Members of the U.S. Embassy Bangkok community are paying tribute to the memory of Ambassador Darryl N. Johnson who passed away on June 24, at the age of 80. Ambassador Johnson served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Thailand from 2001 to 2004. He previously had been a Peace Corps Volunteer in Thailand, in Group 3, from 1963 to 1965 and taught at a public school in Lamphun.
Ambassador Johnson was much loved and respected by those that knew and served with him. He showed a great passion for Thailand and its people, having had a lifelong connection to the country. Darryl met his first wife, the former Carol Lee Franz, in Peace Corps training and they were posted together to Thailand. Their daughter Darawan was born here in 1964 at McCormick Hospital in Chiang Mai.
Ambassador Johnson later joined the State Department and served his first post in Bombay, India. His other assignments included postings in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Moscow, Beijing, and Warsaw; and as Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asia and Pacific Affairs and the first U.S. Ambassador to Lithuania, following the breakup of the Soviet Union.
