Leaving a positive impression on others was a trademark of South Memphis native Willie B. Dean.
“He has made me a better person personally,” said Tymikia Glenn, director of the Georgette & Cato Johnson YMCA in Whitehaven.
Glenn said Dean was well-known in the YMCA's leadership circle and she had known him since she joined the organization in 2014. When she moved to Memphis in 2023 to take over as head of the Whitehaven-based branch, she began meeting with Dean monthly and he became a mentor and close friend, she said.
Dean grappled with being a person of color in leadership roles throughout his decades-long career, and his advice and positive attitude helped her through a difficult transition, she said.
“He always had the ability to create hope out of adversity,” Glenn said. “He had this magnetic personality. He always found light in every situation.”
Dean, who served as a youth leader for nearly four decades, primarily at the YMCA, died in Memphis on August 22. He was 73 years old.
Dean was born on March 15, 1951, in Potts Camp, Mississippi. In his youth, he and his family moved to West Memphis, Arkansas, and later to Memphis, where Dean attended the now-closed Dunn Elementary School and graduated from Hamilton High School.
Neither of Dean's parents graduated from high school, but he and his siblings were academically successful, said his wife, Carol Johnson-Dean. Dean graduated from Memphis State University (now the University of Memphis). He later earned master's and doctorate degrees from the University of Minnesota and an executive MBA from the University of Nebraska, followed by additional graduate studies in urban planning at the University of Texas.
The scholar turned to public service – first as an assistant probation officer for Memphis and Shelby County and later during a decades-long career with the YMCA. He began his career with the YMCA as program director of the Glenview Branch in South Memphis.
During his career with the organization, Dean has held several leadership positions, including general manager of Monsanto's St. Louis office, chief operating officer of the YMCA of Greater Cleveland, and president and CEO of the YMCA of Arlington, Texas. He also served as the first black CEO of the Omaha-Council Bluffs Metropolitan YMCA in Nebraska.
Dean retired from the YMCA in 2012. After his retirement, he used his leadership skills to serve two Minneapolis nonprofits: he served as general manager of radio station KFAI and executive director of Youth CARE.
In the Twin Cities he met Carol Johnson-Dean.
Johnson-Dean said they met in 2017. She was living in Memphis at the time and was in Minneapolis for a funeral. The two met after the service in a group of former and current Memphis residents, and when she learned Dean was from Memphis, she told him to call her the next time he was in the Bluff City.
And he did, she said. The two had their first date at the Capital Grille. They were both widowers, and Johnson-Dean said their relationship reflected a shared respect for their first partners and their children. The two also shared an affinity for community and academia. Johnson-Dean served as superintendent of Memphis City Schools and later as interim president of LeMoyne-Owen College. The two married in 2018 and lived in Memphis.
“We shared so much joy and love together,” said Johnson-Dean. “We only had seven years, but it was a wonderful seven years.”
In 2022, Dean wrote his memoir, Overcoming: How Faith, Family, and Friends Helped a Black Man Overcome the Impossible. The memoir detailed Dean's life and the adversities he and his family faced.
Johnson-Dean said that despite the fact that his father was a sharecropper, he and his siblings all found paths to success and ways to give back to their respective communities.
Funeral services for Dean will be held at 11 a.m. Friday, August 30, at St. Andrew AME Church, 1876 S. Parkway East in Memphis. Viewing will begin at 10 a.m.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the Georgette & Cato Johnson YMCA, St. Andrew AME Church and/or the Memphis Symphony Orchestra.
Neil Strebig is a journalist at The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at [email protected]901-426-0679 or via X: @neilStrebig.
