In 1969, NTPA was an upstart association wrought from the common goal of bringing together competitors under common rules and guidelines for the sport of tractor pulling. During that same year, a young Ed Johnson was making his mark as well as the farm director for WRFD radio, the prominent farm station located in Columbus, Ohio reaching most of the state and as sports director for that station and WNCI. At the time, Ed Hart was the NTPA’s executive director and their paths crossed due to the farm and sports mixed that linked both groups. “Because of my unique position in radio, with my familiarity with tractors, and with my experience in sports as an announcer, I became the natural choice to become the announcing voice of the NTPA,” said Johnson in a 1998 interview in The Puller magazine. Johnson was announcing many of the top NTPA shows of the day - the Indy Super Pull, the Ohio State Fair, and Bowling Green, Ohio to name a few. Ed even wrote some articles about some of the competitors in early Puller magazine issues. Johnson’s announcing style was definitively unique. Mike Hoff, owner of the Buck Motorsports Park and one-time national Modified puller, stated in the same 1998 Puller magazine interview that the one aspect that made Ed Johnson such an asset to pulling as an announcer was that he had such a fine relationship with all the competitors and every guy that pulled up to the line, he could tell a story about them. According to Hoff, this helped introduce the pullers to each other as well as to the fans. During the 1970s through the mid-1980s, Ed Johnson was truly NTPA’s voice. He brought a professionalism to pulling, painting a brilliant canvas to the ear with his voice. As his business, AgriCommunicators, Inc. grew, Johnson’s time was becoming more and more limited to his involvement with the sport. He was the voice that Ohio farmers listened to, which built into 70 plus Ohio and Indiana stations as well as a Saturday morning TV program known as “Agri Country”. Johnson called his years with NTPA “good years”. Ed Johnson will remembered as one of NTPA’s greatest promoters of the sport, bringing professionalism and personality to the sport. He was simply, ‘the voice’.