By Mike Geer
Aransas County Airport
On March 2, 2019, “Keep Aransas County Beautiful” and organizer Becky Sanders, put together a last clean-sweep effort of Holiday Beach to rid the community of remaining debris left over from the devastation of Hurricane Harvey which destroyed many of the older homes and damaged all of them. On this day, many volunteers showed up, put on gloves and began working to clean out ditches and areas accessible from the road. Four young National Honor Society students from Rockport/Fulton High School came with lots of energy and enthusiasm. Jolie Hamilton, Kynndrah Warner, Alyna Salazar, and Madeline McCrary along with local volunteer Sandy McCollum proceeded to the area around Hillcrest Road in Holiday Beach to begin the day’s work.
After gathering around 20 bags of trash, they were nearing the end of Hillcrest Road when the girls found a small wooded area with lots of trash in the underbrush. Salazar had just begun removing debris when she noticed a red piece of cloth which she pulled from under a thorny bush. Initially, she thought it was a piece of clothing. She later recalled that she had to tug pretty hard to remove it from the undergrowth and remarked that it was really nasty. As she was just about to put the item in a garbage bag for disposal, she held it up and it unfolded. That’s when she realized it was a Marine Corps flag. McCollum took a look at the tattered flag with all the weeds, roots and dirt but saw no immediate sign of significance. She told the others that it must belong to someone and they should try to find the owner. After their work was over for the day, Sandy took the flag home and laid it on her dock where she proceeded to wash it. She noticed a signature and so she started brushing off the dead weeds. That’s when she saw even more signatures, two, threethen ten!
At this point McCollum recognized former Aransas County Commissioner, Betty Stiles’s signature among the others and realized it must have had some importance in the community so she put a post on the “Next Door Holiday Beach” site with a picture of the flag. Current Precinct 4 Commissioner, Wendy Laubach, immediately responded to McCollum giving her Stiles’s contact information. McCollum called Stiles through “Next Door Lamar” and met her at Pop’s Restaurant for breakfast. That’s when Stiles identified it as the flag that had been presented to former United States Marine, Eugene “Gene” Johnson upon his retirement from Aransas County, where he had served as Airport Manager for nearly 35 years. Stiles then contacted current Airport Manager, Mike Geer and made arrangements to bring the flag to the airport. In fact, the flag had been signed by all the airport attendees along with some of the Airport Board Members as well as Geer who recalled that Gene Johnson had hung the flag in a window of his home where he lived in Holiday Beach along with his wife Linda Johnson. Sadly, in February 2016, Gene Johnson passed away at home after a long fight with COPD. Linda Johnson continued to live in their home until Aug. 25, 2017 when Hurricane Harvey destroyed the Johnson Home, scattering her memories over the devastated neighborhood. Linda Johnson had since found permanent residence in Rockport but when she learned that Gene Johnson’s flag had been found, she felt it was important that it be displayed at Aransas County Airport where Gene Johnson had spent so many years leaving his mark on the community.
This United States Marine Corps Flag, the same flag Gene Johnson so proudly displayed in his home, and which was nearly destroyed and lost in a disastrous hurricane, is now on display within the walls of the community hangar which bears his name. Just as Aransas County is fortunate to have benefitted from the services of an individual of Gene Johnson’s character for so many years, we are equally blessed to have citizens such as Hamilton, Warner, Salazar, McCrary, and McCollum who so perfectly exemplify the volunteer spirit of our community.