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At the 1998 Staatskongress the first Judith Eaton Award was presented. This award is given by the IASG Executive Board to a person who has contributed significantly to the spirit of the IASG Staatskongress. For 2006, Lathrop Johnson was selected as the Judith Eaton Award recipient. Congratulations! |
| Lathrop Johnson was almost born in Indiana, but his parents moved to Kansas City, Missouri, before he arrived. He grew up in Beirut, Lebanon, and Teheran, Iran, before completing his studies in New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Maryland. After learning some Arabic, Persian, and French, he started taking German in ninth grade, where his teacher was Ruth Kantz. She was incredible; of the fifteen students in that first-year German class, three majored in German when they got to college and two went on to receive graduate degrees. Dr. Johnson worked with Nietzsche, Mann, and Hesse as an undergraduate, and his Ph.D. thesis investigated love poetry of the early eighteenth century. After teaching in Illinois and Florida, he came to Ball State University in 1979 and soon became active in the Indiana Association of Teachers of German. He first served as Northern Representative (1983-85), then Vice President (1990-92), and President (1992-94) of IATG. He held DAAD fellowships in Germany in 1969-70 and 1986, and Fulbright fellowships in 1982 and 1995. After nominations from IATG, he was selected as the Indiana Outstanding Foreign Language Professor in 1995 and 2002. Prof. Johnson has been involved with the Indiana Association of Students of German for the last quarter century, attending Staatskongresse in Indianapolis, West Lafayette, and Bloomington before bringing the IASG Staatskongress to Muncie fifteen years ago. He writes: "I worked closely with Judy Eaton and was always amazed by her energy and dedication. Watching the high school and middle school teachers at each of the Staatskongresse has been an inspiration to me. They prepare their students throughout the year for the Staatskongress, and then spend the day from well before dawn until late at night, not only looking after their own students, but giving workshops, judging competitions, and helping out wherever help is needed. And they still polka up a storm at the end of the day. They are the real heroes of the IASG. I can only accept the Judy Eaton award in appreciation of all that they do for German in Indiana." |