Logan / Joy
Logan strumming his 1932 National Steel guitar. Etched on the back was a gent serenading his lady while paddling a canoe.
Logan (l) with Thom Krystofiak. Photo: Frank Fusco
Logan (r) with one of his prize sheep
Logan Johnston talks to Joy Horowitz about being one of too many Roberts, Robs, Robbies and Bobs at Harvard and how the origins of his nickname (hint: think Boston airport) popped up one day in the Adams House dining hall.
After graduating from Harvard, Logan Johnston grew tired of his life in book publishing at Little Brown & Company in Boston and moved with his wife Phyllis to the little town of Gardiner, Maine in 1982. Mostly, he says, they landed at Phyllis’s family farm because it offered a free place to stay.
But over time, they fell madly in love with the town and Logan found himself learning how to run an organic cattle farm on 130 acres of grassland. These days, you can buy an Oakland Farms grass-fed burger at the famous A-1 Diner in town.
“It turned out not to be the farming that got me up every morning,” he says now. “What really turns me on is how to make this one little social unit cohesive and sustainable so members of the family can always feel like this is the place they can come to.”
Along the way, he’s also served on the board of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association and helped to renovate a local theater that was the oldest opera house in Maine. Not to mention play electric guitar in a local rock ’n roll band. Still, looking back, he believes it is the care and feeding of relationships that is the most important thing we can do in life. “I was pretty cocky,” he says of his undergraduate self. “I wish I had been a little more humble.”
AN UPDATE: Nine months after recording this podcast, Logan Johnston died suddenly of an apparent heart attack as he and his wife Phyllis were walking to get their morning paper on Sunday, May 22, 2022. It is with deep sadness that we share the news of Logan’s death — and we send condolences to Phyllis and their son Phillip and daughter-in-law Katherine. Thank you, Logan, for so generously sharing your story with your classmates here. Here is Logan’s obituary and an article about him from the Kennebek Journal.