Meet the MSCS board member who isn't letting a stroke stop him from supporting students

When the Memphis-Shelby County Board of Education began its annual retreat at the Oasis Event Center on Nov. 3, only one board member was missing: Frank Johnson, whose absence was expected. Johnson had suffered a stroke less than two months earlier and was still recovering. He certainly wasn’t required to attend a lengthy, two-day retreat chockful of meetings about academics and finances.

But that morning, as Tomeka Hart-Wigginton of the HarWigg Group addressed the board, Johnson walked in; and a discussion about governance turned into a joyous reunification. Everyone in the room stood, cheered and clapped. A five-minute break was called. Some people cried. Stephanie Love, who had suffered her own stroke in 2022 and visited Johnson in rehab, hugged him tightly.

“I know Frank has felt the prayers, the support,” said Althea Greene, chair of the MSCS board. “But Frank, just know, you’ve made our day.”

Preparing for his surprise appearance hadn’t been easy. Johnson was still in the early stages of the recovery process and could barely move the right side of his body. Just putting on a belt and a pair of pants was challenging, and it had taken him two hours to get ready. But he had been determined to make it to the retreat. He had needed to prove, to himself, that he could be an effective school board member, despite the stroke.

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One event wouldn’t give him this confidence, and as the weeks went by, Johnson would doubt whether he was up for the job. But today, he is confident that he can still positively impact students through his board role ― so confident, in fact, that he will look to retain his seat in the August election.

Here’s an inside look at his stroke, recovery, and mindset.

On the floor

Johnson didn’t exactly fit the profile for someone who would have a stroke.

His summer had been stressful, as the MSCS board’s search for a new superintendent had grown tumultuous and controversial. But the majority of strokes occur in people over the age of 65. Johnson was 46, and going on runs a few times a week. Though he had gone to the doctor for not feeling well, he had been told he had arthritis and prediabetes ― there hadn’t been any indication that a stroke was looming.

But on Sept. 11, 2023, half of Johnson’s body abruptly stopped working while he was in his den, and he collapsed on the floor. Unable to get onto the couch, he dragged himself to the bookshelf and tried to hoist himself up. Johnson lived with his sister, who was in her bedroom; and he tried to get her attention. But here was another problem.

Johnson realized he couldn’t speak.

When his three dogs saw him on the floor, they came to his aid. One stayed by his side, while the other two ran to his sister, barking, trying to get her attention. When she found her brother, she called an ambulance.

As sirens blared and he was rushed to Methodist University Hospital, Johnson freaked out. He didn’t understand what was happening to him.

A few hours later, he got the news. He had suffered a stroke.

Macaroni or beef?

When Rev. Earle Fisher, the senior pastor at Abyssinian Baptist Church, heard what had happened, he headed to the hospital. Johnson’s pastor and friend, he laid his hands on his head, closed his eyes, and prayed.

“In a situation like that,” Fisher said, “you pray for healing.”

They were prayers that felt needed. Johnson could barely move the right side of his body, and he was struggling to speak. He would try to communicate, but his words would come out jumbled. There was initially only one word he could say clearly: “s**t.”

If anyone deserves to curse, it’s a man who’s suffered a stroke. As Fisher said, “It captured the essence of all that was happening at the time.” But seeing Johnson barely able to communicate was hard. Fisher watched as Johnson searched for words in his mind, then wondered if his mouth would deliver them.

“To be there with him and see him straining and struggling like that, it was rough,” Fisher said.

It was doubly difficult for Johnson. During his first few days in the hospital, his speech slowly improved. On his first full day at Methodist, he could only say a few words; the second day, he could say 10 or 12; and the third, he could string a sentence or two together. His personality seemed to be returning, and he even started texting, responding to emails from school principals and approving funding allocations for schools.

But he was a long way off from where he had been previously, and he wrestled with his inability to say what he wanted to.

“I'm thinking of macaroni and beef pops out. Come on, it's like, I thought I said macaroni,” Johnson said. “But every time you get ready to say, macaroni, beef pops out. It's crazy.”

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Still, he showed signs of improvement, and after a week in the hospital, he was sent to a rehab facility down the street, where he spent another week. After this, he returned home and began outpatient rehab.

As time passed, Johnson continued to improve. He made it to the retreat in early November. When The Commercial Appeal first spoke to him about his stroke in late November, it was hard to tell he had suffered a stroke at all. It was clear to those around him that he was recovering; people were impressed by how well he was speaking.

But Johnson didn’t feel like he had made big strides. He felt like he was at 10%. He thought he should be speaking more effectively than he was, and when he was told he was speaking well, he thought, privately, that he was being messed with.

“That’s part of the challenge, too, knowing where his level of comprehension and communication existed prior to [the stroke],” Fisher explained in November. “Frank … would have these very elaborate and detailed conversations about a complex issue … And when you when you operate intellectually on a high plane, that's what you expect to get back to.”

Even if Johnson felt like a shell of his former self, he remained hopeful. He was moved by the outpouring of support he had received from schools in his district, and he was determined to continue getting better so he could effectively serve students. He was even leaning towards campaigning to keep his seat in the upcoming summer election.

“You want to be up, you want to be going at it,” Johnson said in November. “Some days, you honestly just get tired … But I go to sleep, wake up, and it’s a whole new day, and the day is better than the other one. So, you put your passion behind that.”

San Diego

Amid the challenges of recovery, however, that passion waned. In early January, he said he had decided not to run in the August election.

In December, he had started to lose hope. Because his insurance had only covered two months of rehab, he had stopped going. He grew depressed. He felt like his condition was no longer improving and started to believe he was never going to recover. And if he wasn’t going to recover, then why would he try to keep his seat on the school board?

Even during his recovery, he hadn’t stopped working with the schools. But his priority was doing the right thing for the students of MSCS ― even if that meant stepping aside.

“I thought about me dragging around. I thought I was going to be lacking on words and all that kind of stuff. I thought I was going to have a limp,” Johnson said. “I did not want to get in the way of our children.”

But in early January, he went to San Diego for two weeks, to visit a cousin he had connected with on Facebook but never met. And while there, he was impressed by all he was able to do.

He walked a lot and talked a lot, more easily than expected. He did physical therapy with his cousin’s daughter’s boyfriend, who said to him, “I don’t know if anyone has told you that, but you’ve really progressed, since we’ve been here.”

San Diego was rejuvenating. It seemed to strengthen him, and he returned to Memphis with a newfound sense of optimism and hope.

“I came back, and I thought, you know, I really went out there and did a whole lot,” Johnson said. “Let me just bring it back here.”

He switched insurances and began doing rehab again. He started working out regularly. Along with the other school board members, he interviewed finalists for the then-vacant superintendent post, and ultimately voted for Marie Feagins, Ed.D., who was selected to be the district’s next leader on Feb. 9. He publicly opposed Gov. Bill Lee’s sweeping voucher proposal and introduced a resolution cementing the MSCS board’s stance against it.

He also decided to try and keep his school board seat come election time.

'That keeps me going'

Roughly eight months have now passed since Johnson’s stroke, though he feels like it's been years. He doesn’t feel like he’s back to 100%, but if he was at 10% in November, he’s at 80% now; and he's confident he will fully recover. He’s still going to rehab, and he’s still hard on himself sometimes.

But he isn’t about to give up.

“I do feel that I have something to do,” he said. “I’m part of this great plan that God has put forth for us, and I feel that. … I have to get up and do something. That keeps me going.”

John Klyce covers education and children's issues for The Commercial Appeal. You can reach him at John.klyce@commercialappeal.com.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: MSCS board member Frank Johnson on stroke recovery, reelection bid