In Memory

James Anderson

James Anderson



 
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07/12/11 06:58 PM #1    

Janet Corns (Bradbury)

James - I miss you.  I remember your musical talents, your great smile, your caring and considerate nature.  I know you are very much missed by your family.  Janet Corns Bradbury


07/27/11 10:56 AM #2    

John Overholt (Class Of '70)

I am saddened to learn of Jim's passing.  I was a senior, he a junior when we sat together in the trumpet section of orchestra. He and Tom Morton were playing in a Pop/Rock Band, earning a little money on weekends.  And he had several years of experience in model rocketry.  Planned to go to MIT, was a school friend of Tomasine Berg.  Rest in peace, Jim.


08/13/11 11:19 AM #3    

Suzanne Westbrook

I knew Thomasine more than Jim, but always remember them being together. He passed away in 2009 - here's a link to his obituary:

http://www.folsomfuneral.com/?p=534


08/23/11 04:08 PM #4    

Kerry Parham

I was absolutely crushed when I got word of Jim's untimely and unexpected passing.   Our fathers worked together, and starting in Kindergarten we lived just about 1/2 block apart in Pleasant Valley (and within a block of other North alums' Chris Pinkham, Bob Schroeder, and Karen James).  Our elementary classmates soon realized Jim was in a different IQ league as he already knew "all the numbers" when we started kindergarten.  He was often my Boy Scout patrol buddy and tent companion.  On one particularly cold camping trip during the middle of a dark starless night we awoke to commotion in our tent and realized a cow had nuzzled open our tent flap and walked into the small 2-man tent.  A small cow pie was left on the edge of his sleeping bag as a memento of the visit.   In the 7th grade Jim wrote Estes Industries that his less capable friends (i.e., my brother, Mark George, and me) could not do the math to compute the maximum height and velocity of the model rockets we were all enamored with, and if they would rewrite the equations in this stated manner it would be easier.  This was the basis of a national science fair award he won that year and what I think is still published today (but then again, now there's probably an app for that).   While some of us spent most of high school killing off brain cells drinking beer, Jim applied that super brain power to earn a PHD at MIT after receiving his undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering at WSU.  The grant Jim was awarded, by the highest rated engineering college in the world, is given annually to just 2 outstanding undergraduate students; no strings attached.   Jim's doctoral thesis was cutting edge research on synthetic speech.  He then went on to spend his entire career working for Lincoln Labs (the Pentagon think tank) and often couldn't tell me about most of what he worked on, but that work included: An important and key oversight role in the development of the FAA's collision avoidance system, something to do with Reagan's Star Wars project, speaker and organizer at several "embedded computing" conferences (he said his stuff wasn't supposed to blow up), cooling and protecting from thermal stress the massive computers that make up the nodes of the internet, etc.   He owned a technology company on the side and held several patents related to synthetic speech.    Jim was a great loyal friend, that loved life, music, and most of all his family.  I still have his last family-photo Christmas card setting on my dresser.  I still can't believe he's gone; all too often the good die young.   


07/09/21 12:53 PM #5    

Philip Parker

Ironically, shortly before I joined this website I had a dream about Jim. Seeing that there is an opportunity to comment in his memory, I am compelled to share a few of my memories of him. Jim was a great friend. I knew him from 9th grade on and kept in touch with him until the end of his life. We lived a block apart and rode to North High every morning with a friend taking the bus home each afternoon. The two of us walked home from the bus stop each day and there was always interesting banter about all kinds of subjects. Jim loved to share his scientific interests with me and I loved it as well although some of it was lost on me. But our symbiosis really centered around music. Jim was a very talented trumpet player and knew as much about music as I did. It was the subject we discussed most on our way home. We spent quite a bit of time with each other during our high school tenure not just being in band, orchestra, All-City Jazz Ensemble and summer musicals, but also hanging out in the neighborhood with other friends, playing, laughing at his dog Roamer (who would eat anything) and just fooling around. Something that most people didn't know about him was that he worked out and had a iron grip. I guess maybe we were horsing around but he clamped down on my hand once and I thought he was going to break it!  He also loved to share his rocketry skill, putting a small camera in it as payload and taking photos of the neighborhood from a couple of thousand feet up. When I think that this was circa 1968, I suspect there weren't many 10th graders doing this! Cutting-edge technology! He would have love drones. He and I liked astronomy and he had a good telescope. That's how I learned stuff like the middle star of the Big Dipper is a double star called Mizor and Alcor (horse and rider) and if you could see them both with the naked eye you had good acute vision. He was simply one of those kids who was curious about everything and passionately dead-set on learning about it.

Jim's wife Thomasine and my wife were flute majors at WSU. We all graduated the same year and went off to graduate school - they were at U. of Michigan and we were at Indiana U. He was a groomsman in my wedding and I was Best Man in his. Jim then went to MIT for his doctorate and had a very successful career in engineering at Lincoln Labs along with MIMIC - a synthetic voice/hearing aid patent he owned.  For the next few years we would see each other every other year or so in Wichita over Christmas break or during the summer but eventually kids came along and our paths never crossed again. We always sent Christmas letters to each other so we were able to keep up with our lives and adventures. I was crushed when I learned of his untimely death. I think of him often and have a host of memories of the conversations on our walks home after school. A brilliant and talented man, a wonderful friend who was so kind, unassuming, affable and just all-around impressive. I really miss him. 


07/10/21 01:31 PM #6    

Jill Aronis (Ballou)

Reading again Kerry's loving tribute to Jim, and Phillip's recent tribute detailing his vivid treasured memories of Jim, I am filled with renewed humility and wonder, and sadness that he is not with us.  Something seems so wrong, he should be.  It has now been ten years since his passing and we still miss him.  These pieces are both beautifully written.  Thank you, Phillip, for reminding us of Jim.  Your dream was for a purpose and so was joining the North High class of '71 online.  


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