Education: Welcome to Wayne

“I’ve seen time and again how people in a purely residential community will vote against a higher school tax. The only answer is to bring in industry.” So says energetic elementary school Music Teacher Louise Johnson, 39, in Wayne, N.J. (pop. 18,425), who fervently backs that town’s industry-recruiting campaign (U.S. Rubber, Manhattan Shirt) as a way to reap more tax dollars to build better schools. Last winter Teacher Johnson heard a rumor that rural Alpine, N.J. (pop. 900), 19 miles away, was lukewarm to an offer from American Cyanamid Co. to build an $8,000,000 general office in the township. That was enough for Louise Johnson. A quick-witted Holyoke girl (’40), she dashed off a note to Cyanamid’s Manhattan headquarters, extolling Wayne and assuring the company of a warm welcome “in case the going gets rough at Alpine.”

Last summer nature-loving Alpinists vetoed Cyanamid, even though revenue from its new buildings would have virtually freed them from their local tax burden. On hearing this news, Cyanamid recalled Louise Johnson’s appeal and made a thorough inspection of Wayne. Last week American Cyanamid announced that Teacher Johnson had landed her big fish. Cyanamid will soon break ground for its new headquarters on a 180-acre site in Wayne, will eventually swell the budget for the community’s nine schools (6,000 students) by some $150,000 yearly, thanks to Louise Johnson.