Their Story
Remembering Reginald E. Johnson.
Reginald E. Johnson, Reggie to his friends and family, was a 1976 graduate of Satellite High School in Satellite Beach, Florida where he was Vice President of his class, maintained a high GPA and starred in basketball, football and track. He went on to be a Class of 1980 West Point cadet who not only held the record for years as an Army Long Jumper in track, but was also a Sandhurst team leader in the annual Sandhurst competition in the Spring of 1980.
He died by drowning during the land navigation phase of the competition on April 11, 1980 at West Point, New York, just 21 days before graduation and having obtained a Special Forces assignment to Ft. Benning, Georgia.
Reggie Johnson has been the only participant to die in the Sandhurst competition, an annual West Point event since 1967. In honor of Reggie, The Reginald E. Johnson Memorial Plaque is awarded to the competition's highest scoring squad each year. The original plaque was replaced in 1999 with a mounted cadet sabre.
Soon after Reggie's death, the Pride of Melbourne Masonic Lodge No. 318 in Melbourne, Florida established the Reginald E. Johnson Memorial Scholarship Fund to help Brevard County high school seniors realize their educational goals. To date, over 5 million dollars in scholarship money has been granted to over 1,500 students in Reggie’s memory.