When Karanja Crews announced that Super Soaker inventor and NASA engineer Dr. Lonnie Johnson was coming to Portland, excited gasps rippled through a second-grade classroom at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School on Wednesday afternoon.
Just an hour earlier, many of the students had never heard of Johnson. But after an animated read-aloud led by three Jefferson High School students of the children’s book “Whoosh! Lonnie Johnson’s Super-Soaking Stream of Inventions” by Chris Barton, the second graders were buzzing about Johnson’s upcoming Martin Luther King Jr. Day lecture.
On Jan. 19, Johnson — who has more than 250 patents — will visit Portland for a free MLK Day lecture that connects King’s legacy to innovation and STEM education. Hosted by Teaching With Purpose, the event is the keynote for the annual Student With Purpose Conference at Portland Community College’s Cascade Moriarty Auditorium.
“This is the biggest speaker for the Student With Purpose Conference,” Karanja Crews, founder of Teaching With Purpose, said of Johnson’s appearance. “The Teaching With Purpose Conference, we bring renowned speakers every year in October, and then we do the Student With Purpose Conference, which always falls on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and it’s usually smaller scale.”
Crews said Johnson was the perfect speaker to represent King’s legacy.
“What is MLK known for? Dreaming,” Crews said. “This event, the theme is dream, build, innovate and enterprise. … (Johnson) is a representation of that, and that’s what MLK represents.”
Crews wasn’t the only one who found Johnson to be a perfect fit for the annual conference. The three students who read Wednesday afternoon — Jefferson High varsity basketball players Kahllel Jackson, Aaron Crews and Jaamir Roberson — said they were equally impressed by Johnson’s patents and groundbreaking inventions.
Most famously, Johnson invented the Super Soaker, a project that Crews described as his “side gig” after an experimental accident gave him the idea to create a water gun. Johnson is currently working on energy research through his companies, JTEC Energy and Johnson Energy Storage.
“He’s one of the few Black inventors, and he’s also still alive today,” said Aaron Crews, who was inspired by Johnson after learning more about the inventor. “When I found out about the event, I definitely did some research.”
The read-in was part of a broader effort by the basketball team to bring awareness to Johnson and the discussion. Other team members visited additional Jefferson cluster schools, including Boise-Eliot/Humboldt, Woodlawn and Vernon, to host similar readings in other classrooms.
Roberson, who attended King Elementary, described being back in his elementary school as surreal and said he wished he would have seen more speakers to look up to when he was in the second graders’ shoes.
“It probably would have inspired me to do something else,” Roberson said. “I might have wanted to be an engineer or a scientist or something like that.”
Roberson said he hopes to be a teacher. During the read-aloud, he sat at the front of the classroom holding the picture book open as second graders sat cross-legged on the rug in front of him and followed along.
At the end of the reading, Jackson, Crews and Roberson asked students questions about the book, rewarding correct answers with a copy to take home. Through the citywide program, Multnomah County Library donated 150 copies to local elementary students.
“At some point, he was in these students’ shoes,” Roberson said of Johnson. “So I think, if there’s a future scientist or engineer, Lonnie will probably be the perfect person to look up to.”
If you go: 8-11:30 a.m. Monday, Jan. 19; PCC Cascade Moriarty Auditorium, 5514-5518 N. Albina Ave. Register at eventbrite.com, search “Dr. Lonnie Johnson.”
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