Styx Drummer Remembers AHeights Teacher: 'She Just Sparkled'

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL — When Styx drummer Todd Sucherman remembers his first-grade teacher, Margaret Johnson, one of his best memories isn't about something that happened in a classroom. Instead, it was an moment years later as an adult.

"She came with my mother (and 60 other friends) to the last show of my very first Styx tour in Chicago …," the rock percussionist wrote in a Facebook post this week memorializing Johnson, who died May 25. She was 94. "In the after show party, she handed me an envelope and said, 'You won’t remember this but the last day you were in my class before moving on, I asked for your autograph. I knew you would go on to great things and I was right. Here it is, I want you to have it.'

"I keep that in a drawer in my office with other meaningful mementos."

Johnson, who lived in Arlington Heights, was a longtime teacher at Lincolnwood Elementary School, where she taught Sucherman and his older brother. Sucherman published his social media post Monday after hearing about Johnson's passing. Describing her as "an extraordinary soul full of love, bubbly enthusiasm," he thanked Johnson for the role she played in his lives and "generations of your adoring students."

"She made lifelong relationships with countless students and their families," he wrote. "Our family was no different and I know my mother stayed in contact (and myself to a lesser extent) over the past 40 plus years."

One of the things the teacher and her former pupil continued to connect with over the decades was the Chicago Cubs. Johnson was "a lifelong diehard … fan" who had season tickets, Sucherman says.

"When that event [the Cubs winning the World Series] finally and miraculously occurred in 2016, I sent her a card saying, 'We did it! Finally!' I was so happy that she lived to see the Cubs win the World Series," he wrote. "Just a few days after sending her that card a box arrived at my house from her. Inside there was no note or card. The only thing inside was an official Chicago Cubs World Series Championship baseball hat. Well played, Mrs. Johnson."

Styx drummer Todd Sucherman (Photo via Shutterstock)