Still Wearing Blue A Life of Service, Family, and Showing Up
Scan here to watch Johnie’s story featured on FOX4 Kansas City.
He just recently turned 102.
in the United States Navy in December 1942. He was 18 years old. He still remembers boarding his ship for the first time—and accidentally saluting with his left hand.
Johnie Ernest Clark—a proud resident of Cedarhurst of Blue Springs—marked the milestone on February 22, still steady, still sharp, and still wearing blue. The color has become part of who he is. Blue for the Navy. Blue for the life he built after the war. Blue for the quiet pride he carries. When asked what it feels like to be 102, Johnie answers simply: “I feel old. Have a good doctor, stay active and live at Cedarhurst.” It is a straightforward answer—fitting for a man whose life has been defined not by grand speeches, but by steady action.
He became part of the original crew—a “plank owner”—aboard the USS Yorktown (CV-10),
the aircraft carrier later nicknamed The Fighting Lady. When he first stepped aboard, the massive ship sat in dry dock, still under construction. “It was awfully big and large,” he recalls. He stood fire watch for welders as they finished building the carrier that would soon sail into the Pacific.
Born in 1924 in Pittsburg, Kansas, Johnie enlisted
26 CEDARHURST SENIOR LIVING | SPRING FLOURISH 2026
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