Richard "Dick" Evan Johnson

November 9, 1936 to December 8, 2021

Richard Johnson passed away December 8, 2021, at the age of 85, in Pullman, Washington after a long battle with dementia. He was born November 9, 1936 in Pomona, California.

Dick's most enduring passion in life was his study of rosy-finches. Rosy-finches are pretty little birds clad in feathers in shades of red, brown, and black. They breed in one of the most inhospitable environments, at the upper reaches of the alpine zone, often at the edges of glaciers. Dick's love of rosy-finches was partly due to his love of high, rocky peaks. He spent most of the summers of his professional life traveling around the mountain ranges of the western US, hiking up to the tops of peaks in search of rosy-finches. Dick was a true old-fashioned naturalist whose interests encompassed the other high-elevation birds, mammals, and plants that shared the mountains with his rosy-finches.

Dick lived and worked out of his vehicle during his summer journeys. When he had a vehicle modified to his liking, he would cling to the vehicle until it was undrivable. His last field vehicle was a Ford pick-up truck that he bought new in 1982. He drove that truck for 29 years, for nearly half a million miles, and through three engine replacements. He was forced to give it up when none of the mechanics in town would work on it anymore. The truck had a custom-made shell, high enough for Dick to sit inside and work but not high enough to compromise driving on narrow mountain roads. The pick-up bed had wooden cabinets along both sides for his field supplies with enough room in the middle for a sleeping bag. The cabinet tops were his table surfaces for writing notes and preparing specimens in the field. Dick drove the truck well beyond the time when it was reliable. On one of his later trips, the truck broke down in Nevada. Dick paid to have it towed 1,000 miles back to Pullman where he found a mechanic who could patch it up well enough that he could keep driving it a few more years. Dick hated having to finally get a new truck. Throughout the process of truck shopping, he grumbled incessantly about how inferior the new trucks were compared to his old truck. Not only did they all have the wrong gear ratios (according to Dick), they all had air conditioning, automatic transmissions, and key fobs. Why would anyone want those things?

Dick grew up in Pomona, California, the only child of George Frank Morris and Mina Bains Johnson, who preceded him death. Dick's first camping trips were with his parents up into the mountains of California. He became an avid Boy Scout and ultimately an Eagle Scout. He was a member of Pomona Boy Scout Troop 101, the oldest Boy Scout Troop west of the Mississippi. One of the big events of his later years was attending the centennial celebration for his old troop in 2010. One of the people Dick met through scouting was George Smith. That friendship lasted for nearly 70 years, until George passed away in 2019. George and Dick kept in touch through the decades with regularly scheduled monthly phone calls. Dick reported that they would usually talk until the wee hours of the morning about music, politics, and everything else under the sun during those marathon phone calls.

Dick received an undergraduate degree in Forestry (1959) from the University of California, Berkeley, then attended the Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California (1959 to 1961). He served in the U.S. Army from 1961 to 1963, in Company B, 9th Battle Group, 3rd Brigade, Because of Dick's background in science he was sent to Butte, Montana to be a Medical Lab Technician at the Military Entrance Processing Station. After his discharge from the army, he returned to his study of biology. He earned a Master of Science degree (1965) from the University of Montana in Missoula and a PhD in Zoology (1972) from University of California in Berkeley.

Dick worked as a Naturalist Ranger in Glacier National Park during the summer of 1958. Dick spoke often about his time as a park ranger, exploring the Park (especially the alpine areas), giving tours to visitors, answering questions, and forming friendships, some that would last the rest of life. If Dick had not gone down the academic path, the Park Service would have been his career of choice. In fact, he sometimes expressed regret at not getting back into the Park Service after he got his PhD.

Dick was hired by Washington State University in Pullman in 1972 as a faculty member in the Department of Zoology and Director of the Conner Museum. He held that position for the rest of his professional life, until he retired in 1998. His research publications were primarily about plants, birds and mammals of the alpine environment, and especially the biology of rosy finches. He collected a large amount of information on the distribution of mammals in Washington. As Director of the Conner Museum, he devoted much time to increasing the collection size. He successfully fought back against a University attempt to eliminate the museum. He served as Editor of the journal Murrelet (now called Northwestern Naturalist) for many years.

Dick enjoyed teaching both undergraduate and graduate students. His favorite undergraduate courses were mammalogy and ornithology. Many of his undergraduate students kept in touch with Dick for years after they had graduated.  Dick committed much time and effort to his graduate students. He steered many of them into research topics involving alpine birds.

Dick was very meticulous in collecting information. He took copious field notes on both his research expeditions and his hobby birding. He was a member of a local chapter of the National Audubon Society and occasionally was a guest speaker. Visits with friends outside of Pullman always included outings to look for birds he couldn't see near Pullman. His lab shelves were lined with dozens of field notebooks, ordered by date, going back to 1959. It was easy for a visitor to pull one of his notebooks off the shelf, open it at random and get lost in his notes, written in his neat handwriting, about where he was on that day, the plants and animals he saw, and the people he talked to during his travels.

When Dick took time off from being a biologist, it was usually to be a sports fan. His favorite sports were track and field, ice skating, and some of the WSU team sports. During most of his years at WSU, he took the time to make the annual trip to Eugene, Oregon, for the 4-day NCAA Track and Field Championships. He held season tickets to many WSU sports events, but his interests changed over the years from men's football and basketball to becoming more of a fan of women's volleyball and women's basketball in his later years.

Dick's other non-biology hobbies were stamp collecting and music. He began collecting stamps as a boy and never quit. His also had large collections of vinyl records and CDs of his favorite music from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.

Dick was deeply religious, so much so that he veered from the biology path to attend a seminary for two years. He was an active member of the Pullman Presbyterian Church.

Dick cherished his independence. He enjoyed being able to go wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted. When he left on his field trips, there was no telling where he might go or how long he might be gone. When cell phones came around, he scoffed at the idea that he might benefit from having one in case of emergency. He had no interest in anyone being able to contact him on the road. If people get what they want in an afterlife, Dick will be driving off towards some remote mountain range in the west in his old brown pick-up truck, with a big paper cup of soda in the cup holder, and his binoculars at the ready on the seat beside him.

Kimball Funeral Home of Pullman, WA has been entrusted with arrangements.  A memorial service will be held in early 2022.