Doug Clark: For him, ‘fast learner’ an understatement

From the very get-go, there was something extraordinary about Lance Johnson.

Moments after his birth – as physicians and his mother, Angela, looked on in awe – the newborn somehow managed to roll over on his own.

By his first birthday, Lance was identifying words on flash cards.

At 18 months he was reading The Spokesman-Review. Whether any exposure to my column interfered with the lad’s progress is unknown.

But by 3, Lance was discussing the product label information he gleaned off items during trips to the grocery store. He enrolled in Discovery School that year and would devour 80 books a week that Angela would lug home by bus from the public library.

He was reading and spelling at a college level at age 5.

The Spokane boy’s uncanny accomplishments continued. When Lance was in sixth grade (he was 7 at the time) he was allowed to take one class every quarter at Eastern Washington University. He entered high school and started the Running Start program the next year.

Lance’s latest achievement occurs this morning at the Spokane Arena.

Although he turned 16 on Friday and has yet to get his driver’s license, Lance will don cap and gown and participate in Gonzaga University’s commencement ceremonies. He graduates from Gonzaga with a B.A. in international studies.

“Highly unusual” is how Dale Goodwin, the university’s director of public relations, puts it. “We can’t think of another student who came in so young and completed his degree.”

I’ve tried several times over the years to interview this whiz kid I kept hearing about.

Each time, I was shut out. Angela didn’t want to draw undue attention to her amazing son. Finally, with graduation looming, she agreed it was time for Lance to receive some well-deserved recognition.

So, on Thursday afternoon, I met Lance at his South Hill home.

I have to confess I expected the worst. All the youthful brainiacs I’ve seen paraded on TV talk shows were mouthy, annoying twits.

What a pleasure to discover that Lance isn’t like that. He’s a polite, likable young man. I didn’t detect a trace of arrogance in him.

Quite the contrary, Lance is actually self-effacing and good-humored.

“I don’t feel superior to anybody at all,” he told me as we sat at a table on his front porch. “I don’t see intelligence as that big a deal.”

No joke. Lance isn’t one of those grade-obsessive overachievers. He couldn’t even tell me his GPA.

There’s a reason for that attitude, said his father, Bob, a car salesman, in a later interview. It’s Angela. “God couldn’t have provided a better mother for a child,” he added.

Mother’s Day is the perfect moment for Lance’s graduation.

The more I learned about Lance, the more Angela’s role became apparent. This mom made it her personal mission not only to allow her gifted son to grow academically, but also to let him grow up as normally as possible.

There aren’t any educational road maps for this “one in a billion” boy, as his father calls him.

“Each step of the way,” said Angela, “we had to make it work.”

That took sacrifice. There were countless meetings with educators, some of whom were not inclined to accelerate the child’s schooling.

Even more daunting, perhaps, were the daily logistics of it all.

You can’t let a 10-year-old kid wander around a college campus by himself. So, to accompany her son, Angela developed a schedule that would grind most parents into dust.

Angela is a mental health counselor. For years, she said, she has worked the graveyard shift at Sacred Heart Medical Center’s psychiatric unit. That way, she could leave her job in time to take Lance to school and be there for him.

Day after day, Angela would catch naps in her car while Lance took classes.

After three years at EWU, Lance decided to enroll at Gonzaga University.

He was 11.

Lance found the GU student body “very accepting.” He also took to the school’s hallmark of helping others.

Always a political junkie, Lance changed his major from biology to international studies. He has specialized in Asian affairs and has taken three years of Japanese.

“Lance is sweet as a child and smart as a college student,” said Seiko Katsushima, who teaches Japanese language and culture classes at GU.

Lance is also passionate about computer programming. He claims to be pretty fair at playing Laser Tag, too.

“With the time I’ve spent there, I should get some (academic) credit,” he said with a laugh.

For now, however, Lance’s goals aren’t so atypical from those of any 16-year-old: Get a job. Buy a car. Get that driver’s license.

Then – oh, maybe when he gets closer to the ripe old age of 17 – Lance will start thinking about graduate school.