The story of how a promising young college student’s life was cut short by an unexpected drug overdose
By Katherine Pyles
HQ 94 | SUMMER 2016
The maintenance crews at Spring Hill Cemetery know not to mow the grass around Adam Johnson’s grave.
“They know I want to be the one to take care of it,” says Adam’s father Teddy Johnson, who lost his son to a heroin overdose in 2007. For Teddy, visits to Spring Hill Cemetery are as much a part of his routine as a morning run or a trip to the bank.
Adam Johnson, a 22-year-old history student at Marshall University, was one of 12 fatal drug overdoses in Huntington in late 2007. All were caused by black-tar heroin, an inexpensive and potent form of the drug that originated in Mexico. On Sept. 22, hours before he died, Adam spent the afternoon cracking jokes with his dad.
“I told him I was having a couple of friends over that evening who happened to be female, and he says, ‘You aren’t dating both of them, are you, Dad?’” Teddy recalls “For three or four years after he died, I couldn’t laugh about any of those memories. Then one day I was thinking about all the crazy stuff he used to say, and all of a sudden I was able to laugh again.”
Diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of 5, Adam “never really felt well,” Teddy says. “He’d have these bad seizures that would freak me out – he was just so young. He really struggled with it. I think that’s why he started trying things, to make himself feel better.”
Still, Teddy never imagined his son would try heroin. Adam was a drummer and avid reader who worked at Teddy’s business, T.R. Johnson & Son, and attended Marshall as a history major. He played music at Calamity Café, where Black Sheep Burrito & Brews now stands, and DJed a radio show on WMUL-FM called the Oscillating Zoo Show.
“The first time I heard his show, I said, ‘Adam, you can’t say that stuff on the radio,’” Teddy says. “He said, ‘Yeah I can,’ and then listed off all the words he wasn’t allowed to say. He knew the limits, and he knew how to push them.”
When Adam died, several of his professors called Teddy to tell him what a great student his son was. There was no double life, Teddy said, no secrets to uncover – just a quirky kid who loved books, history and music, and sometimes hung out with the wrong crowd.
“Most of Adam’s friends were good kids,” he says. “They’ve got master’s degrees now. They’ve got kids of their own. But there were a couple of them that were just bad news. You’ve got to keep your kids away from the bad people they’re hanging out with. You’ve got to do whatever it takes.”
Shortly after Adam’s death, Teddy created the Adam Johnson Memorial Scholarship, which named its first recipients in 2010. Since its inception, the scholarship has awarded $30,000 to 20 students from all over the Tri-State. Geared toward kids who’ve faced overwhelming adversity – from abuse to blindness to homelessness – the scholarship has a unique personal touch.
“The kids know this isn’t like other scholarships,” Teddy says. “They know we’re going to be calling them and checking on them and asking how their grades are. There’s a personal relationship.”
Teddy and his wife Roberta, whom he married in 2010, have the students over for dinner, help them find apartments and share in their celebrations and struggles. Nikki Nye, a 2010 scholarship recipient and graduate of Chesapeake High School, stayed with the Johnsons while earning her business administration degree at Marshall. In high school, Nikki had no Internet at home or transportation, so she walked to the library an hour before school each morning to study. Both of her parents died when she was young, something none of her peers knew until she spoke at graduation as valedictorian.
“She didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for her,” Teddy says.
Now, Teddy and Roberta are in the process of adopting Nikki, 24, before her August wedding. Teddy will walk her down the aisle as her dad, officially. She and the Johnsons’ two daughters, Cassie and Nikki Weaver, have matching tattoos that say “sisters,” and Nikki’s daughter Isabella has been a part of the Johnsons’ lives since she was born in 2014.
“I was going to walk Nikki down the aisle anyway,” Teddy explains, “and I just thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if I could say, ‘Her mother and I,’ when they ask, ‘Who gives this woman away?’ When I brought it up to Roberta, of course her first words were about Isabella being our granddaughter.”
The scholarship has provided the Johnsons with a daughter, a granddaughter and dozens of students whose lives might have taken a vastly different turn without their love and support. Still, Teddy says, although the scholarship is named in honor of his son, it will never replace his son.
“People tell me I’ve taken a tragedy and turned it into something good – but that doesn’t change the tragedy, you know?” he says. “There’s no getting over this. There’s no sense of peace. Adam’s just always in my heart and on my mind.”
Adam’s bedroom remains untouched – a reminder of a life cut unfairly short.
“Everyone grieves differently,” Teddy says. “No one can tell you when it’s your time to do this or that. No one can say, ‘You should be over that by now.’”
For the Johnson family, nighttime drives have been a source of comfort.
“We’ve got this star, Roberta and I, and every time we’re driving we look up and say, ‘There’s Adam,’” Teddy says. “It’s always right in front of us, guiding us.”
At Spring Hill Cemetery, near the Marshall football memorial, stands a bench in memory of Adam. The bench is a testament to Adam’s life in more ways than one.
“The only way we could get a bench so close to the Marshall memorial was to find one with round pillars so it would match,” Teddy says. “The bench is different – but so was Adam. He would’ve been embarrassed by how hard I fought for it, but when it was all over with, he would’ve been saying, ‘Way to go, Dad. You pushed the limits.’”
On the bench placed by Adam’s grave is a poem that reads:
I am living in a star,
The one that Twinkles – The Brightest One.
Just as you love and miss me – I love and miss you too,
So smile when you look at that star,
For I am at Peace and smiling down upon you.
