Ron Johnson Retires from Lakeland PBS After 43 Years

June 1 marks another milestone for Lakeland PBS, as 43 years ago the station started broadcasting to northwestern Minnesota.

One person has also been part of Lakeland for that amount of time, and he’s now retiring. Promotion Manager Ron Johnson may have been behind-the-scenes for most of his work, but he was also one of the people at the forefront of bringing PBS to the north woods.

43 years, 455 program guides, and countless memories are just some parts of working at Lakeland PBS that Johnson will have with him as he retires.

“I never had a day where I didn’t want to go to work,” said Johnson. “I mean, that’s why you can stay at a job this long.”

“It’s coming with mixed emotion,” explains Ron’s wife Carol Johnson. “[A] 43-year career in public television right here in his hometown of Bemidji. He’s had just a wonderful career here, doing what he loves.”

A career that long does not come without many changes and achievements. One accomplishment Johnson holds close is winning an award for his first program guide, which features his nieces on the cover. He has also seen the development of Lakeland PBS from the basement of Deputy Hall at Bemidji State University to being in a stand-alone building near the south shore of Lake Bemidji. But the biggest change impacted how Johnson worked.

“My position has evolved with the computer, with not social media and web design and stuff,” Johnson explained. “The change just happened around me.”

Before, Johnson would lay out the program guide on a large sheet of paper on a table. He would then cut and paste the pieces on the paper, creating a guide without any electronic assistance.

Johnson plans to enjoy where the air is sweet at his lake cabin with his wife, but he will also remain busy with Bemidji City Council duties and as the president of the League of Minnesota Cities.

“43 years, it’s been a wonderful place to be and it’s going to be hard to say ‘goodbye,'” Carol said. “But it’s not really goodbye. It’s just like, ‘we’ll see you later.'”

“It was just a fluke. If I wouldn’t have first picked up the paper when I was home and if I wouldn’t have had some bad advice as to where to go to interview, I never would have known about it,” Ron said, describing how he discovered the job at Lakeland PBS. “So those two things led to a 43-year career.”