Latimer A. Johns

Class of 1911: Ripon’s first Rhodes Scholar

At Ripon, Latimer A. Johns majored in economics and participated in debate, Glee Club, College Days and Law Club. He also was editor of the Crimson yearbook and treasurer of the State Oratorical Association.

Johns was born Sept. 1, 1892, in Cotter, Iowa, where his father, John Rhys Johns, was a minister. He then was pastor of the Welsh Presbyterian Church in Randolph, Wisconsin, and served on the Ripon College Board of Trustees from 1904-07.

After graduation from Ripon, Latimer A. Johns attended Ohio State University for a year and then served as assistant pastor at the Grand Avenue Congregational Churchn in Milwaukee for three years. While in Milwaukee, Johns applied for and received the Rhodes Scholarship.

Johns was attending Oxford University when World War I began. He immediately returned to the United States, enlisted in the regular Army field artillery and, after receiving his commission as a second lieutenant, saw extended action on the Western Front.

He was killed Sept. 30, 1918, near Gesnes-en-Argonne, France. For “extraordinary heroism in action,” he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross posthumously. His citation read: “… Lieutenant Johns was in command of a platoon in support of an assaulting battalion of infantry. During the attack he went far ahead of the infantry to establish an observation post, where he directed fire from his guns, thereby rendering valuable assistance to the advancing battalion. After several attempts, he went through a heavy enemy barrage and enfilading machine-gun fire, but when returning to his post he was killed.”

The College Days student newspaper wrote: “Few men in their student days give surer promise of a brilliant future. In every phase of college life, in every one of the student activities he was found in the first rank.

“In the classroom, in debate, in oratory, in athletics, in the Glee Club, at the organ, in social relations he was always and easily among the best. …

“Few who heard him speak — at his last appearance in Ripon — at a College Vesper service, will forget the ease and poise and grace of his manner, or the strong intellectual yet practical power of his address.”