Donald Johnson was the first principal at Wheaton North High School before going on to a long career as an assistant superintendent in Leyden Township School District 212 in Cook County.
“He was in the middle of everything that happened at Leyden, and he did a great job doing it,” said retired District 212 assistant superintendent Jim Macintyre.
Johnson, 93, died of natural causes on Dec. 21 at Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield, said his son, David. He was a longtime Wheaton resident.
Johnson grew up in the tiny Kane County communities of Plato Center and Big Rock before moving with his family to the northwest Illinois town of Dakota, where he attended high school. His father was a school administrator.
He received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and then served in the Air Force for four years, according to his family. Johnson then returned to the U. of I. for a master’s degree before picking up a doctoral degree in school administration from Indiana University in 1963.
Johnson’s taught math at Niles West High School then was promoted to be an assistant principal in charge of freshmen at the Skokie school.
In 1963, Johnson went to work at Wheaton Community High School as part of a plan to become principal when Wheaton North opened its doors the following year. Johnson quipped to the Tribune in 1964 that in his year before he became Wheaton North’s principal, he was “a man without a school — or without faculty and students, for that matter.”
Even so, Johnson built ties with students at Wheaton Community High, which changed its name to Wheaton Central in 1964 after Wheaton North opened.
“He easily communicated with students,” recalled retired Wheaton Central and Wheaton Warrenville South High School math teacher Joe Tate, who worked alongside Johnson at Wheaton Community high school in 1963-1964 and remained friends with him. “He had a great sense of humor, and he was so friendly and accommodating.”
Wheaton North opened with more than 500 freshmen and sophomores and then added one class per year over the following two years. Johnson told the Tribune in August 1964 that he was enthusiastic about the school’s communicative arts wing, which was the academic hub of the building. He also noted that the student library was unusually large for a school of its size, which then had a capacity of 1,200.
In 1968, Johnson was recruited to become the principal of Princeton High School in Sharonville, Ohio, outside of Cincinnati. He returned to Illinois in 1974, taking a job as assistant superintendent in Leyden Community High School Dist. 212, which operates East Leyden High School in Franklin Park and West Leyden High in Northlake. Over the next 19 years, Johnson worked alongside then-Supt. David Byrne, and then with Byrne’s successor, Jack Schoenholtz.
Johnson’ sister, Marilyn Stuckey, said her brother enjoyed his work as school administrator.
“I think he had grown up with it and knew that that was something he could succeed at, plus, he felt that education was important and that he could do a good job,” she said.
In addition to golf and travel, Johnson was active in the Suburban Chicago Apple Users group, which connects iPhone, iPad and Mac enthusiasts, Tate said.
Johnson’s wife, Mary, also had taught at Niles West, which is where the couple had met. She died in 2013. In addition to his son and sister, Johnson is survived by two other sons, Eric and Mark; and six grandchildren.
A memorial service will take place at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 17 at the chapel of the First Presbyterian Church of Glen Ellyn, 550 N. Main Street, Glen Ellyn.
Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
