Community Involvement is a Priority
Lynn is the creator and primary contributor of the annual Sisters High School Veterans Scholarship. With the help of many of Lynn’s clients and subcontractors the scholarship has raised over $100,000 for high school recipients since its origin in year 2000.
The students are required to interview a veteran, read a book from a selected list (dealing with veteran sacrifices), and write an essay on what they have learned and how the project has impacted their life.
Lynn is a Vietnam veteran, having served at the 8th Field Hospital, 1966-1967.
Remembering sacrifice through scholarships
By Eric Dolson -Nugget News, Sisters OR
Lynn Johnston is a contractor. He calls himself a simple man, a carpenter. He would rather talk about his heroes than himself.
His shop, with polished concrete floors, is cleaner than a hospital. The building does not have his name on it, neither does his pickup truck.
At their June meeting, the Sisters School Board thanked Johnston for $40,000 he raised in scholarships for kids graduating from Sisters High School this year. Of that, about $20,000 came from Lynn and his wife Vicki.
When you ask Johnston why, it doesn't take long to know that it is because there are things he believes in, and he believes in those things passionately.
“ I feel and obligation to help our kids,”he said. “These are good kids that go to our schools.”
But it goes deeper than that. Johnston is a Vietnam veteran; it says so on the license plate of his truck. While he downplays his own sacrifices, he talks of the sacrifices made by others, by soldiers who served in Vietnam and in other wars. It doesn't take long to know this great passion motivates him in many ways.
It was a visit in the year 2000 to the cemetery in France, where U.S. Soldiers are buried by the
thousands, that motivated the “Veterans Appreciation Scholarship” in sisters.
“ I felt compelled that I needed to have the kids learn something (of this sacrifice). To earn the scholarship, kids have to interview any soldier, and read some kind of book. I want them to appreciate the freedoms they have and how we have these freedoms,” Johnston said.
Why did he give so much of his own money? Because it is important to him, though he admits a personal satisfaction. One day Lynn was invited to the high school for lunch. During that visit, kids applying for the scholarship individually told Lynn what they had learned. That moved him; and he was humbled.
“ What is that worth? Five million? Ten million? Twenty? It does not get any better than that,” he said.
The first year he gave $1,500; $2,000 the second year; $3,500 the third. Then a client who learned of the scholarship pitched in $2, 500. Then Lynn sent out a letter to subcontractors who worked with him, who kicked in from $100 to $2,500 each.
This year $40,000 went to support the education of Sisters students. Next year, he told the Sisters School Board, he hopes it will be $50, 000. Don't doubt him.
Sisters man donates to school library
By Tom Chace-Nugget News, Sisters OR
Sisters building contractor Lynn Johnston says that if he learned one thing from his father it was that hard work pays off. "I have been relatively successful here," he said, "not because I was very smart, because I wasn't --I had trouble keeping a 'C' average -- but because I was willing to work hard and that's what I learned from my dad and it's the root of my success."
Johnston recently made a donation (in 2003)of $7,500 to the Sisters High School Library/Media Center in honor of his parents. Usually this kind of gift is in the form of a memorial, but in Johnston's case both his parents are still living. The plaque commemorating his gift reads, "Library Contribution of $7,500 in honor of Ruth & Robert Johnston. For the parents you have been." Johnston said that his father "built many substantial homes in and around Eugene and the University of Oregon. I was his clean-up kid even when I was in my very young years, seven or eight years old."He said that he learned the contracting business from his father.
After his military service (part of which was in Vietnam) he became a superintendent for his father's company. There he "learned that in business, eight hours a day is not enough. He taught me that a work ethic of moral and honest business practices is essential."
His parents were responsible for his move to Sisters. "I came over to Sisters in 1977 to build a house for my mom and dad at Black Butte Ranch," he said. "They lived here two years and couldn't wait to get back to the rain in Eugene. Me? I liked it here so much I built myself a house and stayed." Johnston said that his father "gave him the knowledge to attain the skills he has to be a carpenter and a contractor.
My mother was my moral and ethical coach through the years of my growing." He has three children: Wes, a graduate of Sisters High School and Oregon State University, currently works with his father; Miles, 20, a graduate of Sisters High School is attending COCC and Drew, 17, is currently attending Sisters High School. While acknowledging the newly installed plaque, Bob Macauley, principal at Sisters High School, received another check for $500 given to Johnston by a friend and neighbor to go towards the $3,000 annual "Veteran's Scholarship" Johnston established four years ago.
