LEE “DOC” JOHNSON
Lee Johnson, long-time Britton resident and large-animal veterinarian, passed away in Salt Lake City on Jan. 5. He was 94. In September, he moved to the area to be near his daughter, Karen Zorzy, of Park City, Utah.
Lee began his veterinarian career in South Dakota after graduating from Colorado A&M (now Colorado State) in 1955. After one year in Groton, he and wife Phyllis moved to Britton when they bought the Britton Veterinary Clinic. For the next 34 years Lee, and partner Dr. Garth “Mac” McMahan, would serve farmers in northeast South Dakota.
Lee was born in Nebraska on Dec. 2, 1927 as the sixth child to Emil and Esther Johnson, both second-generation Swedish immigrants.
As a child, he remembered some of the worst of the Dust Bowl years in the early 1930s when cash crops eluded most hardscrabble farmers in the area.
Growing up and throughout his life, Lee loved playing and watching sports. As a youth, he played basketball, football and baseball with his brothers and friends.
After high school, he worked on the family farm for a couple of years before enlisting in the U.S. Army in 1946. Between 1947 and 1948, he served for a year in Japan as part of America’s occupational force.
After his military service ended, he started college life in Fort Collins, Colo., in 1948. There, on a blind date, he would meet the love of his life, Phyllis O’Connor, and the two would begin their 60-year adventure together on June 6, 1953. Phyllis passed away in 2013.
Having arrived in Britton in 1956, the couple spent the better part of the rest of their lives in the resilient South Dakota town. Lee proudly recalls how Britton added jobproducing industry gems like Hortons and United Grain terminal, along with tremendous improvements to schools, recreation facilities, sports fields and more.
In Britton, he was a big supporter of American Legion baseball program. He also loved to golf and, along with Dr. McMahan and others, helped develop the Britton Country Club.
Veterinary medicine, through three-plus decades, kept Lee and Mac busy almost around the clock. That full schedule did not keep Lee from a variety of other endeavors, including helping to start the Britton Nursing Home in 1968 or adding a Purina feed business to the Vet Clinic. He would also be an elected member of Britton’s City Council, as well as to return to his farming roots when he and Mac bought the Bonham farm in 1967.
Outside of Britton, Lee was named South Dakota Veterinarian of the year in 1988. He would serve as a bank director for Aberdeen’s Regional Norwest Bank from 1976 to 1990.
Lee is survived by his son Steve (wife Vicki Vold Johnson), Frederick, Colo.; daughter Helen Larson (husband Dwight Larson), Corsicana, Tx.; daughter Karen Halverson Zorzy (husband Jay Zorzy), Park City, Utah; and son Brian (wife Kimberly Ovitt), Silver Spring, Md.
He is also survived by eight grandchildren: Brittany Johnson, Clarksburg, W. Va; Erika Larson of Dallas and Craig Larson (husband J.P.) of Ridgefield, Wa.; Dan Halverson of St. Louis and Nick Halverson of Salt Lake City; and Alexandra Ovitt (husband Alex) of Portland, Ore., Vance Ovitt of Corvallis, Ore., and Devon Johnson, also of Corvallis, Ore.
Cards can be sent to his daughter, Karen Zorzy, 2612 Eagle Cove Dr., Park City, Utah, 84060. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made in his name to the Britton Foundation (PO Box 415, Britton, S.D., 57430). In addition, the family plans a memorial this summer at the Britton Country Club.