Alumni Pro le: Eric Johnson ’94

Ava Iwasko, Riya

In 1993, Eric Johnson ’94 led the Hornets to one of the most successful seasons in Greenhill football history. Donning a gold and green jersey, Johnson was a skilled running back who was named the team’s Most Valuable Player.

Little did Johnson know that in 2019, he would be tackling a new challenge: becoming the 60th mayor of Dallas. Johnson credits Greenhill with shaping him as a person and instilling in him the work ethic and integrity that have been crucial to his adult success.

Johnson came to Greenhill as a secondgrader in 1983. Prior to second grade, Johnson attended Sudie L. Williams Talented and Gi ed Academy, formerly known as Sudie L. Williams Elementary School, near Love Field, and C. F. Carr Elementary School in West Dallas.

While attending Carr Elementary, Johnson’s former rst grade teacher found a Boys and Girls Club program that helped academically gi ed students nd available spots at Dallas private schools like Greenhill.

Despite coming from a neighborhood and community that were very di erent from Greenhill, Johnson says he was able to adapt well.

“A lot of kids who went through that Boys and Girls Club program I went through struggled with some of those di erences, and I understand why,” Johnson said. “But for whatever reason, I actually really enjoyed it, and I really embraced it. I just had so much fun.”

Johnson says one of his favorite parts of being at Greenhill were the teachers and classmates he met. Johnson described himself as a “very social guy” who made many friends across all grades.

He also enjoyed his experiences playing sports and serving on student government.

In Middle School, he played football, basketball and baseball and ran track. Associate Head of School for Mission, Community, and Culture Tom Perryman ’81 was Johnson’s eighth-grade football coach.

Perryman says Johnson came up to him at the end of his seventh-grade football season and said he would do whatever it took to have an undefeated eighth-grade season. Johnson turned out to be incredibly competitive and a hardworking team player, said Perryman.

“Everything I asked of him and his teammates they did, and they destroyed everybody,” said Perryman. “ at was just the way Eric led.”

As Johnson moved through the Upper School, he dropped baseball and basketball but continued competing for Greenhill’s football and track teams. As a running back, Johnson led the Hornets through a successful season in his senior year with a 6-3-1 record. e seriousness of the Honor Council’s work is what drew Johnson to serve all four years, he said. is experience proved pivotal for Johnson in being able to reach his aspirations in public service.

Additionally, Johnson served on Greenhill’s rst-ever Honor Council as a freshman and eventually became the council chair as a senior.

“Back then, I was actually already sort of not interested in politics as much as I was interested in getting stu done,” Johnson said. “Back then, the Student Council, in my opinion, didn’t do a whole lot of serious stu [and] the Honor Council was hearing allegations of plagiarism and violating the school’s academic code and throwing kids out of school… [I] fell in love with it and stayed on it the entire time.”

Johnson remembers a particularly tense case hearing that involved a close friend that ended up being found guilty.

“It was our senior year when people were applying to college, when this would be a really high-stakes thing to have an Honor Council violation on your record,” said Johnson. “I remember the faculty asked me, ‘Do you think you can be objective and fair about this given that it involves a friend?’ and I told them, ‘It’s my job, I’ll do my job.’”

Johnson says Greenhill’s academics and sense of community prepared him well for his post-secondary education. Some in uential classes included Nature and Uses of Language with Dick Williams, U.S. History with Tony Torrence and AP English Literature with Christine Eastus. Johnson credits Torrence’s class as his inspiration to pursue history in college.

Perryman, who taught Johnson in both sixth- and 12th-grade English classes, says Johnson was an incredibly engaged student and one of the smartest young men he has ever met.

“He’s intellectually curious and intellectually courageous,” Perryman said. “He wouldn’t just take pat answers. He wanted to know why. I think he pushed us as his teachers, in appropriate ways and respectful ways, but he made us better and I loved working with him. He was a very engaged student.”

At his senior commencement, Johnson gave a speech about his experience coming from the Boys and Girls Club. While Perryman knew Johnson and his family well, he was still moved by Johnson’s words.

“I remember him standing there in the Meyerson [Symphony Center] representing his class as one of the senior speakers and just thinking, ‘wow, this, this young man is going to do some great things,’” said

Perryman. “And he has.”

A er graduating from Greenhill in 1994, Johnson attended Harvard University and graduated cum laude in 1998 with a degree in history. He then went on to receive a master’s degree in public a airs from Princeton University’s School of Public and International A airs in 2003 and Juris Doctor from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 2003.

He’s

Johnson was then admitted to the State Bar of Texas and worked as an attorney for several years. In 2010, he was elected to the Texas State House of Representatives from the 100th District, which encompasses parts of Dallas and Mesquite.

A er serving six terms in the Texas Legislature, Johnson won Dallas’s mayoral election in 2019. At Johnson’s victory party the night he won the election, Perryman –now described by Johnson as a “very close friend” – got to introduce his former student. It was a “goose bump, tearjerker” moment that Perryman still cherishes.

Re ecting on his time at Greenhill, Johnson says his experience did not lead him to public service so much as it prepared him for that line of work.

“If I had one thing I’d change about Greenhill from when I was there, I don’t feel like it had as much of an emphasis on leadership per se,” Johnson said. “ at’s di erent than saying it didn’t have an emphasis on community service, which it did, or on being a good citizen, [which] it did.”

Instead, Johnson says Greenhill taught him how to be a good person and a hard worker.

“My work ethic was really honed at Greenhill and that’s served me well in my professional career, both [in] private law practice and in government,” Johnson said.

“[Greenhill] taught me to appreciate di erent viewpoints. Greenhill was always a very, relatively speaking, diverse school, one that valued diversity. I think that’s been helpful. And it gave me a heart for service.”

Perryman hopes that Greenhill challenged and pushed Johnson to be his best throughout his time at the school.

“I think Greenhill broadened his horizons and allowed him to see possibilities that he might not have been able to see otherwise,” said Perryman. “I think Greenhill gave Eric a chance to stretch his own intellectual abilities and try new things.”

Johnson says he has always had a drive to work in public service.

“I didn’t know how I would do it, but I always had a desire to make sure that more people who came from backgrounds similar to mine had opportunities like I had, and even more,” Johnson said.

Part of this dream came from Johnson’s own upbringing and community in West Dallas.

“Greenhill is a small school [and] only has a few openings a year for kids on nancial aid, [so] it can’t provide the opportunity to all the kids who could bene t from it,” Johnson said. “So I always want to work in some way to make that opportunity available to more people, [which is] I guess what attracted me initially to go into the state legislature where you deal with education policy.”

In his role as Dallas mayor, Johnson has focused on improving public safety, delivering economic development and minimizing the impact of COVID-19 on city residents.

In 2019, Johnson appointed Perryman to the Dallas Municipal Library Board as vice-chair. Part of Perryman’s responsibilities are to inform Johnson of library issues. ey still work together and support each other today, Perryman said.

As Johnson prepares for his second campaign for the mayoral election in May 2023, his advice for students who aspire to be public servants is to ask themselves why they want to go into this eld, especially if they hope to serve in an elected position.

“I do fear that we are living in a time when a lot of people are nding ways to feed the social media monster and are looking for notoriety and don’t necessarily care how they get it,” said Johnson. “I think people need to have a motivation that’s outside of themselves before they go into public service and certainly before they run for o ce.”