EJ Johnson
Last Friday the Belmont Media Center lost one of our own. Longtime volunteer, teacher, mentor, valued staff member, and friend to all, EJ Johnson passed away after fighting a pretty darned good fight for several years against a disease that increasingly crippled his body but that could not subdue his spirit or dedication to community media in any visible way.
There will be a memorial service for EJ on Wednesday, August 9th at 10:30 am at the Belmont United Methodist Church, 421 Common Street in Belmont.
Belmont Media Center will also hold a memorial service for EJ at our annual meeting in late October.
EJ was with BMC at the beginning in 2006 , volunteering to lead kids at our first “Make a Movie in a Day” classes that we ran out of the tiny studio in the high school. Under less than ideal conditions, EJ brought his energy, his considerable professional TV & film experience, and his unique sense of humor to a young non-profit community media center and consequently turned every situation into a teaching moment for anyone within earshot and always with a dose of his own priceless sense of humor.
Very simply, EJ helped, taught, mentored, lectured, encouraged and befriended many, many people who have come and gone at the Belmont Media Center. He was such a familiar, friendly and unassuming presence at BMC, it’s very hard for us who worked with him every day to imagine that EJ is now gone.
Thinking back, I remember EJ almost floating back and forth past my office door on his motorized scooter around and about BMC. And he seemed not so much attached to the earth as he was to all the people in it.
Jeffrey Hansell
executive director