Dan Johnson is the founding executive director of the Manitoba Special Olympics. In this role, he has inspired thousands of volunteers and athletes across Manitoba, and made the provincial chapter a model for the entire nation. It was in the late 1970s as a physical education teacher at Prince Charles School that Dan Johnson first began to enter his special needs athletes into regular high school cross-country events. In 1978, he and former NHL player Ted Irvine took a team of Manitoba athletes to the Canadian Special Olympic Games in Regina and, upon his return he left his teaching position to dedicate his energies
full-time to getting Special Olympics off the ground in Manitoba. He proceeded to develop a club system, where individuals with intellectual disabilities could go to work on their athletic skills with the first club being established in 1979. The next year, in 1980, the Manitoba Special Olympics was created. Within five years, the Manitoba Special Olympics grew to 125 clubs serving 1,500 Manitoba athletes. Dan Johnson wrote what would become the program standard for Canadian Special Olympics, leaving an indelible mark on every facet of that organization when he retired in 1995. He has since been inducted into both the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame and the Manitoba Special Olympics Hall of Fame.
