Music Teachers Foundation honors Marge Johnson

Former West Liberty teacher still gives piano lessons at 90

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A former West Liberty teacher and West Liberty High School graduate of the Class of 1949, Marjorie Buckman Johnson, was honored by the Music Teachers National Association Foundation Fund on March 15 as a “Foundation Fellow.”

Now living in Fargo, North Dakota, the 90-year-old Johnson began her career as a music teacher in West Liberty in 1955 and later in Sioux City, Iowa.

After moving into the North Dakota/Minnesota area, she began teaching at Concordia Conservatory of Music in Moorhead, Minnesota while teaching private music lessons. She continued her studies at Briar Cliff College in North Dakota State University and Princeton, New Jersey. She holds a teaching certificate for Kindermusik and has attended many workshops and seminars to enhance her teaching skills.

Johnson holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Iowa and is a Nationally Certified Teacher of Music in the MTNA (Music Teachers National Association. She also served as a past president of both FMMTA and the Fargo Music Club while serving on many committees. She has judged festival competitions, contests and guild auditions and her students have successfully participated in festivals, guild performances, recitals and church music contests.

She was married to O.Q. (Sonny) Johnson, who was also from West Liberty, for 60 years before he died in 2012. The couple had two highly successful sons who went on to become doctors and returned to Fargo. Max is a retina surgeon while Phil is an orthopedic surgeon who is also famous as the doctor for the 2018 United States Olympic hockey team who participated in Korea. Marge also has six grandchildren as well as three-great grandsons.

The couple lived in Sioux City for 13 years before Sonny Johnson was transferred to Fargo in 1970 by Texaco, the petroleum giant.

Johnson had designated contributions of just over $2,000 toward the MTNA’s Foundation Fund sent in her name from 32 donors. Proceeds from all contributions to the foundation, which totaled over $202,000 overall this year, will help facilitate MTNA programs that encourage further music study, excellence in performance and music composition.

Johnson said she was inspired to get into the music field in high school from teacher Lorna Martin, who she said she did “lots of voice work” and later took piano lessons from the teacher.

By 1951, she was giving piano lessons of her own. She said she grew up on a farm “with corn between my toes” south of West Liberty with her sister Jane, who died recently. She said her mother, Elizabeth Buckman (Ray) also was a musical inspiration, talented enough to play the piano by ear without ever having to take a lesson and encouraging her daughter to get into the world of music. She said she remembers taking lessons from “a frustrated old maid” named Miss Godbrick, who hailed from Muscatine and carried a disciplinary ruler.

Today, Johnson still provides lessons to about five students every week and has even entered into the high-tech era with a Zoom lesson for another student. She is also still active in her church and other organizations.

She called West Liberty a “Wonderful little town. A wonderful place to grow up” and recalled the fact she and Dick Myers of West Liberty, who recently died, were honored by the Rotary Club of West Liberty as the outstanding male and female of the senior class at graduation.

She can be reached at 2838 Westgate Dr. in Fargo.

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