Posted: March 23, 2006

Athletics: Still more winners at WMA Indoor Champs

Matthews takes bronze at WMAs

USATF Master's Track & Field Chairman George Matthews added more athletic success to his repertoire through his bronze medal finish in the M60 weight throw where he launched a throw of 19.08 meters/62 feet 7 inches and fifth place finish in the shot put with a heave of 12.77m/41-10.

Valien sets World Record in W80 pole vault

Johnnye Valien, competing in the W80 age division, vaulted to a world record with a leap of 1.40m/4-7. She also competed in the triple jump, where she took home another gold with a leap of 5.27m/17-3.5 and in the 60m, she ran to a silver medal in 13.11.

Matthews and Valien will both compete this weekend at the USA Masters Indoor Track & Field Championships at the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston.

Former Abilene Christian track great Johnson dies

The eighth-place finisher in the men's 1,500 meters at the 1956 Olympic Trials, Dr. Paul Johnson, his wife Marcia and three others were killed Monday when their twin-engine airplane crashed near Branson, Missouri.

As a student-athlete at Abilene Christian University, Johnson was a member of legendary ACU track and field teams that included 1956 Olympic Games 100 and 200-meter gold medalist and National Track & Field Hall of Famer Bobby Morrow, among others.

During his career as a Wildcat, Johnson placed fourth in the 800 meters at the1956 NCAA Division I Championships in Berkeley, Calif. A former school record holder at 1,500 meters (3:51.7), Johnson was a member of ACU NAIA national championship teams in 1954 and 1955. A valued relay team member, Johnson participated on Wildcat foursomes that won titles at the Drake, Kansas and Texas Relays. A 1993 inductee into ACU's Sports Hall of Fame, Johnson also was a national champion and world record holder as a masters athlete in the 65-69 age-group.

A 1957 graduate of ACU, Dr. Johnson graduated from the Baylor College of Dentistry in Dallas in 1960. He immediately went into general practice in Lubbock where he had lived and worked until his death. Dr. Johnson was a member of the ACU Board of Trustees since 1988.

Dr. Johnson and his wife were married in 1958 and are survived by all three of their children: two sons, Greg and Sharon Johnson and Andy and Charlene Johnson and their daughter Mary Frances Leonard and her husband, John. They are also survived by their four grandchildren: Rachel Johnson, Cayte Lynn Johnson, John Paul Leonard and Sarah Leonard.

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