The year is 2002 and former teacher Peggy Johnson had been working at Randall for 13 years when Principal Steve Williams asked the faculty if anyone was willing to sponsor the new key club. Johnson and science teacher Melissa Howle both volunteered. Neither of them knew what they were getting into at first with this club of 20 students. After getting ideas from their first key club convention, they got the club jump started and accumulating in size.
Nine years later she is mentoring Aaron Faver as the new key club advisor and dedicating more than 14 hours a week to the club. Johnson retired from her job as an English teacher and ELA TAKS specialist last year, but she still sets an example for Randall High students. Howle stepped down because her son was getting married so she decided to focus on that. She said being in key club were some of the best nine years of her life but she needed to move on. Now Howle is an aerobics instructor at the YCMA.
Johnson said she stays with the club because she couldn’t bear to see the effort her members and officers put into the club vanish.
“It takes an incredible amount of work and time, but the kids felt like it was worth it,” Johnson said.” I just couldn’t leave them with no one to help. These are still my kids.”
With the guidance of Johnson, the Randall Key Club has become a notable club even placing first as the most distinguished club in the district last year.
“For the past eight years, RHS key club has been in the top 25 clubs out of 320 in the Texas-Oklahoma district,” Johnson said. “Our club wanted to be an outstanding club and to be recognized for the work we do in Amarillo, the Philippines, Kenya, Canyon and other places we have impacted.”
Johnson said that the most memorable part of being part of the Key Club was the time she spent with the kids.
“We have some pretty amazing young people at Randall,” Johnson said. “They are positively the best. Being recognized as the number one club last year was awesome, but the friendships and the closeness we have developed is worth even more.”
The club is involved in a variety of services such as the March of Dimes in May, collecting for UNICEF, an organization that raises money for neonatal tetanus shots, bringing food for Snack Pack for Kids, working at High Plains Food Bank, cooking for the Ronald Mcdonald house, sponsoring at the corn mazes, and collecting necessities for the troops. The club strives to serve in school and community through these actions.
“Mrs. Johnson has told us that our purpose is to think of others and not ourselves,” sophomore Ian Alvia said.
The ultimate goal that each member should have is to learn leadership skills and serve others. These jobs require the skills brought out by Johnson.
“We can play and have fun as we do this, but Key Club is a very structured organization,” Johnson said. “We are just a very small part of the largest student led organization in the world. There are over a quarter of a million members world wide. We are just striving to make a difference in people’s lives, not just other people, but even in our own lives.”
