Collus Oliver Johnson (1905-1990) led adult education and continuing education programs at West Georgia College from 1951-1973.

Johnson was born December 7, 1905 in Sardis, Tennessee. He completed high school in Lexington, Tennessee, received the B.S. degree from the University of Tennessee in 1931, an M.S. from the University of Tennessee in 1948, and an Ed.S. from Peabody College for Teachers in 1960, also serving as a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army during World War II. He began his career as a teacher and principal of various schools in Tennessee. From 1948 to 1951 he served as an area coordinator working in the fields of resource use and community education and community development as a member of the faculty of Murray State College, Murray, Kentucky. Johnson later served with the Tennessee Valley Authority as a population readjustment coordinator and as an agriculturalist.

Johnson came to West Georgia College in 1951 as Associate Professor of Education and Associate Director of Adult Education and served as such until 1964. As Associate Director of Adult Education he was a leader of “College in the Country” and arranged studycades for the community to various national and international locations. From 1967 until 1972 he was Director of Continuing Education. In 1972 he was promoted to Professor of Education. He retired in 1973.

Johnson served for two years as president of the Georgia Gerontology Society. For several years he was on the Board of Managers of both the Georgia and Kentucky Congresses of Parents and Teachers. He was active in the Adult Education Association of the U.S.A., the Georgia Teacher Education Council, the National Association of Public School Educators, the Rural Education Association of the National Education Association, and was a Regional Representative on the Executive Committee of the National Education Association. He attended numerous professional meetings and conferences, including the 1950 White House Conference on Children and Youth. He was a member of the Sigma Nu Fraternity, Phi Delta Kappa, the Carroll Service Council, and Georgia’s Silver Haired Legislature, serving as a Senator. A member of the Kiwanis Club for 35 years, in 1988 he received the Legion of Honor. He was a member of the First United Methodist Church, where he had served on the Administrative Board, as Sunday School teacher, in the church choir, was an honorary life member of the Methodist Rural Fellowship of the North Georgia Conference, on the Lay Life and Work Committee in the Rome District, and numerous other church committees.

In 1973 Johnson was awarded the Delbert Clark Award in Adult Education as well as the Honorary Alumnus Award from the West Georgia College Alumni Association. Also in 1973 he was honored by the Georgia Adult Education Council with its Annual Adult Education Award. He was a recipient of the Thank You Award from the Georgia Association of Retarded Citizens and was serving on the University System Committee on Public Service and working with the literacy programs in five counties and the Adventures in Living Series at the time of his death on December 20, 1990. His wife, Eugenia Caldwell Johnson, died in 2004. They are survived by three children: Dr. Colleen Johnson Morich, Tom Johnson of Carrollton, and Dr. Gene Johnson of Stevens Point, Wisconsin. The “College in the Country” concept was developed in the Depression-era years as a program to reach out to rural adult populations who were isolated from educational opportunities related to better living in farming communities. West Georgia College President Irvine S. Ingram was instrumental in building the program, using students and faculty of the college to reach out to as many as twenty-one communities in Carroll and adjacent counties with information about good health practices, preservation of food, and home guidance.

Initially, Ingram hired Porter Claxton in 1937 to run a program of adult education intended to improve farm life for Carroll County’s rural residents. Ingram has written about WGC’s philosophy of community education as a natural springboard for the College in the Country programs. Replacing Claxton in 1944 was Ed Yeomans who organized community cooperatives such as canneries for produce and communal curing houses. He wrote guides for children and adults titled “Let’s Raise Pigs” and “Let’s Plant Grass.” Other cooperative programs included lunch rooms at rural schools, recreation centers, and the regional library program with a bookmobile. The program’s philosophy was to meet the fundamental needs of the community first, and then expand into other improvements. With widespread electrification, which allowed rural residents to light their communities after dark, came the concept of adult education. The first “College” was at Smithfield, so named in 1949 by J. Carson Pritchard, the first official director of College in the Country. The program evolved to include health and literacy programs, advanced education for adults, including for a segregated African-American community, speakers programs, and teacher training for WGC students, who often worked with the children of rural residents attending evening programs. The regional library, headed by Edith Foster with a bookmobile, collaborated with the educational programming to support literacy and learning for those living in remote areas.

As time went on, the program evolved further into a foreign exchange program, the most notable being an Indian farmer named Amar Singh who brought his family to live in Carrollton and studied farming techniques. The College in the Country concept grew further to include “Studycades,” which were motorcades for studying other communities at a distance, including the western United States, Canada, Mexico, and even Europe.

As transportation and communication technologies improved, the need for a learning program to go out into the community was replaced by Adult Education programs at the college, and what today are known as Continuing Education programs.