Our August Activist of the month, Ernest (Ernie) Langdon, was born in Missouri where many of his cousins, nephews, and nieces still live. He grew up in Eastern Wyoming on a farm, saying, “If you know anything about farms, you would know that my mother did almost everything!”
Ernie joined the Navy when he was seventeen and spent twenty years in the service. When he retired in 1977, with the rank of a Chief Petty Officer, he was stationed at a satellite navigation tracking station just outside of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
He went to work at a company that produced and supported a mini computer that was used in conjunction with IBM mainframe computers. In less than two years, he was promoted to supervisor of the Central Processor Unit testing area. He worked there for fourteen years, and attended evening college courses at Normandale College, earning a degree with honors in Computer Science.
When mainframes were largely replaced by desk top computers, the company’s product was no longer in demand and they could not find another product to replace it. The company was sold to NCR which later sold it to ATT, which finally closed the company down.
In 1991, Earnest and his wife Carol moved to Oviedo. At the time, one of their sons lived in Tampa and the other lived in Cape Canaveral. Ernie went to work for a company in Apopka that produced surface acoustic wave devices used mostly in cell phones. That company was doing well and was purchased by one company and then another. They were told that they needed to reduce the headcount before the merger. Being a year or two from retirement, Ernie was offered a severance package and he retired in May of 2001, for the third time.
In 1998, his wife Carol passed away. In the aftermath of her death, Ernie was called to work with an organization known as Floridians for Patient Protection for several years. In 2005, he met and married his second wife, Dorrise.
In 2006, Ernie ran for State Representative in State House District 33. After the 2000 redistricting, that district became mostly District 28. The only real differences are that 33 included a little of East Orange County and a little of Southern Volusia County.
At that time there were about 33,000 more registered Republicans in Seminole County than registered Democrats. Ernie realized that with odds like that, Democrats had little to no chance of being elected in Seminole County. After he lost the election, he worked with the DEC to increase the number of registered Democratic voters. Due to the efforts of volunteers like Ernie, steady progress has been made since 2006 and now there are only about 500 fewer registered Democrat voters than Republicans. Ernie is hopeful that this year some Democrats will be elected in Seminole County.
Ernie has been active and has outlived many of his relatives. One of his three sisters is still alive and lives in Indianapolis, Indiana. One of his two sons still lives in Cape Canaveral. Ernie is now eighty years and sixty-eight days old, and plans to outlive Donald Trump!
Thank you so much for all of your hard work, Ernie!