Overton R. Johnson Step Show and Memorial Scholarship

Dr. Overton R. Johnson was born January 27, 1923 and passed on August 9, 1982. He grew up in rural Dinwiddie County, Virginia. He had a love of agriculture and forestry. In 1948, he earned a bachelor’s degree in Vocational Education from Virginia State College (now Virginia State University). Upon graduation, Dr. Johnson began his career as an educator by serving as a Vocational Education teacher for three years.   

From 1948-1951 he went to Cornell University, where he received his Master’s in Agricultural Education and his Ph.D. in Agricultural Engineering in 1954. Dr. Johnson was a member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Incorporated. Dr. Johnson became the first Black academic faculty member at Virginia Tech in 1969. He continued to make Virginia Tech history by serving as the first president of the Virginia Tech Black Faculty/Staff Caucus, and as the first Black dean, serving as the Interim Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences from July- December 1975. At the time of his death, Dr. Johnson continued service to the Hokie community as Associate Director of Institutional Research and Planning Analysis. 

Dr. Johnson had a huge garden on his family’s property. Every Saturday he and his children would pick vegetables from the garden, process them, and pack up his truck and car on the weekends and deliver fresh food to the community. Even before it was “in fashion,” Dr. Johnson was concerned about food security in his community because of its connection to physical AND mental health. 

Dr. Johnson’s first professional job was in Culpepper, and he later served on Pocahontas Island in the Petersburg area. Dr. Johnson would have liked more Black students in agriculture and animal sciences, with the goal of more Blacks working in poverty-stricken areas. 

With this in mind, in 1983, corporate donors, and friends and colleagues of the late Dr. Johnson gave several gifts to Virginia Tech to establish a university-wide scholarship in his memory and was officially endowed in 1985. The Annual Overton R. Johnson Step Show was launched in 1986, and is held each spring to honor Dr. Johnson’s legacy and to raise scholarship funds.