Alma Johnston - Leadership

When a person is a natural teacher, born to the role of showing other people what they’re capable of, they often show that special ability early on. Alma Johnston of Cherry Brook is no exception.

Alma became a Sunday School teacher at age 14, and continued in that role for forty years. She was the first teacher to graduate from the Cherry Brook - Preston area, and she started her teaching career in the same community. She had a 35-year teaching and counselling career at local schools.

This is proof enough that Alma’s destiny was to teach and lead young people, but Alma isn’t one to rest there. In true leadership fashion, Alma volunteered for so much more. She complemented these roles with over fifty years as a leader with the Canadian Girls in Training, the Baptist Youth Fellowship, and tutoring both students and adult learners. For a time, she even volunteered with her high school’s Peer Helper’s group, teaching students to teach their fellow students. Now that’s a leader among teachers!

Alma also broke new ground, literally and figuratively, in other ways. She helped found and acted as the first president of the Black Professional Women’s Group, and she was the first black person on the Nova Scotia Advisory Council for the Status of Women. Alma has led residential development and led community volunteers, including youth, to erect a new church manse on some donated property.

Alma held leadership roles within the Cherry Brook Women’s Auxiliary, her church executive, the Black Cultural Society, and the African united Baptist Association, the largest black organization in Nova Scotia. She leads and represents seniors, the black community, and many other overlapping interests, at a local, regional and national level. Her list of adult achievements is long and impressive, but one in particular exemplifies Alma’s ability as a leader to bring out the best achievements in people around her.

Alma helped local seniors secure a grant to hold workshops and write their own stories. She helped coordinate the writing and publication of Living Libraries - Hushed No More, which sold out at its launch event and, when reprinted, sold out quickly once more. Surprised and excited, and the Seniors who authored the book were richly rewarded for their efforts when they learned that people wanted to buy and read their books. They were thrilled once more when Alma’s faith in their work turned into a follow-up publication. Living Libraries II - Health Tips for Seniors, received the Seniors Literacy and Learning Partnership Award from the Dartmouth Learning Network.

Alma shares the 50+ Expo philosophy that Life is What You Make It. By putting her all into her community’s youth and seniors, Alma has demonstrated the leadership and enthusiasm that exemplifies a Remarkable Senior’s Leadership Award winner.

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