A $150,000 scholarship supports Sedona ED staffers
The Emergency Department at Northern Arizona Health Care’s Sedona Campus, which opened in 1996, was renamed to the William and Deborah Johnson Emergency Department, during a Wednesday, March 11, ceremony attended by about 60 community members.
“Bill was a maverick,” NAH Chief Philanthropy Officer Larry Kushner said. “He didn’t follow conventional norms. He was his own person, and that was something to cherish and to embrace. He also was fair, he always listened to other points of view. Sometimes that informed his thinking, sometimes it didn’t, but he always gave you the benefit of the doubt. He was my friend and I loved Bill Johnson.
“We celebrate a legacy of a man who poured himself into this community.”
Bill Johnson, who died in September 2023 at age 82, was a Yale-educated U.S. Army veteran who climbed to the top of corporate America — consulting at McKinsey and Company, serving as CFO of Standard Brands, and eventually becoming chairman and CEO of Scientific-Atlanta. After retiring to Sedona in 2011, his wife Debbie after just a distinguished career purchased what became Cleaner Quicker Car Wash and Detailing in 2014.
“Several years ago, there were a lot of rumors and concerns that NAH was going to eliminate the Sedona Emergency Room … so Bill did what Bill does best, and he started researching,” Debbie Johnson said. “Bill pulled out all the reasons why this facility was so very important to this community, the lives that were saved, the lives that were changed, and how important [is and] that nothing else could fill that need like this facility here.”
“With that in mind, he and Kushner got busy putting together a plan on developing a strong relationship between NAH and this community.
“Bill spent the last four years of his life working [to keep the ED open]. … Bill was very ill and had declining health at that time, but he did not let that slow him down or stop him from completing his mission.”
“Bill would never give up, ever; you could not win an argument with Bill, because he would keep going until you gave in,” Debbie Johnson said. “He’s probably looking down and just tears in his eyes and heart bursting open about today.”
Outside of advocacy, the Johnsons also funded a scholarship supporting emergency department staff. Candace Denton and oncology nurse navigator Rebecca Daltroff were also announced as the inaugural recipients of the Bill and Debbie Johnson Health Care Award scholarships in 2025.
“This beautiful symphony evolved when Bill passed away in September of 2023 at Flagstaff Medical Center,” Kushner said. “Dwight and Andrea Kadar, absolutely instrumental in our ability to be able to take Bill’s passing and be able to create this scholarship fund, Mike and Christine Schroeder and so many of you I look around this space, so many of you [who] we didn’t even know four or five years ago, and you contributed to this program, our scholarship program … It was $50,000 we shot right past that. Then it became $100,000 we shot right past that. And today it rests at $150,000 … because of this community, and it started, and it started because of [the Johnsons].”
Daltroff said she received a $1,500 scholarship that she used to pay down her remaining student loan debt.
“I was pregnant at the end of nursing school and that was almost three years ago,” Daltroff, a mother of two said. “I was working in the emergency department when I was finishing up nursing school as a tech so I couldn’t work as much [and] I had to take out those loans to help me just survive. To have a little bit of that paid off from the support of Debbie Johnson was really meaningful [and] it gave me resolve.
It inspires me because there’s people that care about us as health care workers, so people that want to invest their time and money into our growth and development, means a lot to me, and it means a lot to me as a mom, because I feel like I can be more present because of that financial assistance, because I’m getting one step closer to paying off those student loans, which can cause stress.”
Residents can also make a donation directly to the NAH Office of Philanthropy in Bill Johnson’s memory at nahealth.com/office-philanthropy.
