Phillip Ronald Johnson

Phillip Ronald Johnson, May 5, 1933 - February 9, 2023 was born in Winamac, Indiana.  He grew up in a small town in Michigan and was a paperboy.  As a teenager he worked at a filling station and pulled stuck cars from the snow with a WW II jeep that had a winch.  After graduation from high school, he joined the Air Force and was one of the first to work on the new jet aircraft receiving training at Chanute Air Force Base in Illinois.  As a veteran of the Korean War, Vietnam, and the Cold War, he traveled the world from Turkey and the Azores going East, to the Philippines and Japan to the West.  He flew aboard KB50’s and KC135’s supporting aircraft from Barbados in the Antilles to those on patrol at the Arctic Circle.  While stationed in El Paso, Texas at Biggs Air Force Base he met the love of his life Socorro, they were married on September 29, 1961 in Las Cruces, New Mexico.  After retiring from the Air Force Phil continued working on aircraft, retiring a second time from NASA where he was the lead man for the Space Shuttle Training Aircraft. Phil enjoyed working on anything that needed fixing, often doing car repairs, home repairs, television repairs (when they used tubes!) for friends and family.  He loved going to festivals, airshows, national parks, museums, and fishing.  Phil enjoyed spending time with friends and family, throwing tamale parties to ring in the New Year.  He was preceded in death by his wife of 56 years, Socorro Johnson, his sister Gladise and brother Carl, parents George and Dorthea.  He leaves his sisters Lavonne and Laveda, his brother Steve, a daughter and three sons, Rosa, Carlos, Felipe, and George, two grandchildren, Michelle, and Nicholas and three great-grandchildren, Lily, Edmund, and Jimy.  Gathering of Remembrance will be Wednesday, February 22 at 11am at Sunset Funeral Home Northeast, Funeral Mass will follow at 12pm. Committal Service will follow at 1:30pm at Fort Bliss National Cemetery. Please visit online registry at www.sunsetfuneralhomes.net.