By Shivani Burra
Staff Writer
@shiviburra

One of Coppell High School’s newest additions to the math department, Dr. Lowell Johnson, has had experiences volunteering in Kenya , practicing law and working in the business field before joining CISD.

From 1988 to 1992, Johnson began practicing law and completed a Ph.D. in economics from Rutgers University in 1997. After working as a consultant for a few of years in New York City and Dallas, one of his clients hired him to be their international tax director and he did that for the last 11 years until August when CHS hired him.

Johnson went to Kenya in east Africa after law school, to teach math, English, business and any other courses that the school required.

While he was young, Johnson always wanted to travel internationally since professional commitments, family commitments, a mortgage and other things that would tie him down, would soon come.

“Many people do it after college but I did not have that foresight, I just went straight into law school,” Johnson said. “I realized after graduating that it was going to be my last opportunity to do it. The Peace Corp gave me an opportunity to live in a third world country and learn about another place.”

After two years living in Kenya, Johnson practiced law in Minnesota, Nebraska and New York, but his Peace Corp experience pushed him to study developmental economics to understand why some countries develop and why some do not, as well as understand what one can do to help those countries that have not developed.

Johnson’s Peace Corp experience helped him shape decisions in his life. It influenced him in pursuing a degree in economics and made him want to come back to teach after having a great time teaching in Kenya.

“When I was in corporate America I was still a teacher, I was continually teaching people how they can structure transactions in a tax efficient way,” Johnson said. “I am still teaching but what I am teaching is just different. Teaching is just a natural fit for me.”

While in Kenya, Johnson met others like him with a passion for serving. One volunteer in particular is Beth Huesing. She met Johnson at their Peace Corps staging where their group of math and English teachers gathered in New Orleans for preliminary training before flying to Kenya.

Johnson and Huesing have been back to Kenya after their initial visit and brought their families back to show them the work that they had accomplished.

Huesing has returned to Kenya twice, once with her ex-husband and once with her daughters, wanting to show them the village where she taught and met their father.

“It was almost 20 years since I first went there as a 23-year-old teacher, but many of my former students and staff at the school were still in the village and were delighted to meet my daughters and me again,” Huesing said. “I have maintained contact with one teacher there and he actually named his daughter Beth after me, which is such a touching connection for me.”

Once Huesing graduated from college at Purdue University in Indiana, she moved to Boulder, Colo. and taught math at Nederland High School. After a year of teaching in the United States, she still had the desire to join the Peace Corps, which she did in 1984.

“It’s important to give back in any way you can,” Huesing said. “It can be with your own local community or through an international experience. I think all students should spend time traveling and volunteering in countries less fortunate than the U.S. We really don’t realize how good we have it compared to many other places in the world. I think travel and volunteering is far better than any classroom type of education.”

CHS freshman and daughter of Johnson, Christine Johnson was able to visit Kenya when she was eight with her father, mother and brother in 2008 during a family vacation.

“This experience made me think of how privileged I am to be living where I do, and how much I take for granted,” Christine said. “When I saw how happy the kids were with just being able to go to a school instead of working out in the field, or how they are happy when they get a full meal a day, I really thought about what makes me happy in life. What I got from [the experience] is that happiness doesn’t have to come from having the newest iPhone or buying the most expensive clothes, it comes from the things you have in your life and being thankful for those things because you could have had nothing at all. “

Johnson’s life has been shaped and affected by his decision to serve in Kenya.

“This is a whole life changing experience. Graduate school teaches you a trade but Peace Corp teaches you who you are and changes you as a person,” Johnson said.