(Written by Ron Horton)
In an article appearing in the Gastonia Gazette January 28, 2014 (Renewed Inspiration, 3A), Peggy Baumgartner of Gastonia credits a written comment on a class assignment by her high school English teacher with inspiring her to write. Fifty years later a novel, her first, had come from that story, dedicated to her beloved teacher whom Baumgartner had planned to join her at book-signing events being scheduled.
Sadly, that would never happen. Exactly a month later, on February 28, Dayton, Ohio native and longtime Gastonia resident Jim Avey passed into the presence of his Lord.
Jim is being missed. At his church no one excelled in friendship more than Jim. No one was better skilled and more persistent than he in the business of kindness. Jim cared about people and felt a personal stake in their happiness, never more so than in the happiness of their condition before God. No gathering could be the same without Jim. Quietly without show he would make the rounds, ensuring that everyone was glad to have come. Jim never married. His family was everyone who warmed to his friendship, notably those who he learned had a need.
In his more than four decades of teaching in Gastonia public schools, he became known for many kindnesses to needy students. A senior in high school was missing class and sleeping when she was there. Jim learned why. She was working to support her siblings while going to school. Jim helped her get to graduation.
After retiring from the regular classroom, Jim substitute taught and found he had a gift for teaching students with special needs. He would show them love while not putting up with any foolishness. Last year he rebuked a student, thrashing about on the floor, who he sensed was pretending a panic attack. The student responded respectfully, speaking for the first time in his life. His mother was amazed.
It seemed at times that half Gastonia County knew Jim. He met his former students everywhere. When pulled over by a trooper or summoned to court about a fine, he might find himself face to face with one of them. It would become a social occasion—at least in part.
Jim would appear on everyone’s list of the most unforgettable people ever met. His life was flavored with remarkable experiences. There were those encounters with famous or yet-to-be-famous people. The Wright brothers were among his childhood friends in Dayton, Ohio. Once in Corbin, Kentucky, where Jim had stopped to let his car cool down near a roadside restaurant, Harland Sanders, later the Colonel, invited him in for chicken. Jim sat at a counter in an airport coffee shop with conservative icon William F. Buckley, Jr., not realizing the distinction of his conversation partner. In summer 2008 he bumped into Tom Brokaw at an outdoor barbeque on a ranch bordering his nephew’s in Montana. The two were seated at the same picnic table. Early in his teaching years Jim lived at a teacherage (boarding house for unmarried teachers) in Lowell. It had a large living room, and a book club or other literary group was going to be meeting there. When Carl Sandburg arrived, he asked if there were a place where he could change clothes and was told that Jim’s room would be fine since he wasn’t home. Jim came back in time to find the famous author in a state of undress in his room. Later he learned who it was that conversed with him so amiably.
There were other instances. He knew personally the late William Friday of nearby Dallas, for years president of the North Carolina university system, and remembered pleasant times when they crossed paths. But Jim did not seek out celebrities. It was not his nature to do so. Being interested in people, he would start a conversation and then learn who that person was.
No one has been beset by more bizarre situations—instance his berating by a woman at a gas station for trying to steal her monkey which unbeknownst to Jim had jumped into the back seat of his car. Or the threatening of the operator for his not stopping the load of coins spilling into the booth from the phone he was using to make a call, then worse for not putting them back. And on and on. Our lives like his have been flavored with his remarkable experiences. There is matter for shelves of books in the comings and goings of this modest generous man.
Jim’s many friends are invited to join the congregation of Trinity Baptist Church of Gaffney Sunday March 23 at 3:00 pm to honor a life well lived.
