In 2000, she was selected as one of MADD's top 20 "Difference Makers". She also organized a peripheral neuropathy support group at Johns Hopkins University of 100 patients who live around Baltimore.

Shirley W. Johnson, whose personal tragedy of losing her son to a drunken driver resulted in her becoming a major voice in the Maryland chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, died March 9 of complications from a stroke at Glen Meadows retirement community in Glen Arm. She was 91.
"Shirley was a founding mother in Maryland of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. She was a highly personable and respected leader," said Keith S. Franz, who has been active in MADD for more than 30 years. "She was kind, persuasive and loved by everyone."
Born Shirley West and raised in Westfield, N.J., she graduated in 1940 from Westfield High School. After graduating in 1944 with a degree in history from Middlebury College, she worked for five years as an Arthur Murray dance instructor in Newark, N.J.
She met her future husband, Leight Johnson Sr., in 1947 when the couple shared a chairlift ride at a ski resort in Stowe, Vt. They married in 1949 and lived in Philadelphia before moving to Baltimore in 1955.