Barbara Joan "Bobbi" Johnson (born March 24, 1945) is an American former computer application engineer and beauty pageant titleholder who held the

Miss USA Miss USA is an American beauty pageant that has been held annually since 1952 to select the entrant from United States in the Miss Universe pageant. The Miss Universe Organization operated both pageants, as well as Miss Teen USA, until 2020, ...

1964 title and has competed in the

Miss Universe Miss Universe is an annual international beauty pageant that is run by a United States and Thailand based Miss Universe Organization.Natalie Tadena (July 2, 2015"Donald Trump's Miss USA Pageant Lands on Reelz Cable Channel". ''The Wall Stre ...

pageant. After winning the

Miss District of Columbia USA The Miss District of Columbia USA competition is the pageant that selects the representative for the District of Columbia in the Miss USA pageant. Four District of Columbia representatives have won the Miss USA title. Of those two, Deshauna Ba ...

crown, Johnson went on to become the first representative from the

District of Columbia ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

to achieve the title of Miss USA, at age 19. She would be the only titleholder from the District until Shauntay Hinton won the crown in 2002. Johnson went on to compete in the Miss Universe 1964 pageant, where she made the semi-finals. Johnson later worked as an applications engineer in the computer department of

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable en ...

to program GE 400-series and

DATANET-30 The DATANET-30, or DN-30 for short, was a computer manufactured by General Electric designed in 1961-1963 to be used as a communications computer. It was later used as a front-end processor for data communications. It became the first front end c ...

computer systems. She was interviewed about her career choice in the book ''Your Career in Computer Programming'' published in 1967. In the book, she explained how after winning her Miss USA title she was asked by reporters what career ambition she had: "I guess they thought I’d say something like modeling or becoming an actress, but I said the first thing that popped into my head: that I wanted to be a computer programmer…". The book also includes side-by-side photographs of her as Miss USA and at her console as an applications engineer a few years later.

References

External links

Miss USA official website
* with actor Marlon Brando 1945 births American computer programmers Living people Miss Universe 1964 contestants Miss USA 1960s delegates Miss USA winners People from Alexandria, Virginia 20th-century American people {{WashingtonDC-stub