In 2021, the Johnson County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to change our county’s eponym (namesake), placing Lulu Merle Johnson (1907-1995) into that lofty position.
The Johnson family moved to Clinton for Lulu’s senior year of high school, where she captained the Clinton High School 6-on-6 girls basketball team. After graduating in 1925, Lulu headed off to SUI, where her family already had strong connections. Her brother Roscoe was a student, and her nephew, Bud (Dick) Culberson (below left), was the first African American to play basketball for the Hawkeyes (1944-1946), helping break the color barrier in the Big Ten. Another family member, Duke Slater (below right), is a Hawkeye football legend (1918-1921), who is enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame as one of the NFL’s most accomplished early African American players.
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