Rolland (Rollie) Clair Johnson (Updated)
Rolland “Rollie” Johnson, 80, of Larkspur, CO passed away peacefully at St. Francis Hospital in Colorado Springs on September 17, 2024, with his wife Paula and daughter Kim by his side. He is preceded in death by his parents Leta and Lowell Johnson, his sister Lynn Anderson and his brother-in-law Rusty Jones. He is survived by his wife Paula Johnson, his son Andy (Laura) Johnson of Indianapolis, IN, his daughter Kim Johnson of Highlands Ranch, CO, his grandchildren Reagan and Nora Doleman, his brother Jim (Ardis) Johnson of Brookings, SD and his nieces and nephews David (Jody) Anderson, Eric (Penny) Anderson, Kelly (Rick) Trento, Kristie (David) Gojmeric, Jason (Angie) Johnson, Jenn (Coy) Larson, Isham (Patricia) Jones and many other relatives and close friends.
Rollie lived life to the fullest. He came from humble beginnings, worked hard his entire life, played hard too and made an impression on people everywhere he went with his big personality, bright smile and quick wit. He attempted to squeeze every drop out of his 80 years of life, and by all accounts succeeded. It was a life well lived to be sure.
HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
Rollie was born and raised on a ranch in O’Neill, Nebraska. He was always at his father’s side at the ranch, and by 10 years old he was working 12 hours a day, six days a week in the hayfield for his father’s haying business. They had no electricity or running water at home or school for four years. They took limited baths and had outdoor privies (two seaters — so they were considered high class). He attended a one-room schoolhouse (occasionally riding his horse to get there) where he was the only kid in his class. He was at the top and the bottom of his class. His teacher Alice Young, his all time favorite teacher and a big influence on his entire life, convinced him that he had the smarts to be at the top of the class no matter how many other classmates he had.
In time he worked on his dad’s ranch (the “Lazy LJ”) learning the ways of cattle ranching which he used again much later in life. He also learned that he very much wanted a way out of the hard manual labor life of a rancher. Around age 13, he received a transistor radio for Christmas where he listened to the local radio station KBRX by day and picked up stations from Chicago, Little Rock and Oklahoma City at night. He discovered rock ‘n roll — Elvis, The Everly Brothers and Little Richard were his favorites. He was “hooked on radio” and decided that would be his ticket out. At age 16 he started a long successful career in radio as a part-time announcer at the local radio station KBRX. The rest is history.
HE WORKED HARD
Rollie believed that your “attitude determined your altitude,” and his attitude took him to great heights.
Rollie’s parents believed in education and insisted that he attend college. He left O’Neill in 1962 to attend the University of Missouri, which he chose because he liked their colors, and his brother told him there were lots of girls there. It was there that he met the love of his life, Paula Jones. She took some convincing, but he was persistent and he eventually won her over. They married in 1966 and were married for 58 years. As he said recently, “I had a great wife which made for a great life.” He also said that 30 or 40 of those 58 years were “wonderful.” Always the jokester!
Rollie earned a degree in Broadcast Journalism and an MBA in Marketing and Management at Mizzou, and he earned a Ph.D. in Mass Communications from Ohio University. In between stops at Mizzou and Ohio U, he started public radio and tv stations at South Dakota State Univeristy in Brookings, SD. He spent 14 years as a professor at Indiana University, attaining tenure and serving as the Chair of the Department of Telecommunications before transitioning into the radio business full-time.
While teaching at IU, he first ventured into radio station ownership where with four partners he put 96.7FM WBWB “the Rainbow of Rock” on the air in Bloomington, Indiana in 1978. The station, now known as B97, is still thriving today. After proving himself in the radio business and in telecom academics he left a tenured position at IU to establish Duchossois Communications, a new enterprise for Chicago area businessman Dick Duchossois, that owned 15 radio and tv stations across the country, including WHFS in Annapolis, MD (still famous for its annual HFS-tival where Rollie would occasionally join a mosh pit with his son Andy).
The venture with Duchossois Communications ended when all holdings were sold in 1994 to support other interests in the Duchossois company. Rollie found himself unexpectedly in early retirement. He found himself baking a lot of pies and watching lots of Oprah. Paula went to work to get out of the house. He wasn’t comfortable with this new life, and the whole family was rather confused.
In 1994, Paula and he moved to Colorado, where he had dreamed of living since his sister moved there as a teenager. After a few rounds of golf and climbing a couple mountains, he determined that he wasn’t retired but he was “unemployed” and it was time to get back to work. He jumped back into the radio business, founding Three Eagles Communications with his business partner, Gary Buchanan. Three Eagles owned as many as 59 radio stations in smaller markets in the Midwest including Lincoln, NE, Brookings, SD and Mason City, IA. He found it to be greatly fulfilling having stations in smaller markets that were heavily involved in their communities and making a huge impact there. Most of these holdings were sold in 2015, with the last of his properties (Heart of the Rockies Radio in Salida, CO) confirmed for sale earlier this summer.
Rollie’s long career in the radio business includes stints on the Board of Directors for National Association of Broadcasters and the Radio Advertising Bureau. He was inducted into the Nebraska Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2007 and the Ohio Communications Hall of Fame in 2003, and the Rolland Johnson Award in Telecommunications Management is a scholarship awarded by the Indiana University Media School every year in his honor.
HE PLAYED HARD TOO
All of his success in the radio business allowed him to play hard too. His work took him all over the world, but he loved to travel for fun. He had visited 49 states, and had a trip planned for the 50th state last month, but his health kept him from it. He took the family on a number of RV trips when his kids Andy and Kim were young to visit national parks, the Canadian Rockies and many other spectacular and historical sites. He took the family to Hawaii on multiple occasions and took them on a grand adventure to see the Robinsons in South Africa. He and Paula took each granddaughter to Europe on a trip that the girls got to design (and Rollie and Paula very much got to enjoy).
