Richard "Dick" Andrew Johnson

Richard (“Dick”) Andrew Johnson, born on November 9, 1931, near Evansville, Minnesota, passed away peacefully on January 4, 2025 at age 93. His father Joseph Hans Johnson died when Dick was two. His mother Emma Lund Johnson had to sell their farm and move to town in Alexandria, raising Dick and his older brother and two sisters on her own through the Depression. She married Richard Harrison when Dick was in ninth grade.

Dick graduated from Alexandria High School in 1949. His teachers and uncle Harold Johnson encouraged Dick to attend the University of Minnesota Agriculture College, where he earned a degree in Agricultural Education with a minor in Agronomy. He worked as many as five jobs at a time to put himself through college, including in the State Seed Laboratory, and benefitted from some of the best professors in the world at the time in subjects like Ag Biochemistry, Genetics, and Plant Pathology. He joined and met a great group of guys in the Farmhouse Fraternity, and was a lifelong member. 

Dick served in the Korean War in the U.S. Army Transportation Corps based in Ft Lawton, Seattle from 1955 to 1957. The mission was to resupply radar stations and other posts in Alaska, traveling through the rough Bering Sea. Dick was an Activities Director, too, playing in and organizing volleyball, basketball and softball teams to play at other bases or penitentiaries (where he once hit a home run over the wall). Based on his stories and the lifetime friends he made, his wife Arlene would say “those were the best years of his life!”

He worked with the Minnesota Crop Improvement Association for 3 years, and during that time went to an evening service for young people at Central Lutheran in Minneapolis. Afterwards he offered a ride home to a few ladies whose car had broken down, one of whom turned out to be the love of his life, Arlene Borgeson. They later married at Central Lutheran, beginning 64 years together. 

Dick taught for a year at the U of M Ag campus in Waseca, then they moved to Alexandria where Dick had his base working for Land O’Lakes for 28 years as a Regional Sales Manager. He would log 50,000 miles/year driving through Minnesota as far north as Thief River Falls and south to Ft. Dodge, Iowa. He retired in 1987, and returned to work part-time for several years at the Minnesota Crop Improvement Association.

Dick and Arlene enjoyed over 25 years of wintering in St. George, Utah, spending time with good friends, attending New Promise Lutheran, with Dick playing a lot of tennis and golf. He loved to play these and other sports over his life, especially baseball, softball, and racquetball (even competing in regional tourneys). He also had a passion for the outdoors, relishing times spent hunting pheasant, ducks and deer with good friends and family. Dick was an avid fisherman, which he could easily do from West Lake Carlos, where he and Arlene lived over 55 years. He knew all the good spots and would take friends, relatives and grandkids fishing, then fry up a delicious dinner of walleye, crappies, bass or sunnies.

Dick was proud to be a member of the Alexandria Golden K (Kiwanis) since 1988, where he met a great group of friends and enjoyed many volunteering opportunities, especially with youth programs like Terrific Kids and greeting at the local schools, and helping with the summer Pancake Feed and club picnics and parties. He was a faithful member of Calvary Lutheran Church in Alexandria, where he served on the church council as well as sang in the choir in his earlier days. He also was a member of the American Legion and a strong supporter of Mt Carmel Ministries, where they made dear friends and Dick loved to attend summer services and hear familiar hymns resonate in the beautiful chapel.

Dick sincerely loved to connect with others, and gave each of them the gift of his big warm smile. In his last month he remembered various hospice workers by the specific local street or area where they lived, because he inevitably knew someone else who lived there. He also read at least three newspapers and various magazines up to the end, including the Strib, Alex papers and Pope County Tribune, which he started reading when his grandkids played high school sports.

Dick is survived by his loving wife, Arlene E. Johnson; his daughter, Karna Peters (George Perez), his sons, Eric (Maria) Johnson and Kirk Johnson; grandchildren, Pierce Peters (Simrit Warring), Ben Peters (Emma Egan-Lawless), Jake Peters, Dianna Johnson, and Eliza Johnson; and great-granddaughters Calliope and Daphne Peters. He was preceded in death by his parents, stepfather, sisters, Elsie Mae Jensen and Elizabeth Spidahl, brother Bill Johnson, and step-sister Jean McMichael.

Richard Andrew Johnson will be remembered for his warmth, kindness, generosity, commitment to family and community, and the big smile he gave to everyone. His legacy will live on in the hearts of family and friends, who cherished him deeply.

Funeral services will be held later this year at Mt. Carmel, with burial at Christine Lake cemetery.

Memorials are preferred to Mount Carmel Ministries, 800 Mount Carmel Dr NE, Alexandria, MN 56308.