By Al Camp
Chronicle staff

     Sweating right along with the younger guys (60-and-over) at this past weekend’s senior softball tournament was a soon-to-be 79-year-old who loves the sport.
     Okanogan’s Dave Johnston, who was born Aug. 20, 1929, played for the North Country Pub during five hotly contested games at The Plex in Okanogan.
     “I imagine he was the oldest guy there,” said Shirley Bowden, who manages the North Country Pub’s senior teams.
     Record temperatures of more than 100 degrees were a minor hindrance for Johnston, who’s undergone replacements for both hips in order to continue playing ball.
     “I never dreamed I’d be playing ball at this age,” said Johnston, who grew up on a small farm between Twisp and Winthrop in the Methow Valley.
     Though he started playing baseball as an eighth-grader on the high school team, it was a love of football that caused Johnston to transfer before his sophomore year from Winthrop to Twisp High School, he said.
     Then-football coach Cecil West, for whom Johnston wanted to play, left, he recalled. West eventually became superintendent in the Chelan School District.
     Between his junior and senior years, Johnston pitched for an American Legion team.
     “I only lost two games,” said Johnston. “I won five or six. That fireballer from Chelan beat me.”
     After high school he said he played baseball for a year with a Winthrop town team. During a tournament in Kelowna, B.C., a first baseman flipped the ball as Johnston raced past, catching him in the eye. Five stitches were required.
     Johnston did three and a half years in the Air Force as a central fire control gunner in a B-29 and later as an instructor before returning home.
     He worked at a couple jobs and married Leona (Hanan) in 1953.
     “She never misses a ball game,” said Johnston.
     In 1964 he began umpiring youth baseball.
     After 22 years working in automotive parts and 20 years working maintenance at Okanogan High School, Johnston retired in August 1994.
     “From 1954 to 1994 I did not play ball at all, but I did coach Little League and Babe Ruth,” Johnston said.
     Though he had not played organized ball since 1954, during the winter of 1994 he met up with some softball players in his Arizona trailer court.
     They talked him into going to a practice. He said he was hooked and joined the Go-Fers in Apache Junction. That team won a couple league (two-division, 20-team) championships and a few tournaments.
     He also played for the Lights (as in light beer) over the years.
     “We had a lot of fun,” said Johnston of the teams.
     In the spring of 1995, he returned to Okanogan County for the summer and joined the North Country Pub senior team, first organized in 1994 for a Brewster tournament, he said.
     His love of the game continues more than two decades later, he said.
     This winter Johnston played in Palm Springs during a national tournament with the Silver Hawks, which included a few 78- and 79-year olds and a bunch of 80-plus players, he said.
     Teams are allowed 11 players, with four outfielders and a roaming player. Because of all the fielders, Johnston (who hits right-handed) said he has learned to hit to right field.
     “I fell in love with it,” he said of softball. “I never played before. It keeps me young.”
     He continues to stay busy while wintering in Arizona. He helped start and plays on three 70-plus teams and a 75-plus team in East Valley near Phoenix.
     To continue playing, he’s had both hips replaced. But softball did not prove the culprit for his hip injuries, but rather all the standing on his feet in his past jobs, he said.
     Now fully recovered, he played in 110 games last winter in Arizona.
     “That’s the most I’ve ever played,” he said.
     When not playing, he continues working behind the scenes in softball, whether it be umpiring or tending to fields.
     He did the majority of the work for this past week’s tournament, staying up late to water fields and getting up early to drag the infield and get chalk on the lines, said Bowden, whose husband, Roy, also worked on the fields.