagle. The newspaper solicits nominations from readers for people who have been longtime volunteers and contributors to the community. Other finalists for the award this year are Mona Loewen, Becky Cummings and Ann Bryant.

Johns began by serving as a band booster and organized many functions while also holding the volunteer position of Drummond town treasurer. She later was elected to the Drummond school board and served for 12 years. She continued her work within the community through clubs and groups, also volunteering and participating in church groups and choirs.

“I was a wife and mother who wanted to make my children’s life better by serving as a Sunday school teacher and a band and sports booster,” she said. “It grew to caring about their classmates, the school, the community and spread to Enid and beyond by using my abilities for the good of others through missions, Angel Flights, Civitan and the Wall of Honor.”

Johns is best known for her work founding and building the Woodring Wall of Honor and coordinating Memorial Day services for the city of Enid, inviting families who have lost someone to war.

The project began in 1999 as a Make a Difference Day project after the donation of a Vietnam-era F-4 fighter.

“We renovated it and decided we needed just a little more than an aircraft on sticks,” she said. And so, the Wall of Honor began. The wall was dedicated on Memorial Day of 2000.

“There’s only two people who unselfishly laid down their life for you — that is Jesus Christ and a veteran,” Johns said. “If we can attend services each Sunday for our Lord and Savior, why not attend two services a year for our veterans?

“Everything we have is due to the veterans and their sacrifices. We owe them the honor of attending Veterans Day and Memorial Day activities.”

Each year, families are given a portrait of their lost loved one, personalized dog tags, proclamations, quilts and a flag in an oak case built by Vance Air Force Base volunteers.

“When the park was started, we never expected we’d have a war in which Oklahoma would have losses,” Johns said. “We just felt like we needed to support those families by bringing them to our park on Memorial Day and embracing them with love, letting them know we have placed their son’s name on the wall and let them know Enid would never forget.”

The group has honored more than 100 families.

“Our reputation for honoring these families has caught the attention of the media and our governor, whose offices contact us for updates and information on the Oklahoma families,” she said.

Johns refuses to take credit for the success of Enid’s memorial tribute to veterans.

“You can’t be a volunteer and do it all by yourself,” she said. “There are a lot of people who have helped make the park what it is today.”

Johns said area businesses and individuals have helped with donations or discounts, the Wall of Honor’s seven-member board has helped grow the park and more volunteers each year are continuing to contribute to the memorial services.

“We have so many great volunteers in the Vietnam Veterans Post 940, Civitans, Garfield County Lions Clubs, Boy Scouts, Blue Star Mothers, Quilters, DAV, American Legion, VFW and other service groups, that organizing the services has become much easier,” she said. “They really do most all the work and the credit should be going to them.”

Johns said memorial organizers will initiate a professional landscaping plan this year and will receive plans for a veterans museum.

“We appreciate all the volunteers who have stepped up to get us to this point,” she said.

Johns took a temporary position in 1990 with Northwest Aero Services, an Enid aircraft company, and quickly learned the business. She was hired as an assistant and later promoted to general manager for the corporation. In 1999, when the owner offered to sell the business to her, Johns began working with her local Small Business Administra-tion organization to begin paperwork and secure financing to purchase the operation.

In 2000, with her new position as CEO, Johns was freely able to initiate Angel Flights out of Enid for those needing specialized medical treatment.

For 15 years, Johns has served as a board member, twice organizing national conferences. More than 200 flights have been coordinated for area residents so they could receive specialized medical attention.

Johns said “thousands of missions” have been conducted since the state organization was founded. She also coordinated many Christmas parties for foster children and children with special needs, providing free flights over Enid to look at Christmas lights.

“We had Christmas flights for almost 18 years, and the profits of those flights were used to benefit a local charity,” she said. “After purchasing the company, the flights also funded those special parties for children each year.”

She said the groups also transported crisis counselors from the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma to New York following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and local clergy to New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.

“I have been blessed to have employers who allowed me to take mission trips overseas and time off for Singing Church-women concerts,” Johns said. “In later years, I was extremely blessed to have employees who worked hard and provided me the freedom to coordinate Angel Flights, mercy missions, special holiday events, or begin the Wall of Honor Park and plan the Memorial Day services.”

Johns, a former governor of Civitan International Heartland District, was the first woman governor for the group. Her district included Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas and Texas and her term ended September 2008, but she still remains active with the group both locally and internationally.

One of the proudest accomplishments of the past year was the work done with Sen. Patrick Anderson to introduce Senate Bill 1645, also known as Josiah’s Bill, which would require screening for kernicterus, a permanent but preventable type of brain damage in infants that can lead to developmental disabilities and intellectual deficiencies.

“In passing this bill, we could eliminate this disease completely,” Johns said. The bill was passed by the Senate, and Johns said it is waiting to go before committee on the House side.

“If we’re successful we will be the first state in the nation to pass this legislation, and we hope other states will follow so we can not only eliminate this preventable disease in Okla-homa but nationwide,” she said.

The Heartland group also adopted a 100-year-old school in Dallas and painted the entire third floor and computer rooms to offer the students a fresh new start to the year. The school is comprised of children of low-income and homeless families.

Johns said the project gave teachers and children a learning environment that may encourage students to achieve their greatest potential.

“Who knows? The next president of the United States may come out of that school someday,” she said.

Since selling Northwest Aero last year, Johns works a part-time “flexible position” at Vance Air Force Base, which she said enabled her to begin a another project.

“The Civitan Chiller Challenge benefits the Special Olympics Track and Field event held at Vance and helps our local organization with monetary support for the athletes,” Johns said. “We recruit volunteers who are freezing for a reason and plunge into the water at a local pond or water works.”

The next one is scheduled Feb. 7. Last year’s event raised more than $3,000, a goal Johns wants to double.

For Johns, being an important member of the community and contributing all she can is a part of daily life.

“Life is not a dress rehearsal, it’s a real day-by-day performance,” Johns said. “Time can’t be reversed, so if you are convicted of volunteering for a project, taking a leadership role, doing a kind gesture or just making a nice remark to someone, be obedient and just do it.

“That opportunity to serve or to touch a life may not be offered again and you will miss out on a wonderful blessing.”

Johns, an Edinburgh, Scotland, native, immigrated to the United States at the age of 5 and came to Hennessey in the early 1970s. She has been married to Eddie Johns for 33 years and has three children, Jennifer, Julie and Andrew, and two grandchildren, Corbin and Ceara.

“Volunteering brings out the best in people,” Johns said. “Believe me, we may think we are helping others, but I have learned that those we strive to serve, enrich our lives, teach and bless us far more in return.”

The Pillar of the Plains will be named during a reception Jan. 15.

“Me, I don’t feel like a pillar,” she said. “I’m just a plain ol’ granny who wants to be found worthy and leave this world a better place.”