University of Missouri Extension

Memorial gifts in honor of Jim Sawyer may be made toward the Greene County University of Missouri Extension building project by sending a check to: Friends of the Garden, Outreach and Extension, 833 Boonville, Springfield, Mo. 65802. Depending on the gift amounts, a granite plaque in honor of Jim will be placed at the new extension center when it is constructed.

Published Sept. 11, 2003.

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Jim Sawyer (1939 - 2003)

Jim Sawyer, during a nearly 30-year career with the University of Missouri, has been involved in multi-cultural and diversity education in countless ways.

In the 1970s, he organized numerous programs for disadvantaged youths of all diverse ethnic backgrounds in the Ozarks, including camps and career programs. With a previous background as a vocational coordinator for the Missouri Department of Education, he supervised vocational-adjustment counselors in Missouri schools who worked to place handicapped youths in career-oriented jobs.

With the University of Missouri, one of his first programs in 1970 was to organize a multi-county "Career League" in Ozarks high schools which at that time did not have the funds for guidance counselors. The project involved a coordinator who worked with schools to bring college and career information to primarily disadvantaged students.

He has also been involved in international multi-cultural education. In 1976 he co-founded a program which included the "Salute to America Singers," a youth group invited to tour communist Romania for 30 days to sing freedom songs celebrating America's bicentennial.

The group was commissioned Missouri's "official bicentennial singers" by Missouri Gov. Christopher Bond, and a PBS special, on the group's Romanian tour, was televised nationally. Representatives of KYTV, a Springfield, Missouri, television station, accompanied the group and documented the tour, winning a Freedom Foundation award for its efforts.

Sawyer and a colleague persuaded Romania's Ambassador to the U.S., Corneliu Bogdan, to come to the Ozarks in advance of the trip, during which time southwest Missourians, most for the first time, were exposed personally to a representative from behind the Iron Curtain.

Sawyer's numerous other international programs include being a host to groups from Thailand, Mauritius, Chile, Japan, and many other countries.

His most recent work was organizing a program for, and being host to, a group of college presidents from the former Soviet Union, followed by planning a similar program for a group from Poland.

He also traveled to Germany, England, Egypt and Ireland on both University of Missouri business and as part of his other professional journalism pursuits. In 1994 he helped an Irish government agency develop a journalistically based public-information program, linking mass media to disseminate educational information to farmers.

Since 1988, Sawyer has been overseas 26 times in various capacities; and, in 1991 was elected a Fellow in the London-based Royal Society of Arts as a result of his contributions to international journalism. In 1995 he was one of 28 U.S. and Canadian journalists invited to the Irish White House to meet President Mary Robinson. He had written a "primer" on the geopolitics of the UK for others in the group in advance of a trip through the British Isles.

He also had a part earlier in 1995 in assisting the University of Missouri when it was host to Irish Prime Minister John Bruton during a visit to Missouri. He has also assisted the University of Missouri in developing telecommunication links with Ireland. Sawyer suggested that elementary school classrooms in Ireland and Missouri be linked via satellite TV for multi-cultural education and the plan became operational last year with linkage between Poplar Bluff, Missouri, and Enniskillen, Ireland.

Sawyer's stories have been carried worldwide, including numerous times on Paul Harvey News and Comment, Thailand's The Nation newspaper, newspapers in Ireland, and on the wire services. One story carried worldwide on AP involved Japanese students studying Mark Twain in Missouri. His works have also been published in the Grassroots Editor, a magazine of the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors.

Jim was the first editor of University of Missouri Extension's unique Southwest Region News Service.

Jim died at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 6, 2003, at Cox South Hospital in Springfield, Missouri. Jim had been in the hospital since Monday, when he woke up and could not breathe. He had pneumonia in his left lung. He lost consciousness Wednesday, and took a further turn for the worse last night. He died peacefully in his sleep. Jim was 63.

The family is planning a memorial service at 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 13 at Greenlawn Funeral Home South in Springfield. The body will be cremated. If anyone wants to call Margaret and offer their condolences, her number is 417-831-3350. Her address is 711 South Main Street, Willard, MO 65781.

May the road rise before you.

May your swing always be straight.

May the ball fly high and far.

And may God himself bring you home.

When he is ready for you to edit

Heaven's Time Herald, of course.

-- by Kim McCully, editor of the Aurora Adverister

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT
David L. Burton, Civic Communication Specialist
University of Missouri Extension
833 Boonville Ave., Springfield, Mo. 65802
Tel: (417) 862-9284, ext. 16
E-mail: burtond@missouri.edu

News Releases Southwest Region main page

		David L. Burton, BurtonD@missouri.edu Civic Communication Specialist, University of Missouri Extension Last Modified: 04/17/08