She’s the ‘unofficial’ Valley Springs ‘Welcome Wagon’ - She’s the ‘unofficial’ Valley Springs ‘Welcome Wagon’ Ardell Johnson shows love for community in many ways@Women

Take a walk or a drive past Ardell and Larry Johnson’s home in Valley Springs on any given day, and just as sure as the sun will come up tomorrow, there’s bound to be a written message on a chalkboard. On this particular day it was “National Onion Rings Day.”

“I suppose the kids will want to know if I have onion rings,” Ardell says. “I don’t.”

It’s the Johnson’s “curbside hospitality” and Ardell’s love for all-things Valley Springs that has deemed her the unofficial title as the town’s “Welcome Wagon.”

Her love for Valley Springs has grown since she moved in 1968 to Valley Springs for her senior year of high school. Her husband Larry, grew up there.

“I’m still a transplant, I’m a newbie,” says the 71-year-old. “But I love Valley Springs.”

She describes the quaint community as a “small town” where “you can know your neighbors, … kids can ride their bikes, go to the park, get on the bus and go to swim lessons.”

“It’s very disappointing when something like the grocery store closes or the station closes, and we hated to lose our bank, our school. The school is Brandon Valley’s best-kept secret, and I think our kids got a great start here,” she said.

As for that roadside message board, Johnson explains it came to life after Larry retired.

“He goes on Google all the time and sees what day it is. You can Google anything and it will tell you,” she said. Since its inception, the message board has become a popular destination for the town’s youth.

“During the summertime, the kids ride by on their bikes to see what day it is and to see if there are any treats in the corn crib,” she tells.

If by chance Johnson isn’t home, the kids, she said, are welcome to pluck a treat off of the plate of goodies waiting for them in the corn crib. She’s best known for her rhubarb cookies and “boyfriend bars,” also recognized as “Scotcharoos.”

“When I was growing up, I didn’t have that many boyfriends. I was overweight and not that popular. I had four brothers and they would bring their friends home, so when they came, the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, so I would always make my ‘boyfriend bars’ and have them out on the table for them,” she said.

In recent years, “Root Beer Float Day” on the message board brought two visitors to the Johnson’s doorstep that day.

“He said he thought he was seeing a mirage,” Johnson says of the man riding his bike from somewhere in Iowa to a funeral in Minnesota. 

As it turned out, Valley Springs was on his route, “So, he stopped and we had a nice visit and he went on his way,” she said.

The second visitor that day was Lonnette Kelley, author of Joy in the Heartland, a book about “life-changing road trips through God’s living fields of South Dakota.” During the pandemic, Kelley found herself bored, lonely and searching for purpose as she sheltered in place. Determined not to let it get her down, she armed herself with a bit of creativity, a spirit of adventure, and desire to find some joy. So, she grabbed her camera and a friend with a pickup truck, and they took their first of many drives within a 50-mile radius of her Sioux Falls home.

As fate would have it, Valley Springs was one of Kelley’s destinations, and as she drove around the town, the Johnson home piqued her curiosity. It also gained her a new friend in Johnson.

The corn crib gazebo and the Johnson’s historic and well-decorated home likely caught Kelley’s eye.

“Anybody is always welcome (to the gazebo),” Johnson says. “They start coming if the lights are on at night and we have fires out here. It’s fun for the kids and the path goes down to the creek and they go to see the fish.”

The holidays never go unnoticed at the Johnson home, including next month’s Booster Days celebration.

“We’re on the parade route,” she says excitedly. “What could be better than that?”

This year’s celebration will be double the party, as the Johnsons will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary a few months ahead of their October wedding date.

“We wanted to celebrate it at Beaver Valley Lutheran because that’s where we were married,” Johnson tells, “but because of the tornado, it’s not going to be ready, so we’re going to celebrate on Booster Days, and we’ll have a parade for our anniversary.”

It was also during the pandemic that Johnson and her grandchildren delivered a May Day basket to every home in the city. 

“It’s just fun to catch people that haven’t done them for years or brings back memories when they used to do them,” she said.

She remembers how the kind act drew mixed reactions.

“Some when they opened the door, you know, COVID was strong, weren’t wanting strangers or people come to their door, so we’d just leave it and run. Others were, ‘Oh, we haven’t had company forever, come on.’ It was fun,” she said.

Festive décor also comes out for Halloween and Christmas at the Johnson home.

“I love Christmas and Halloween, and our daughter, Amy, is the big push for Halloween because we now have more extension cords for Halloween than we do for Christmas,” she said.

This year’s theme is vampires.

“So, we’ll see where the vampires might show up,” Johnson says.

In the summer months, red, white and blue bunting hang from the home’s porch railing. The pride the Johnsons have in their home, she said, was instilled by her parents.

“They were frugal. They grew up and some nights they went to bed hungry. You didn’t throw stuff away. You made use,” she shares. “It’s an old house and it takes a lot of work. When we started working on this house, they (her parents) would go to places and find old lumber, old wood, old stairs, just make due with reuse. It wasn’t a throw-away society.”

In recent years, Johnson has become a fixture at Valley Springs City Commission meetings.

“It’s open to anybody, and it’s surprising the very few that go,” she said. “We do have a voice in Valley, you just have to be there and let it be known.”

She’s also involved with her church, Beaver Valley Lutheran, and is typically at the table for Friday morning breakfasts at the local Legion Hall.

So, what are Johnson’s thoughts about being tagged as the town’s “unofficial Welcome Wagon?” 

“It’s over-rated,” she answers. “It’s just fun to meet new people; it’s not just me. There are other people in town that are great neighbors and love our town, too. Sometimes my kids think I’m nosy. Well, you don’t want to be nosy, but you want to be helpful and be there to take care of others, because there are many here that don’t have family.”