Teacher the Apple of a Town’s Eye

After 37 years in the classroom, it seems like Eric Johansson has taught nearly everyone in the tiny town of Somis.

A history and geography teacher at Somis School, he has guided about 1,200 youngsters over a period spanning eight presidential administrations, witnessing firsthand the evolution from blackboards and ink wells to computers and Power Point presentations.

Some families in this rural community north of Camarillo have sent three generations of students through his classroom.

But Johansson decided in spring that it was time to retire, and scores of his former students gathered Sunday to say Somis School will never be the same.

“He’ll go down as being one of the greatest teachers,” said JoAnn Ashlock, 39, who had Johansson in eighth grade and then sent four children -- Brittany, Melissa, Cody and Andre -- to him as well.

Like others, Ashlock remembered him as a soft-spoken teacher never too busy to help solve a problem, a mentor who connected easily with youngsters and who had a knack for steering them out of trouble and in the right direction.

“He totally deserves this,” Ashlock said of Sunday’s event -- part student reunion, part tribute to a man never short on smiles or trivia tidbits. “He just didn’t teach. He was great, and we’ll never forget him.”

At a time when studies show that nearly half of teachers nationwide leave the classroom after five years, the man known as Mr. Jo was an anomaly.

The longest-serving teacher in the one-school district, he was a teacher who made a difference, a true-life Mr. Holland whose “opus” was composed over nearly four decades with waves of seventh- and eighth-graders, many born and raised in this community ringed by lemon trees and avocado orchards.

Many showed up Sunday at the Somis School cafeteria, trading faded photographs and heartfelt stories of a man who spent his adult life shaping young people during a seminal period in their lives.

“It’s humbling, it really is,” Johansson, 59, said of the outpouring. “It makes me feel good that I chose the right career.”

Born in Seattle, he moved with his mother and sister to Ventura County when he was 12 and graduated from Hueneme High School in Oxnard in 1961. He met the woman who would become his wife in high school and together they attended San Jose State University, both earning college degrees and teaching credentials from the school.

Johansson started at Somis School in January 1967.

Lyndon Johnson was president then. Thurgood Marshall was about to become the first African American on the Supreme Court. And Muhammad Ali would soon be arrested for refusing to fight in Vietnam.

The rookie teacher used these and other watershed events to bring history alive for his students.

He also became involved in his students’ lives. He went bowling and ice skating and hiking with them. He chaperoned a mind-boggling number of school trips to Washington, D.C., Catalina Island and Magic Mountain.

He never raised his voice, using instead the famous “Johansson Clap” -- “the loudest clap ever heard,” a former student said -- to quiet rowdy youngsters or rouse a group zapped of energy.

He launched a Somis School tradition of wrapping one of his prized grapefruits in masking tape and pitching it during the annual student-teacher softball game. The resulting splat never failed to make students squeal with delight and his colleagues double over in laughter.

His students would go on to become CEOs and CPAs, police officers and nurses and bank presidents.

A surprising number went on to become teachers, as did his two daughters.

“I think he developed a strong bond with the community,” said Bob Fulkerson, a descendant of the pioneer family that helped build the town, and a student in Johansson’s 1967 class.

“Back then, he wasn’t quite the tradition he is today,” Fulkerson said. “The girls liked him because he was young and cute and the guys liked him because he was young and athletic, and he would get out there and run around.”

He was still doing plenty of running around at the end of his career. But as an avid traveler and outdoor enthusiast, he wasn’t as active as he would have liked. So an announcement came at the end of the school year that Johansson would retire and plans were hatched for Sunday’s reunion as he was cleaning out his classroom.

“We just wanted to give people an opportunity to come talk to him and see him again,” said school librarian Jean Bricker, 42, who was in Johansson’s eighth-grade class in 1974. Three of her children also had him as a teacher, including 14-year-old Justin who was in his final class last school year.

“I think people here remember that year in particular of their lives,” she said. “I can’t even imagine Somis School without him.”

At Somis School on Sunday, Johansson’s teaching career was on full display.

Class and faculty photos from each of his 37 years stretched across two walls, starting with the Class of 1967 where a fresh-faced, fresh-out-of-college Johansson -- sporting a full head of blond hair -- stood smiling with his students. Much of the hair is gone now, but the smile remains.

Former students pored over yearbooks and women talked about how they used to call their teacher “Mr. Joe-handsome.”

Juliet Sundberg found her picture on the wall in Johansson’s seventh-grade class in 1993. Like her former mentor, she has gone on to teach.

“He was one of my favorite teachers,” said Sundberg, 23, who teaches in Thousand Oaks. “It’s teachers like Mr. Johansson who inspired me.”