Background
Margaret Johnson Bailes was born in the Bronx. When she was 5, she moved to Eugene, Oregon with her family after her father, Albert "Duke" Johnson, decided it would be a good place to raise his children.
Margaret Johnson Bailes was born in the Bronx. When she was 5, she moved to Eugene, Oregon with her family after her father, Albert "Duke" Johnson, decided it would be a good place to raise his children.
When Bailes was 9, a chance attendance as a spectator to an athletics event at Hayward Field would lead her to meet Wendy Jerome, the wife of Harry Jerome. Wendy Jerome saw that Bailes had talent and soon became her coach. At 16 Margaret Bailes was one of the top United States. sprinters with a fifth place in the 1967 Amateur Athletic Union 200 m.
Bailes still holds the all-time Oregon state high school records for 100 meters (1129s) and 200 meters (2374s), set in 1968 while a she was a student at Churchill High School in Eugene, Oregon.
She was inducted into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame in 1991. She retired from the sport at the age of 17.