The gathering inside Leon’s Catfish & Shrimp Restaurant on Thursday night was small and intimate, but this was no small occasion.
Johnnie B. McDonald turned 100.
Pine Bluff Mayor Vivian Flowers proclaimed Feb. 26 Johnnie B. McDonald Day, reading the citation next to the centenarian, who retired as a financial aid counselor at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff in 1991.
“Because life is so fleeting, I think we are all impressed by a life with such long longevity of 100 years,” Flowers said. “We are not only celebrating longevity, but we are also celebrating legacy and we’re celebrating excellence in the life Mrs. McDonald has lived and is still living.”
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
McDonald sat stately with her crown, reflecting on what it took to become a centenarian.
“The only thing I knew to do was live a normal life,” she said. “I wasn’t running after money and that kind of thing. I just wanted to have a good life, just a good life.”
A good life, McDonald said, is doing what the Lord says.
“That’s what I should do,” she explained. “I went to church and didn’t gossip and run after a lot of stuff. I didn’t do drugs or anything like that.”
Jimmy McDonald, 79, recalled a life lesson from his mother: “Always take care of business and try to do the best you can, be straight and treat everybody like you want to be treated.”
Johnnie B. McDonald was born Johnnie Bea Yarbrough on Feb. 26, 1926, as the third of five children to Estella and Ryland Yarbrough. She grew up in Camden and graduated from Lafayette Junior High School and Nevada County Training School, then married John Edgar McDonald in 1946. They raised three children — Patricia, Glenda and Jimmy.
She taught school in the Ouachita County community of Elliott before moving to Pine Bluff in 1947. She earned a bachelor’s degree in business education from Arkansas AM&N College (now UAPB) in 1958. Her commencement speaker was the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
McDonald has been a member of Faith Presbyterian Church since 1959, serving as a secretary, treasurer, deacon and elder. She attends church and visits the beauty salon and supermarket regularly, according to the timeline on her birthday celebration.
“I also just want to recognize she is not only beautiful, but she is a little spicy and she’s quite independent,” Flowers said.