JOANN (WILSON) CARLSON

Class of 1949
​Inducted in 2002

Joanne was inducted into the SHSAA Hall of Fame in 2002.

Dr. Carlson recently retired as the Chair of the Department of Education at College of Saint Mary. Noted nationally and internationally for her work in pre-adolescent reading, Dr. Carlson began her 50-year teaching career the fall after her graduation from South High at the age of 17. She will continue to work with educators as Professor Emeritus at the College of Saint Mary.

The holder of the ConAgra Distinguished Professorship, Dr. Carlson is a member of the Reading Hall of Fame and was named a Woman Visionary by the YWCA and honored by Ak-Sar-Ben as the Midlands Outstanding Educator. As the Chair of the Education Department, Dr. Carlson instituted and implemented several programs which have serviced many of Omaha's poorest minority families including the SMART program which brought girls from Girls, Inc. to the college every Tuesday and Thursday night to study math, science and related technologies.

She also founded the PALS program in which college students traveled to some of Omaha's most economically deprived schools to tutor in reading and writing. Dr. Carlson is the author of more than a dozen articles and textbooks and has presented at more than three dozen national and international reading conferences.