[IndianaTrails] Sad news about Shirley James

[Morris, Steve]

Yesterday we learned that Shirley James passed away.  Shirley was a long
time trail advocate from the Evansville area.  She was instrumental in
the ongoing development of the Pigeon Creek Greenway and advocated for
regional trail connections across Southwest Indiana.  Shirley will be
missed greatly by many of us in the trail community.  Below is a news
article from the Evansville newspaper.  There were no details yet on
services, but here is a link to the newspaper if you would like to check
the obituary section tomorrow -
www.legacy.com/CourierPress/Obituaries.asp
 
Steve Morris
DNR Division of Outdoor Recreation
Ph: 317-232-4751
 

Greenway champion James dies


As a young woman, Shirley James, daughter of a nuclear engineer in the
Pacific Northwest, took an ocean freighter to South America and nearly
married a plantation owner she'd met while attending Washington State
University.

She twice lived in Europe. But her ultimate adventure, enduring more
than three decades, was as the indefatigable crusader of Evansville's
West Side.

James, the unquestioned leading champion of the Pigeon Creek Greenway
Passage since her appointment in 1990 to a committee charged with
building it, died Thursday at Deaconess Hospital after a long battle
with cancer. She was 75.

Her friend and ally Bonnie Kolb recalled how James typically turned away
or changed the subject when a conversation turned to bad-mouthing.

Organizer in 1976 of the Westside Improvement Association, she won
recognition for everything from cleaning up garbage dumps to driving
efforts for the Greenway expansion.

"With all the wit and experience and talent she had, I thought she could
do wonders and she did," Kolb said. 

It was the Greenway that Kolb and others believe will stand as James'
crowning achievement. Kolb said she was motivated to work at James' side
by her sheer determination. "She just never let anything stop her. There
were all kinds of hurdles, but she got over them."

Worked hard

When James learned her yearslong battle with cancer had become terminal,
"she worked doubly hard that Greenway was so important to her," Kolb
said. Prior to a public meeting earlier this year, she dreamed aloud of
what the passage might look like when its 42 miles are eventually
completed.

But popularity of the Greenway didn't pull James away from other
quality-of-life issues, big or small. Her continual campaign to remove
junk and sewage from Carpentier Creek made many non-West Siders aware of
a waterway they'd never heard of. Some even learned to spell it. 

Her causes were extremely unpopular in some circles, and resulted in
death threats. In the 1985 interview, she recalled an incident several
years earlier, after she'd begun a crusade against illegal dumping on
the West Side.

"I was told there was a contract on my life and I would be dead in 30
days that was their method of operation," she said then.

She was preceded by neighbors who had been intimidated by gross dumping
offenders who threatened them and their pets.

James' husband of 49 years, Richard, a retired project engineer with
General Electric, used to tell her not to allow herself to be bullied.
She didn't.

James said her activism began with the illegal dumping issue and a
determination to protect the value of her home on Middle Mount Vernon
Road. She and her husband purchased it in 1976 after living three years
in Europe.

Four years ago, the Western Terrace Neighborhood Association's Sam
Wentzel said, James went after 21/2 acres of virgin woodland located at
the end of Clement Street in Western Terrace. Developer Clem Frank
donated it. Now it's the Clem Frank Nature Preserve, part of the Wabash
River Heritage Land Trust.

"Show Shirley James a green spot, and it would stay green if she had
anything to do with it," Wentzel said. "She'd go after it like a tiger."


James received the 2000 Rotary Civic Award, but was "mortified," fellow
West Side activist Fred Padget recalled, when she saw her name and an
announcement of her award plastered up on a mega billboard along the
Lloyd Expressway. 

Challenge

No friend of billboards, James mounted three years earlier a
well-publicized challenge to a 85-foot McDonald's sign at U.S. 41 and
Washington Avenue because it would have interfered with a proposed
Greenway spur.

James was named in 1994 by then-Mayor Frank McDonald II to chair the ad
hoc Pigeon Creek Greenway Passage Advisory Board to the Parks
Department. In late February, James headed the body until it was
effectively abolished in late February in ordinances passed by
Evansville City Council and County Commissioners forming a new Greenway
Advisory Board.

James, in the final meeting of the old panel, said she had been
blindsided by the move. She termed the way city and county
administrations set up the new advisory body "offensive, really
offensive."

Earlier this year, James received the Soil and Water Conservation
District's Master Conservationist Award. She served in 1998 on Gov.
Frank O'Bannon's Task Force for Public Access and Open-Door Policy. She
received the Jefferson Award, a national recognition for public service
awarded by the Courier & Press; the Indiana Center for Philanthropy's
Unsung Hero Award; the Sparkplug Award from United Neighborhoods of
Evansville; and the International Women's Day Award.

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