William “Bill” Potter Johnson, 90, who started a lifelong career in community journalism in Princeton, Illinois and went on to build a chain of regional newspapers, died on May 18, 2025, at his home in St. Simons Island, Georgia.

Johnson was born on May 4, 1935, the son of Helen Potter Johnson and William Zweigle Johnson. He grew up in Henry, Illinois, then moved to Princeton, where he graduated from Princeton High School in 1953. He graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in journalism in 1957.

At Michigan, he was a member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity, and led a number of Interfraternity Council activities such as MichiGras. In later years he spearheaded fund drives to help maintain his fraternity, raising more than $1 million to refurbish the house and assist in recruiting new members.

After college, Johnson became an officer in the U.S. Navy, serving aboard the minesweeper USS Bittern. He completed his service in 1961 as a full lieutenant. He returned to Princeton, where he became the general manager of the Bureau County Republican newspaper. He married Pauline “Pauley” Rowe on May 18, 1968, in Miami.

Johnson and Rowe left Princeton in 1970, and later he helped his aunt, Mary Potter Bailey, sell the Bureau County Republican to Shaw Media. In the ensuing years, Johnson became the owner and publisher of a string of weekly, semiweekly and four-day-a-week newspapers in northern California and the mountains of Colorado.

By 1976, he and Rowe had moved to Tucson, Arizona, and were raising their children in Oro Valley. Johnson enjoyed long, daily walks around his neighborhood of Oro Valley Country Club, as well as playing tennis and golf. He also enjoyed attending daughter Darragh’s tennis matches and son Kelly’s baseball games.

Known for nurturing future generations of journalists, his career was marked by two national events. He encouraged one of his first employees in California to buy the weekly newspaper The Point Reyes Light, which went on to win the Pulitzer Prize’s highest award in 1979: the Meritorious Public Service award for investigative journalism for its coverage of the cult Synanon.

Johnson’s newspaper, Sky-Hi News, in Granby, Colorado, became national news when a disgruntled local resident attacked the newspaper and other buildings in town in his fortified bulldozer, an event that was subsequently chronicled in the book “Killdozer” by the paper’s editor, Patrick Brower.

Johnson owned the Sky-Hi News, Middle Park Times, Winter Park Manifest and the Grand County Daily Tribune. He also published a replate of the Sky-Hi News called the Grand Lake Prospector. He sold the newspapers to Swift Newspapers in 2007. He owned the Grand County papers between 1980 and 2007.

Johnson sold his empire of newspapers, known as Johnson Media Inc., to Swift Newspapers in 2007 and retired to Vero Beach, Florida. In 2015, he and Rowe bought a home in St. Simons Island and began spending with their son Kelly and his family, eventually moving to St. Simons full-time.

Johnson is survived by his wife, Pauley, of St. Simons Island; two children, Darragh Johnson of Alexandria, Va.; William “Kelly” Johnson, M.D. of St. Simons Island; grandchildren Potter, Lexi, Quill, Huxley, Liam and Finn; a brother, Gregg Johnson of Potomac, Maryland.; a sister Terry Lesch of Louisville, Kentucky.; and five nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his parents and his aunt. A burial service for Johnson was held at the Henry Cemetery on Nov. 9.