Dateline: April 22, 2004

City renames local airport for Johnson

By Roger Estlack, Clarendon Enterprise

The name of a former Clarendon city official will be permanently attached to the local municipal airport following action taken by the Board of Aldermen in a called meeting Monday night.

Clarendon Municipal Airport/Bass Field was officially re-christened Clarendon Smiley Johnson Municipal Airport/Bass Field in honor of former alderman Smiley Johnson.

“I think it’s only appropriate we name it for Smiley,” said Mayor Tex Selvidge. “While he was here, he was the airport.”

City officials said Johnson was the minister of the First Presbyterian Church for five years and served as a member of the Board of Aldermen from May 2000 to October 2001. He now resides in Canadian, where he is in hospice care suffering from cancer.

“During his short time here, Smiley got involved in all aspects of our community,” Selvidge said. “He gave his time and often spoke of how much he liked the people of Donley County. I think even now his heart is still here in Clarendon.”

Johnson’s dedication to the airport was self-evident. He was among a group of men who worked to furnish a pilots’ lounge to provide a resting place for travelers, and he helped efforts to have a water well installed at the airport. He also was instrumental in acquiring a tower on which to re-mount the signal beacon. The “new” tower had actually been in use many years ago at a strip west of the city.

Perhaps Johnson’s biggest contribution to the airport was his work in obtaining a state grant worth more than $800,000 to make improvements at the facility. The former alderman did much of the legwork to secure the grant, and Selvidge said Johnson made several trips to Austin at his own expense on behalf of the city.

The project the grant is funding is expected to get underway in the next few weeks.

The name “Bass Field” will remain attached to the airport. John M. Bass was a former owner of the land acquired in the early 1990s to extend the runway.