Judith Johnson was born to be a musician. Almost 50 years after attending college the first time, she’s composing a life she loves.
When you arrive at Judith Johnson’s home, you’re keenly aware of her priorities.
Countless photos of her children and grandchildren take up real estate through each room of the house. There is a woven tapestry with an Irish blessing framed by Gaelic knots hanging above the kitchen table. Books are tucked away on shelves and spill over into nooks and crannies. There is everything from chuckwagon cookbooks to the works of J.R.R. Tolkien to early editions of Winnie-the-Pooh.
The back room of the house is where Judith spends most of her time. It’s set up for her quilting, a hobby she’s invested decades into. An array of brightly colored fabrics line one wall and cutting tables skirt the others.
Among the fabric and hooks, is a textbook.
“Oh, I just love that book,” Judith exclaims. “I know it’s a textbook, but it reads just like a novel to me. It’s hard to put down.”
She is describing the “Norton Anthology of Western Music” – required reading for all Texas Tech School of Music students. The book weighs over three pounds and contains more than 1,000 pages of prose about everything from medieval chant of the early church to the Appalachian themes of Aaron Copeland. Most undergraduates regard it with the enthusiasm usually reserved for a parking ticket.
Judith clutches the book like a long-lost childhood treasure.
This woman is many things: a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a flautist and an undergraduate student at Texas Tech University. This fall, at 65 years old, she will be the oldest member in the history of Texas Tech’s Goin’ Band From Raiderland.
The flautist just finished her first year in the J.T. & Margaret Talkington College of Visual & Performing Arts, but this will be her fifth degree. It’s also the one she’s always wanted. Judith faced limits from day one, but every challenge she overcame has bolstered her resolve.
“Age is just a number,” she says, as she organizes her quilting tools. “I don’t want to live in fear. God put me on this earth to live abundantly.”
‘I’ve Always Been a Fighter’
A set of triplets was born in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1959. They weighed 2 pounds, 1 1/2 pounds, and less than 1 pound, respectively. Judith was the second baby.
“The third one didn’t make it,” Judith says of her sister.
The girls were adopted after birth; their birth mother was not in a position to raise them. But for weeks, their adoptive parents didn’t know if they’d be taking either child home.
“There were no incubators in Roswell at that time,” Judith explains.
The sisters had tubes down their noses for feeding, half-strength formula with water and two nurses stationed next to them so when they stopped breathing, someone was there to nudge and coax them back.
“My mom says I’ve always been a fighter,” Judith says.
After Judith could move on her own, she never stopped. She had a hunger to learn and challenge herself, which she did by teaching herself to read at age 4 and then teaching herself to read music by age 10.
“My mom took us to the library every Saturday,” Judith recalls. “I would get books on music, and I just sort of picked it up.”
She started flute lessons when she was 10 years old and added piano lessons when she started junior high. Judith was never happier than when she was making music.
In high school, she made all-state three years in a row and was first chair flute in concert band.
“Music has always helped me express myself when nothing else could,” she says. Whether it’s Mozart or Led Zeppelin.”
As college drew near, there was no doubt in Judith’s mind what she wanted to study. She had ambitions to become an orchestral flautist or a band director. When her parents took her to register for classes at New Mexico State University, there was a difference of opinion, though. Her parents worried that in 1978, it wasn’t realistic for their daughter to study music. And while their intentions were good, the decision was a tough blow for Judith.
Though the women’s liberation movement had come a long way, it had not permeated the offices of New Mexico State University where students still needed parental permission to choose a course of study.
“They just wouldn’t agree with me about studying music,” Judith explains.
The decision left Judith deeply depressed.
Disconnected from the source of her joy, Judith looked for it elsewhere. In 1981, Judith married her boyfriend, dropped out of college and moved to Colorado. As she looked for work, she was met by the effects of the 1980 recession. Judith and her husband had had two daughters, so they needed dual incomes to make ends meet.
Judith found work as a nurse’s aide. It wasn’t her dream job, but she says it suited her well as someone who’s always enjoyed helping others.
The 40 Year Conversation
Judith’s first marriage ended in 1985, and she returned home to Roswell to work for her father’s petroleum office. The work was uninspiring, but Judith found ways to keep playing her flute. She was a member of a group that would often dress up in Medieval costumes and sing and dance and fight with blunt swords.
One weekend, the ensemble camped out in Carlsbad.
“There was this guy there with beautiful long eyelashes sitting in the tent,” Judith recalls. “I noticed he was listening to me sing and play my flute, so after I finished, I went over, and we struck up conversation.”
The man in the tent was named Jerry Johnson, and that night would be the first of almost 40 years of conversation.
“We were both single parents; we just hit it off immediately,” Judith says.
Judith and Jerry combined their families and settled in Lubbock. Judith finished the bachelor’s degree she’d quit, graduating from Texas Tech with an English degree in 1989. It was an accomplishment Jerry encouraged her to achieve, knowing how much it would mean to her.
But for the insatiable learner, it wasn’t enough.
Judith had taken a job at Methodist Hospital (now Covenant Medical Center) typing the minutes of the doctor’s meetings. There, she learned that if she attended the Methodist School of Nursing, the hospital would pay for it.
“You didn’t have to apply for scholarships or grants or anything,” Judith recalls. “Now that’s a good deal.”
Even though Judith didn’t set out to work in the medical field, she knew opportunity when she saw it, and she wanted to learn everything she could. She earned her RN from Methodist School of Nursing in 1995. She went on to earn her BSN from West Texas A&M University in 1997 and finally her MSN as a Family Nurse Practitioner from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in 2006.
All that said, nursing seemed such a far cry from Judith’s original dream of teaching music.
