# John Walton **John Thomas Walton** (1946–2005) was the second son of [[Sam Walton]] and [[Helen Walton]], a decorated [[Vietnam War]] [[Green Berets]] veteran, and a major school-choice philanthropist. He died June 27, 2005, when his homebuilt ultralight aircraft crashed in Jackson, Wyoming. His son [[Lukas Walton]] inherited his share of the family fortune and redirected it toward climate and sustainability investing. ## Background - Born October 8, 1946 - Attended the College of Wooster; dropped out in 1968 to enlist after the Tet Offensive - Served in Special Forces as part of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG) - Awarded the Silver Star for saving members of his unit under fire in the A Shau Valley and Laos - Chairman of True North Venture Partners after military service ## School-choice activism John co-founded the **Children's Scholarship Fund**, which provided private-school tuition scholarships for low-income families — one of the largest school-choice initiatives before the charter movement scaled up. His education philanthropy aligned with the [[Walton Family Foundation]]'s broader push for charter schools and voucher programs. ## The Children's Scholarship Fund Founded in 1998 with $100 million from Walton and the financier Ted Forstmann, the Children's Scholarship Fund drew 1.25 million applications for its first 40,000 partial scholarships — the number the voucher movement has cited ever since as proof of demand. Walton was also a founding funder of the Alliance for School Choice and of the ballot campaigns for vouchers in California (2000) and Michigan (2000), both of which lost badly; the lesson the movement drew, that vouchers should be legislated rather than put to voters, is the strategy that produced the universal-choice statutes of the 2020s. See [[School Choice]]. ## Why he matters for the KB John is the missing link between Walton Gen-2 and the family's most unconventional Gen-3 heir, [[Lukas Walton]], who took his father's ~20% stake in [[Walton Enterprises LLC]] and built [[Builders Vision]], a $15 billion climate-focused investment platform. John's military record and school-choice work also connect the Walton dynasty to both the veterans' philanthropy world and the education-reform network.