Dear Camp Gordon Johnston Supporter:

Welcome to year 2005 -

This begins a new year for the museum and the Association.  In March the Association will host its tenth reunion, the final reunion in its present format; we will switch to Camp Gordon Johnston Days in 2006.  2005 should also be a big year for the museum.  Our landlady has given us another year on our lease, and we are forging ahead.  We already have three groups registered for this year—a Navy Reunion the first of March, the Camp Gordon Johnston Reunion the second week end in March, and an in-service training session for sixty teachers from all over the Panhandle in April.  The teachers will learn about Camp Gordon Johnston, Florida’s role in WWII, and WWII in general; this information will be taken back to their classrooms with them.  We also will have an exhibit at the Tallahassee Regional Airport in May and June, and who knows what else will develop during the year!  This should be a great year for your museum.  The Board of Directors would like to wish all of you a wonderful and prosperous new year.  May God bless each and every one of you!

Linda Minichiello

CGJA President and CGJ WWII Museum Curator

How did all this get started?

Early in 1995 a group of North Florida people began speculating on the possibility of forming a Camp Gordon Johnston Association and holding reunions of men and women who served there. It was soon discovered that a whole lot of people were electrified by the idea, and we began holding regular meetings in Lanark Village or Carrabelle. Result: a smashing first reunion March 1-3, 1996 and a committment to hold annual reunions each March for the foreseeable future. The reunions so far have been great fun and well-attended. They came to Camp Gordon Johnston from every state in the Union during World War II and they're coming from every state for the reunions, too.

There's more…

It may be difficult for you to conceive of the idea of eating well in the environs of the old camp, but it is one of the things that we do during reunions, from the kick-off luncheon to a closing barbecue prepared and served by members of the American Legion Post at Lanark Village, which serves as the Association's informal headquarters. Then there are a lot of restaurants round about specializing in some of the best and freshest seafood in the country.

Let's tour the old camp…

We do it every reunion. That seems to be the main thing that brings most of the guys back'a chance to ramble over the old acres once so well known. The barracks are gone and the training sites mostly obliterated. But our tour leaders, following maps preppared by the Post Engineerbefore and while the camp was in operation, can show you precisely where everything was, and in the process point out an astonishing number of remnants readily identified as Camp Gordon Johnston relics including the docks on the Carrabelle River at Camp Belle, the pilings in Lake Morality where boat crews were trained in life-saving, company streets, especially in the Lanark Village area, and a hand grenade course where fragments can still be easily found.