Mary Johnson
Mary Johnson, of Blockhouse Bay, received the Insignia of a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to the deaf community. Miss Johnson has contributed to the deaf community as a volunteer for more than 50 years. She worked towards raising public awareness of deafness and was involved in co-ordinating the first collection of photographs for the first New Zealand Sign Language Dictionary. She taught sign language to the first group of sign language interpreters in New Zealand. She was a founding member of the Otago Deaf Society and has been a member of the Auckland Deaf Society since 1977. She is President of the Senior Citizens Group of the Auckland Deaf Society and a member of the Deaf Association of New. Miss Johnson has been an active member of the Mt Tabor Trust and the New Zealand Sign Language Teachers Association.