Bob & Sallie Johnson

Sallie and I indeed did meet for the first time here at UNC in the fall of 1950.  I was a senior math major with a minor in music and she was a freshman majoring in music.  I can't remember the first time we actually met, but I vividly recall the first time I heard her play the piano. The school's population in those days was less than 2,000 so eventually everyone probably knew everyone else.  We had an assembly of some kind in the gym at Gunter Hall and Sallie played a short solo piece.  She had a sensitive touch and really put some color and texture into her playing. I have often said that it was the first time I had heard the piano played so that it didn't sound like a snare drum with keys. I thought it was beautiful.  Of course, I have now lived with her great piano playing for fifty five years!

Sallie says that we were together on a couple of double dates, but I only vaguely remember that.  Before too long she was dating one of my roommates, who I didn't think treated her very well, but it wasn't my place to be able to do anything about it.  She and I would often find ourselves in the same area because of our common musical interests, but it wasn't until the summer of ’52 when I was finishing my master's degree that we started dating.  Sallie was taking summer school classes and working as a clerk, accordion and piano teacher at Hill Music on 9th Avenue (across from the court house.)  I happened to walk by, saw her through the front window, turned around and went into the store to visit.  I invited her to lunch at a restaurant on 8th Avenue called the Longs Peak Cafe, and from then on it was a wonderful courtship, much of it by correspondence.  That fall I went to my first teaching position in Phoenix (Arizona), and decided to fly home for Homecoming.  (Frontier Airlines had a flight from Phoenix to Denver that cost $88 round trip!)  So, I took her to the Homecoming dance in the fall of ‘52.  We were engaged on June 27, 1953, so I guess my courtship letters must have worked!

We are proud of our two children, Jeff and Nancy, and our four grandchildren (Jeff's two girls and Nancy's two boys.)  We are quite proud to be graduates of UNC, each of us having two degrees from our school, and we're mighty fond of recalling what it was like at CSCE sixty years ago.  Because the school was relatively small, we came to know the faculty members very well and we owe them all a great deal.  It was an era that, in retrospect, seems very peaceful, almost tranquil. Yet, at the same time, it was exciting to be part of that post-World War II generation, a generation of kids that had the future in their eyes!  Anything was possible, and our good old school helped to make that future come true.