Etheridge, Johnson To Join Wall Of Distinction Honorees At Southampton High School

When Mark Johnson thinks of Southampton, he thinks of home, family, community.

He considers his elders who instilled in him a sense of character, work ethic and resilience, spirituality and sincerity, he said — people who wouldn’t let him be merely average.

And chief among them was the late Elton Etheridge.

“He represented an incredible father, incredible husband, an incredible man of the community who didn’t draw a lot of attention to himself but carried himself with so much class, reverence and dignity,” Johnson said. “That’s what he means to me.”

On Friday night, the two men will both be inducted into the Wall of Distinction at Southampton High School, which recognizes and celebrates alumni, coaches, teachers, administrators and teams who had a positive impact on the district and community at large.

“I’m going to speak on behalf of my mom,” Wanda Turpin, one of Etheridge’s three daughters, said during a conference call with her sister, Linda Gilliam. “She’s just bubbling over with excitement, and her only regret is he’s not here personally, but she said she knows he’s going to be watching from above. We feel honored that the school is honoring our dad.”

Etheridge, who was born and raised in Southampton, died in November 2020 at East End Hospice Kanas Center for Hospice Care on Quiogue. He was a pillar in both his family and local community — a kind-hearted, soft-spoken, humble father, husband and friend, and a true man of action, his daughters said.

“Everyone who ever visited him while we were at the house just spoke of him as a man they were glad to know, were so happy to know throughout their lives,” Gilliam said. “And it just makes us so proud to know that we knew him as Dad, but as that man, also.”

Etheridge, whose nickname was “Pee Wee,” grew up as the youngest of seven children to a single father. “His mom died when he was almost 10. His dad raised seven children and was truly a giver — a man who did a lot, for a lot of people,” Turpin said. “He witnessed that in life and it came very, very natural to him.”

As a student, Etheridge also had a gift for athletics, and he excelled in every sport he played — becoming a four-letter athlete in baseball, basketball, football and track. The articles written about his sports career fill two scrapbooks, Turpin said.

“He was one of few African Americans who played the quarterback position,” she said of her father’s time playing on the All-Scholastic football team. “He didn’t play it his whole four years, but he did play it. I think that had a lot to do with how he could read the field and how he could strategically think. He was an excellent sportsman in all of his sports.”

During one particular football game against East Hampton, Etheridge ran 99 yards for a touchdown, Turpin recalled. And while playing against Riverhead in baseball, he “hit a ball so far that the ump said it was the farthest he had ever seen anyone hit a ball,” her sister chimed in.

Upon graduation from Southampton High School in 1956, he was invited to try out for the Brooklyn Dodgers, but he ultimately went on to join the U.S. Army, which honorably discharged him following a knee injury.

When he returned home to the East End, he married Florence Lee, his high school sweetheart, in October 1957, and landed at the Southampton Golf Club in 1965. Over the next eight years, he worked his way up to superintendent of greens, a position he held for 33 years before retiring in 2006.

That year, Etheridge was quoted as saying, “I hope my legacy is that I left the impression that a minority could handle his job as well as any other race,” according to his obituary.

In his retirement, he enjoyed traveling with his wife of 63 years, taking daily walks around town and spending time with his six grandchildren. “He had an infectious smile,” Gilliam said. “My father didn’t talk a lot, he wasn’t boastful and he was a quiet man, but when he smiled, the room just lit up. He had a smile that everybody talked about.”

Watching Etheridge raise his family is imprinted on Johnson, who grew up on Hillcrest Avenue when it was a predominantly Black neighborhood, he said. The patriarch was a role model, he recalled.

“In an age in which seeing African American men of character, integrity, spirituality — and not just from a visual standpoint, but actually seeing it in action — that was important,” he said. “That was very important for us. That was the big thing in our community, that was huge.”

An innate leader among his peers, Johnson helped create the Southampton High School Wall of Fame as a senior and co-chair of the Student Council in 1986, the same year he made the winning shot in a championship game against Center Moriches.

“That was the shot heard all around the world,” he said with a laugh.

Johnson went on to study marketing at Canisius College in Buffalo, and in 1994, he became the vice president of community funding and special initiatives for the United Way of South Hampton Roads in Norfolk, Virginia — becoming the first African American to hold this position in the company’s 87-year history.

“Southampton really prepared me to achieve and to meet and to be able to take advantage of the opportunities and relationships that were going to be before me,” he said. “That’s what my home did for me.”

Today, Johnson lives in Virginia Beach, Virginia, with his wife and high school sweetheart, Shonder, and has two children. He works as the vice president and community development manager of Truist Bank, and has been recognized with numerous awards, including the Urban League of Hampton Roads Silver Star and MLK Community Leader Awards, and the SunTrust Bank Performance Excellence Award, and was named to the Hampton Roads Inside Business Top 100 Power List.

He serves on many advisory boards and committees, among them the Life Enrichment Center of Norfolk, the American Diabetes Association, LISC Richmond and Hampton Roads, Tidewater Community College Education Foundation, the Hampton Roads Chamber Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, and more.

“I kind of get teary-eyed and I kind of get emotional, because I know the road and the journey to getting anywhere is sometimes tough. So to look back and to really get a sense of, ‘Oh my God, at one point in time, I never thought I was going to get to this point,’ and then finally getting there is such a blessing,” he said. “I don’t take it lightly and I’m so grateful and gracious for my life in general.”