Randy Johnson taught, coached for more than 40 years
York News-Times reprint
Longtime York High School track coach Randy Johnson has died at age 70, YPS superintendent Mitch Bartholomew announced Monday morning.
The school district was offering counseling services for students and faculty from 2 to 4 p.m. Monday, with crisis team members available in the York High School counseling office.
According to a press release from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, Polk County Dispatch received a call at 6:09 a.m. Monday morning about a collision on Highway 92, east of the F Road intersection near Osceola. That is about eight miles west of Osceola.
The investigation determined Johnson was traveling westbound on Highway 92 in an ATV with a pickup also traveling westbound. Per the press release, the driver of the pickup did not see the ATV and struck it from behind. Johnson was ejected into the north ditch upon impact, while both vehicles left the highway and continued into the ditch, where they came to rest in a tree line.
Johnson was transported to the Annie Jeffrey Memorial Health Center in Osceola, where he was later pronounced deceased.
A longtime teacher and coach at York High School, Johnson, a Stromsburg native, retired from teaching in 2011 but continued to coach for the Dukes’ track team up through this past spring.
Johnson joined the YHS staff in 1979-80 and initially did not have a contract for track and field, instead coaching basketball.
However, one night during that first year, Johnson — who pole vaulted at Stromsburg High School and then collegiately with Nebraska Wesleyan and Kearney State College (now UNK) — noticed some students on the track in street clothes.
He stopped and talked with the students, eventually vaulting for them in his street clothes — an exchange witnessed by then-head coach Phil Towle, who persuaded Johnson to help as a volunteer.
Johnson had coached the YHS vaulters ever since; after 32 years of teaching, he retired from the classroom in 2011, but the school district asked him to stay on as the pole vault coach.
Johnson agreed, and he remained in that role through the 2025-26 school year. This past spring, Johnson coached seniors Carlye Philipp and Brayden Wegrzyn to Burke Stadium and the Class B state meet, with Wegrzyn landing on the podium in a three-way tie for silver at 14-6.
In all, Johnson leaves a legacy of 32 years in the classroom and more than 45 years of coaching for York Public Schools.
