Mark Skolfield Johnson

Mark grew up in North Berwick, Maine, the youngest of four children of Clement Skolfield Johnson III and Patricia Bertha (Norton) Johnson. Mark attended MSAD #60 schools and graduated in the top ten in his class from Noble High School in 1985. He graduated from the University of Southern Maine and attended graduate school at Loyola University in Chicago, IL, where he completed his Master’s degree in Philosophy. While working on his PhD thesis dissertation at Loyola, Mark took a teaching faculty position in August 1996 in Philosophy at St. Joseph’s College in Standish, Maine. He served at St. Joseph’s through August 2007 as a greatly respected and beloved faculty advisor to many college students and teacher of courses in philosophy and ethics. Mark later joined the staff at Shalom House in Portland where he served as an administrator and caregiver to the residents until he stopped in 2020 due to illness.

Mark enjoyed teaching and serving others, and he loved the life of the mind. He was always great fun, an unassuming and good-natured person with a very quick, clever wit and dry sense of humor who could see irony and find humor in nearly any situation. He enjoyed shooting sports, reading, a good debate on any subject, and he loved playing cards and other games with his friends and family.

Mark is survived by his three older siblings, Joyce of Portland, Bryan of North Berwick, and Lester and wife Eveleen of Virginia Beach, VA, and by his nieces and nephews, Bryce and Brianna Reinhard of Portland and Chicago, respectively, and Katherine and Benjamin Johnson of Virginia Beach.

Out of respect for his wishes, Mark’s memory is being celebrated in a small private family gathering.

In lieu of flowers, donations could be made to a scholarship fund which was established by the Johnson Family at Noble High School for a graduating student pursuing a career in teaching, “The Pat and Sko Johnson Memorial Scholarship Fund c/o MSAD #60”: Attention Kristin Cole, Superintendent’s Office, P.O. Box 819, North Berwick, ME 03906.