Lynda Phillips Johnson, member of the Yerger High Class of 1969, was saluted as part of an opening ceremony Friday in which Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders gave remarks. Just before the close of the ceremony, Johnson received the AMLKC Lifetime Achievement in Education Award.
Johnson has devoted her whole career to secondary education and the training of her fellow teachers, having served as counselor at Little Rock Central High School for ten years before going into administration as an assistant principal and then a principal. She has been a superintendent of the Gould School District, an educational consultant for the Arkansas Department of Education and a member of the state Higher Education Commission, appointed by a governor in Sarah Huckabee Sanders who she knew in her time as counselor at Little Rock Central. She also had a position in Restorative Justice, and said she was especially proud of making sure students were afforded due process prior to suspensions.
Johnson described how she found out about winning the award and her reaction. “It came in an email and then phone call, and I was just actually just flabbergasted and just excited and somewhat surprised. Just a positive reaction.” She also said she was especially pleased to know the award was conferred by the national Martin Luther King Commission.
When asked what her emphasis has been as an educator and administrator, Johnson said, “Sharing the importance of following instructions and sharing the importance of actually traveling, [which] equals education.”
Often taking groups of ten students to places like New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Cancun, the Bahamas, Paris and London, travel has been a mainstay of Johnson’s career, but she was very much based in or close to Arkansas as she pursued her own education, attaining her diploma in Hope, then undergraduate study in Business Education at Henderson Teachers College in Arkadelphia and University of Arkansas Pine Bluff. Her Master of Arts in Human Resources came from Webster University in suburban St. Louis, her doctorate from Grambling State in Developmental Education and post-graduate work from the University of Arkansas Little Rock.
But Johnson has also made sure her travel plans include the town where she grew up, often attending Yerger High School reunions and keeping up her connection with Hope. She said the teacher she best remembers from her Yerger years was Ruth Love: “She was my homeroom teacher and probably had the biggest impact on me. One of the reasons was I took lots of business courses and actually ended up [choosing that subject] as a major and used this education.”
Most recently she was in Hope during its biggest yearly event. “I was actually there just a month ago. I hadn't attended in years, but I attended the watermelon festival just this year. [With] one of my sons, [I] had an opportunity to walk the fairgrounds where that's very familiar with me. And usually everybody that comes through Hope Arkansas, has to stop by Terry Powell’s for the cracklins.’” She grew up not far from where the store is, at the corner of North Hazel and Greenwood.
Also on her travel itinerary have been visiting professorships at the University of Florida, The Tuskegee Institute, the University of Virginia, the University of Miami and the University of Arizona.
Johnson has also raised three adult sons, one of whom is a teacher and social worker while the other two are attorneys.
