Elizabeth K. Johnson
1957-2004

If Liz believed in your case you had a true believer. I didn’t really know that totally that day in 1998 when she dropped by the office. Since we were first cousins (the “K” in both of our names stands for Kelly), I knew a lot about her, but not everything. The problem that day was this: she was pretty happy with her job at Lockheed Martin, where after seven years, she had received the National Lockheed Martin Contract Policy Achievement Award the year before, but she needed more time at home for her family. I saw my chance immediately. “Liz,” I said, “why don’t you just work here? You can work however much you want to.” And a few days later she was reporting for work. I had no idea now big a contribution she would make.

Another thing I didn’t know was that she had won the Advocate’s Prize at the University of Tennessee Law School in 1983. If you don’t know what that is, it is the prize that every first–year student at the University of Tennessee Law School competes for. It is a moot court contest in appellate argument, just like you would do at the Tennessee Court of Appeals or the United States Supreme Court. The winner is the very best in the class, and that winner in 1983 was Liz.

It takes dedication to win the Advocate’s Prize. Liz brought that dedication to the office every day. She also brought it to her friends and her family. She created something she called “Cousin Camp” where she had all her nieces, nephews and cousins to spend an entire week, night and day, at her house every summer for a week of fun and fellowship. She was the only counselor at the First United Methodist Church in Oak Ridge who stayed all night at every lock-in. She was held upside down by her nightgown over the stairwell by the same brother Bill when she was seven years old. She was again held upside down by her brother Bill just a few years ago, this time at a party in her own kitchen in front of her husband, her children, and a houseful of friends.

Liz leaves her husband David, her children Andy, Katy and Carolyn, her mother Toby, her father Bill, her brothers and sisters Ruth, Bill and Barbara, and lots of aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins.

It was my pleasure to work with Liz for five years and to know her for a lifetime. We miss her immensely.