Created in 2003, the Rolland Johnson Award in Telecommunications Managment scholarship has been awarded every year since honoring Johnson's legacy and his contribution to the telecommunications department at IU.
Rolland, or "Rollie" as his friends and family called him, was born in O'Neill, Nebraska, on May 3, 1944, on his father's ranch. By age 10, Rolland had taken on the role of his father's ranch hand, working 12 hours a day, six days a week in the hayfields, assisting with his father's haying business. He also attended a one-room schoolhouse where his favorite teacher, Alice Young, believed in him and helped him reach the top of the class, despite being the only student.
As much as Rolland loved his father and the ranch, he knew from a young age that ranch life wasn't for him. On Christmas Day when he was 13, Rolland was gifted a transistor radio and determined that radio would be his ticket out. At 16, he began his long and successful career in radio as a part-time announcer at the local station, KBRX.
Rolland left O'Neill in 1962 to earn a degree in broadcast journalism and an MBA in marketing management at the University of Missouri, as well as a Ph.D. in mass communications from Ohio University. He then spent 14 years as a professor at Indiana University, where he attained tenure and served as chair of the Department of Telecommunications. While working at IU, he and four partners put 96.7FM WBWB "the Rainbow of Rock" on the air in Bloomington, which lives on today as B97.
Rolland passed away on Sept. 17, 2024, after a long and fulfilling life of 80 years. His legacy lives on through the Rolland Johnson Award in Telecommunications Management scholarship.