He loved to travel to see family and old friends in places near and far. He attended multiple Super Bowls, the NBA All-Star game in San Antonio (both thanks to his colleague Kenji Kitatani) and a number of Indy 500s. He went on a couple of “guys trips” with his son Andy to Washington, DC and Boston, and met him in Japan for a wild week filled with sake and karaoke. He and Paula surprised Kim in New York City and Andy in Indy for their 30th birthdays. He loved going on cruises with the Andersons and business trips with the Buchanans.
He enjoyed Nuggets season tickets and seeing them win the NBA Championship last year, and in the past enjoyed season tickets with the Broncos and Air Force Academy football.
He loved being outdoors, whether that was on a trip far away or on his own property. He climbed a number of Colorado’s 14,000 foot mountains (14ers), including Pikes Peak, which he enjoyed a view of from his home on a daily basis.
He had lots of fun without ever leaving home too. He loved spending time on his Colorado ranch, taking ATV’s out on the property, riding up Big Johnson (a butte on the property) and spending time at the lake. He had lots of toys to enjoy his time around the property – ATV’s, boats, sports cars and bikes.
He LOVED socializing. He was truly at home when moving to Colorado where Paula and he made fast friends with neighbors, folks at church, fellow Sertoma and Kiwanis volunteers and golf club members. They loved to throw a party and hosted dozens of parties at their house; very little gave Rollie more joy. And he was always the life of the party. Whether it was his own party or someone else’s, he’d be chatting up everyone there and cracking them up as well. He’d hit the dance floor hard with his Hully Gully or some other wacky move that he made up on the spot.
And on occasion, very special occasions for sure, he would break out the tutu. Yes, a bright pink tutu, which he would wear with ballet shoes and a tiara. For no other reason than a good laugh. That is one family tradition that will be passed down as he has willed it to his son to carry on the Johnson tradition.
A GREAT LOVE FOR HISTORY AND EDUCATION
Rollie was a lifelong learner and educator. He was always reading a new historical book that he had picked up and enjoyed watching historical documentaries. He was particularly interested in the Old West, the expansion to the west of the pioneers on the Oregon Trail and the Civil War.
Despite his eagerness to leave the ranch as a child, he found great joy in getting back in the ranching business. His choice of cattle to raise came out of his interest in American history, as he chose to raise American Milking Devons, a protected breed of historically important cattle that came over for the pilgrims and played a large part in pioneers expanding West. He worked with his ranch hand Dulces Granados to train Devon oxen to pull wagons and took the trained oxen to various groups and events to share the history of Westward expansion while Paula, Dulces and he were dressed in authentic period garb.
He learned a good deal about culturally modified trees and was fascinated by them. He sought them out in the area and had experts over to the ranch to evaluate trees and share their knowledge.
HE HAD A REAL LOVE FOR ANIMALS
He truly loved animals and treated them very well. Being on a ranch in Colorado, there were many “Circle of Life” moments where animals met an unfortunate and untimely end. There are multiple gravesites on the ranch property where these extended family members were respectfully laid to rest.
He chose to raise Milking Devons since they wouldn’t be slaughtered. The purpose for raising cattle in his early years was for the slaughterhouse, but when he owned a ranch later in life he couldn’t bear the idea of raising cattle and then having them butchered. He had a few Angus cattle that were on the ranch for a short time that were destined for the butcher, and he bawled the entire drive taking them to slaughter. He vowed he would never do that again.
He loved his dogs. Scooter and Pecos were two of his all-time favorites, and his last dog Tulley gave them a run for their money. Dad fell in love with her, and she was a very welcome presence at rehab in the last few weeks. He had suffered from foot pain and fighting prostate cancer in the last year or so, but he still made the effort to prepare Tulley’s raw chicken, beef and veggie entrée for each of her meals.
GREAT SENSE OF HUMOR
He was funny. Quick with a joke and a smile that would light up a room. He loved to laugh and loved to make others laugh. When he laughed his eyes sparkled and his whole body would shake. His laugh was contagious.
He loved telling the story of how he described at his own wedding rehearsal dinner for an extended the great love that he had found with this wonderful woman, a love that he had sought out his entire life. And he ended the story with “but she dumped me, and then I met Paula.” Most folks in the room (other than his in-laws) got a kick out of that story.
He loved to drive rental cars extra fast and extra hard, exclaiming each time he’d hit a curb or have a near miss, “It’s a rental!!” When getting up super early, you could count on him to say “I’ve been up this late, but never this early.”
He would often break into song spontaneously around the house busting out lyrics like “Bicycle, I want to ride my bicycle” from Queen or “We’re going to be on Ed Sullivan!” from Bye Bye Birdie, or just about any ABBA, Carpenters or Elton John tune.
He loved the sweets. Black licorice, ice cream, pie. Sometimes having nothing but sweets for a meal, recently having ice cream for breakfast saying “well, no one made me breakfast, what else can I do?”
It’s awfully hard to capture in a few paragraphs a man who lived so fully for 80 years. He had lots of great friends and family who will all have great memories of Rollie to carry with them. If you have memories you’d like to share, we’d love to hear them.
A Celebration of Rollie’s life will take place at the Church at Woodmoor at 18125 Furrow Rd, Monument, CO 80132 at 1pm on Wednesday, Oct 2 with a reception to follow at the church. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Church or to the Rolland Johnson Award in Telecommunications Management, a scholarship at the Indiana University Media School in his name, at https://give.myiu.org/iu-bloomington/I380008744.html or the charity of your choice.