Harriet Johnson grew up just a few blocks from what was then known as Winona State Teachers College. Although she had a deep desire to follow her older brother to college, family circumstances caused her to begin working immediately after graduating from Winona Senior High School in 1942. She moved to Chicago and enjoyed a long and successful career, first in banking and later in real estate.
Paul Haake left Winona Senior High just a few years after Harriet Johnson, but had the good fortune to go on to college, medical school, and eventually graduate school in chemistry at Harvard University. Haake remained in higher education his entire life, starting his academic career at UCLA and then moving to Wesleyan University in Connecticut, where he was a noted professor and researcher in molecular biology and biochemistry.
Harriet Johnson and Paul Haake were both intensely loyal to the town where they grew up. And while neither ever attended Winona State, the university and its beautiful campus were central to their idea of their hometown. A part of that idea was the conviction that higher education is transformative: that it could change not only a young person’s life, but also the way a community thinks about itself.
Both had so much faith in the power of education – and such a deep connection with Winona State – that they made substantial gifts to their hometown university. Johnson looked back to childhood and established a number of scholarships that would make it possible for diligent and committed students from the Winona public schools to do something that she was unable to do: attend Winona State University.
Always grateful for the education he received in Winona, Haake also looked back before he passed away in 2011. He made a substantial contribution to the university to create awards for WSU scholar-athletes, along with an endowment to support a poetry prize in the Winona public schools.
The Johnson and Haake gifts are two of the most substantial ever made to Winona State. Their strength, however, lies in the more than 5,500 benefactors, large and small, who joined them in supporting the university last year. Many of their connections with Winona State are direct – alumni, faculty and staff, retirees, students, parents – while others, like that of Johnson and Haake, have followed another path. The common thread is that they all see the good that Winona State has done for 155 years in making it possible for hard working young people to earn a college degree and achieve their dream of improving their lives, and the world.
“You have to give back in order to get back,” said Harriet Johnson a few months before she passed away in March 2013. Her legacy, along with that of Paul Haake and 5,500 other benefactors, will touch the lives of more students than they might every have imagined, far into the future.
Evans Returns as University Advancement Interim VP
Gary Evans, who served as vice president of University Relations and Development at Winona State from 1987-1998, returns to serve as interim vice president for University Advancement. Jim Schmidt, the newly appointed chancellor at University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, previously held that role.
Evans retired as president and CEO of Hiawatha Broadband Communications, which he joined in 1998. Many will remember that he spent 30 years in the newspaper business, including 25 years with the Winona Daily News.
He has held many community and civic positions, including work with Winona Health, Winona Area Chamber of Commerce, the WSU Foundation, and the Greater Rochester Area University Center. Evans has received the Winona community’s highest awards, including the Winona Community Achievement Award, the Adith Miller Community Tribute, and as outstanding volunteer by the Upper Mississippi Valley Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals.