“At that time in life, we were supporting five children,” she recalls. “Nursing seemed like one of those jobs someone was always hiring for in Lubbock.”
Least Likely to Retire
After 30 years caring for the people of Lubbock, Judith decided it was time to hang up her stethoscope.
“The idea was she was going to retire,” Jerry jokes. “Well, if you know Judith, you know that’s not likely.”
Jerry provides the kind of devotion found in men who have learned that the most radical act of love is sometimes just getting out of the way. He is the steady rhythm in the couple’s marriage.
They work well together.
Jerry plays trumpet and Judith plays flute in the Lubbock Concert Band, a tradition they’ve enjoyed together for many years. This became one of Judith’s main outings after retirement, but it wasn’t enough.
“I discovered something called the Texas Senior Academy,” Judith recalls. “I got bored and started thinking of taking music classes, even flute lessons.”
With her children grown and gone and her own career winding down, the musician was still in there, begging to come out.
The Texas Senior Academy is a program at all state colleges and universities in which Texas residents over 55 can take six free hours, after paying a $75 admission fee. When Judith found out she could take a few music classes at Texas Tech, she was over the moon.
“She came home so excited that night,” Jerry recalls.
Seeing how happy it made her; Jerry proposed an idea that sounded crazy at first.
“Why don’t you take the six hours, and we’ll figure out how to pay for the rest,” he said.
“The rest?” Judith asked.
“Yeah, you should get a music degree,” Jerry responded. “Isn’t that what you always wanted to do?”
The Next Adventure
There may have been a split second in which Judith worried about how others would perceive a retired nurse starting a fifth degree in her 60s. But if so, it flickered out quickly.
Judith sees herself like Bilbo Baggins, the titular protagonist from “The Hobbit.”
“I’m always quite ready for the next adventure,” Judith declares. “I thought to myself, ‘I’ll be 70 when I graduate, but how old will I be if I don’t do it now?’”
Becoming a full-time student was not as simple as signing up, though. Judith had to first apply to Texas Tech and then do a second application with the School of Music.
This included a live audition in front of faculty.
“I had a horrible audition,” Judith whispers, hands covering her face. “I was so nervous I thought I was gonna die.”
She had selected an etude along with one of the pieces she’d played in high school for an all-state audition. She stood before music faculty members Spencer Hartman and Lisa Garner Santa and made her way through the scales and melodies.
As soon as she finished, she burst into tears.
“Thanks for hearing me,” she conceded. “I know you aren’t going to let me in.”
The two professors looked at each other quizzically and Hartman reassured Judith, “You’re right where you need to be to come into this program.”
On Judith’s first day at the School of Music, she walked through the front door and was met with a burst of sounds.
“I remember thinking, ‘Yup, I’m home,’” she recalls with a smile.
And the school took to Judith as quickly as she took to it.
“We were really inspired by Judith’s tenacity and desire to learn,” said Hartman, an assistant professor of flute. “We’re all constantly enriched by her wealth of life experience and generous spirit. Judith has contributed to all of our learning and her story is an inspiration to everyone in the School of Music.”
Hartman’s studio has about a dozen students in it.
Judith’s hope was that the flautists would see her as some mix of friend and adopted grandma. Yes, she’s there for advice, but she also is there to have fun.
“Judith brings energy and encouragement to every practice,” says Trinity Melcher, a second-year music education major, and Judith’s lesson partner. “I think it’s awesome she is proving that it’s never too late to try something new; that you never have to stop learning.”
Melcher also says Judith has had the flute studio over to her home on many occasions, cooking for them, helping with fundraisers and just being a home away from home. Melcher even did her laundry at Judith’s house her first year.
Marching Ahead
Judith spent the first semester of classes eating her packed lunch out on the steps of the School of Music, listening to the Goin’ Band From Raiderland practice. Memories of her own time marching in high school came rushing back.
She was acutely aware she was almost 50 years older than she was the last time she marched.
For those who’ve never marched in 100-degree weather, any band member will tell you, it’s no joke. In fact, in 2018, the University Interscholastic League made it mandatory for high school students to pass a physical before marching.
Band members must be on their feet for hours, covered in a jacket and hat, holding up an instrument and essentially doing knee lifts across turf that can heat up to 120 degrees on game days.
Luckily, Judith was up for the challenge.
During her career and after retirement, Judith has trained not only mentally, but physically. She swims over 3 miles a week and practices karate at her local dojo, the Texas Karate Institute. Judith is a fourth-degree black belt.
“I first got my black belt when I was 51 years old,” she says proudly.
The black belt test required Judith to partake in a defense circle. Meaning she was surrounded by six men, each over 6 -feet tall.
Judith is 5 feet, 125 pounds.
“I had them all on the ground in less than three minutes,” she beams. “I learned I can do anything. It’s my mind that tells me I can or can’t do something, not my age.”
When You Love What You’re Doing
Judith wishes music had been a larger presence in her life, but she’s making up for that lost time now. She wants to help younger students pursue their passion. She plans to start teaching private flute lessons when she finishes her Bachelor of Arts in music.
She’s already teaching one of her granddaughters.
“Whatever your concept of God, I don’t think he gives us certain gifts and doesn’t mean for us to share them,” she says.
Judith shows off her favorite practice room in the School of Music. She says she likes the one in the corner on the second floor. It has two windows and the trees below have grown tall enough the shade the whole room.
She unpacks her flute and practices the piece she’ll be playing for her juries – an end of semester exam-of-sorts for performers. The excerpt is surprisingly folksy, not the baroque or classical sound one might expect.
Judith’s taste in music is as extensive as her list of hobbies.
“I just love it all,” she winks.