10 June 1969: The U.S. Air Force donated the first North American Aviation X-15, serial number 56-6670, to the Smithsonian Institution for display at the National Air and Space Museum. The first of three X-15A hypersonic research rocketplanes built by North American for the Air Force and the National Advisory Committee (NACA, the predecessor of NASA), 56-6670 made the first glide flight and
Phil Johnson served in the USAF as an F-100 pilot in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968 and was an instructor pilot at Reese Air Force Base from 1969 to 1972.
In 1972 he attended “Texas Tech University School of Law, where he was a member of the law review and graduated with honors in 1975.
He has served on numerous committees of the State Bar, is a member of the College of the State Bar, is a Life Fellow of the Texas Bar Foundation and the American Bar Foundation, and has served as president of the Lubbock County Bar Association. He is board-certified in civil trial law and personal injury trial law.
Phil practiced law with the firm from 1975 until 1998 with the Lubbock law firm of Crenshaw, Dupree & Milam, L.L.P., went on to the Seventh Court of Appeals in 1998 and was elected chief justice in 2002. (1)
On March 15, 2005, Johnson was appointed to the Texas Supreme Court. He served until 2018.
Phil is married to his wife Carla. An article in the Longview News-Journal By Jeff Brown
on Dec 15, 2018 (Updated Jun 15, 2020) tells the story…His enduring devotion to his wife, Carla, was born from tragedy and grief. They met at the ceremony where Justice Johnson was awarded the Silver Star. Carla’s first husband, also an Air Force pilot, was also to receive the Silver Star but had been killed in action. She was at the ceremony to accept the posthumous decoration on his behalf. And a love story was born. Carla and Phil have 5 children.
Sources: (1) https://web.archive.org/web/20130124225221/http://www.supreme.courts.state.tx.us/court/justice_pjohnson.asp
