April 6, 2012

Funeral for Loyd Johnson, 85, of Hartselle will be Mon., April 9, at 1 p.m. at Peck Funeral Home Chapel with the Rev. Vandon Windsor and Deacon Dennis Kobs officiating.

Visitation will be Mon., April 9, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the funeral home.

Burial will be in Antioch Cemetery.

Mr. Johnson died Fri., April 6, 2012 surrounded by his family.

He was born March 18, 1927, in Morgan County to I.B.D. Johnson and Ruth Humphries Johnson.

He grew up picking cotton, playing in the swimming hole and attending a two-room school at Cotaco. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, after which he attended Auburn University where he graduated with a degree in agricultural engineering. He worked for Chiquita Bananas in Honduras where he met and married Ester Banegas. They had three children. He later joined the Rockefeller Foundation and became part of the Green Revolution in tropical agriculture. He retired to the Somerville area after the death of his first wife and later married Coleen Turney Lemmond, with whom he lived in Hartselle until he suffered a stroke.

He was preceded in death by his parents; his first wife, Ester Banegas Johnson; and two older brothers, John Paul and William Evan Johnson.

He is survived by his wife, Colleen Turney Johnson of Hartselle; two sons, Thomas Patrick Johnson and wife Karyn of LakeForest, CA and Loyd Carl Johnson and wife Sarah of Jenison, MI; a daughter, Theresa Ann Johnson of Decatur, GA; two brothers, Bruce Johnson of Germantown, Tenn. and Harold Johnson of Somerville; a sister, Elizabeth Patrick of Birmingham; and four grandchildren, Gavin Johnson, Fiona Johnson, Nathan Johnson and Sara Johnson; two stepdaughters, Connie Blasingame and husband Larry and Valeta Carr; a stepson, Mert Lemmond and wife Nicki; and six grandchildren.

Pallbearers will be Carl Johnson, Thomas Johnson, Mert Lemmond, Barry McCary, Ben Lemmond, Phillip Rolfe and Clark Johnson.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorial donations be made to the Antioch Cemetery Fund or the Heifer Project (www.heifer.org), an organization whose mission is to end hunger and poverty by helping rural communities help themselves.