Every day was Christmas for Billie T. Johnson | Kingston Strand

What is the Christmas spirit? Generally, it means opening our hearts, spreading joy and kindness, and being charitable to all.

Billie Johnson didn’t wait for Christmas to demonstrate this spirit; he exhibited it everywhere he went.

Long before Lindvog Road extended south of Highway 104, Billie loved cruising on his John Deere tractor through Kingston Terrace, a neighborhood of 30-plus rental homes and lots. The development ran between where Columbia Bank and Drew’s Glen (formerly known as Sow’s Ear Lane) on Barber Cut Off Road are today. On his tractor rides, Billie would be singing (loudly and off key), waving to neighbors and kicking up his Birkenstocked feet.

In some ways, Billie Johnson always had a home in Kingston. When he was born in 1944, his parents, Frank and Ilene Johnson, had a house on Hood Canal. Frank and Ilene bought, sold, rented, and built several houses around North Kitsap before establishing a home on a Kingston waterfront bluff and building a real estate business in town.

Billie married his high school sweetheart, Gayle, and served in the Marine Corps. Billie and Gayle welcomed two children, Kimberly and Kurtis, into their rather eccentric, entrepreneurial and hard-working family. “Let’s all work together and get it done” was Billie’s mantra. After his military service, Billie’s construction company in Woodinville often built homes in Kingston, many of them on Taree Drive and Madura Drive. At every holiday (especially the Fourth of July), Billie and Gayle brought their kids across the Sound for the Kingston parade.

In the 1970s, Billie felt a calling to the ministry. After attending Philadelphia Bible College, the family served as lay missionaries in South Africa. While there, Billie was ordained as a Pentecostal minister. In 1982, the family returned to Woodinville. Billie served as associate pastor at a local church and as a fire district chaplain, counseling fire fighters and families. Eventually, Billie and Gayle moved to Kingston permanently.

Billie jumped into the community without pause. Wherever he went, he would run into someone he knew and he was always looking to make a new friend. He was hard to miss with his big, friendly personality, constant community presence, and wardrobe of striped work shirt with rolled-up sleeves and year-round shorts, paired with those trusty Birkenstocks. He and his family attended Bayside Community Church; his daughter, Kimberly, and her family are still members today.

Billie ran for fire commissioner and joined the Kingston Chamber of Commerce in the early 1990s. Long-time residents Tom Waggoner and Sonny Woodward both remember Billie’s love for Kingston and his community commitment. As chamber president, Billie continually promoted the construction of an outdoor space for young people and, Tom recalls, “He worked hard to help make the skate park a reality.”

Sonny remembers Billie’s passion years ago for a passenger-only ferry from Kingston to Seattle.

Billie was joyfully pursuing another building design project on Bainbridge Island when he was hit by an out-of-control truck on an icy morning in January 2000. He died of his injuries at age 55.

To honor him, when Lindvog Road was extended south, Billie’s wife, Gayle, was asked to cut the ribbon for the skate park that now bears his name. It would warm his heart to see the large number of young people who use the park daily.

— Kathy Sole is president of the Kingston Historical Society. You can contact her at kingstonwahistory@gmail.com. The Kingston Historical Society sincerely thanks Billie Johnson’s daughter, Kimberly Jones, for providing the information for this article.