Guestbook • Memorial Celebration for Jim
August 15, 2015
Thirty plus family and friends (including a gaggle of geeks from In Room 202 fame) gathered in Kansas City to celebrate the life of Dr. Jim Rothwell.
The sound level pinned the meter as we visited, shared stories, and laughed heartily—Jim-style!
Displays of Jim’s achievements through the years focused on his founding of the UMKC Conservatory Recording and Electronic Music Studios, as well as his entrepreneurial ventures: Midwest Micro (software), Rothwell Assoc (consulting and product development), Speech Enhancer (his innovative device to enable the voice-disabled to speak), and working with Rainbow Sound to apply his expertise to film post-production.
We lunched on a spread of some of Jim’s favorite foods: hummus, pesto, various onion dishes, salt rising bread, fresh lemonade, dry red wine, and his beloved ‘booger cake’ hand made by daughter Julie—the name explained by the birthday card on display that Julie had received from her Dad.
Five grandkids (Annika, Avery, Max, Zoe, and Grace) kicked off the JimJam story hour by leading the highfalutin, tongue-twister “Grammarian’s Cheer” that Jim had crafted as a joke for them last year:
Persist, persist, make them relinquish the ball!
Impede their progress, impede their progress, by a prodigious amount!
Next, a parade of Jim’s family and formerly-mentored-students told tales of their favorite experiences with Jim, punctuated by nods of recognition, laughter and applause. Photos of the day and videos of the JimJam stories are being uploaded for your enjoyment at the links below:
VIDEOS • Memorial Celebration – JamJim Story Hour
PHOTOS • Memorial Celebration (a grid of the photos)
The final crescendo was a call for participation in a $25,000 fundraising campaign to establish the James A. Rothwell Memorial Scholarship Fund, as explained by Tom Mardikes and Paul Rudy.
We adjourned to a fitting Encore for the day: a visit to Tom Mardike’s experimental Sound Mandela installation at the UMKC Center for the Performing Arts featuring an array of 48 speakers directly controlled by a 48-track Protools workstation.
Thanks to all who were able to attend! Some made an extra special effort. A quick logistical survey showed attendees from as far away as Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and somewhere in Oregon. The hands-down furthest had to be my son, Shombi Sharp and family…all the way from Tblisi, Georgia (the country)!
Special thanks to:
- Jim’s daughter, Julie Rudman, and family for hosting the event and providing food.
- My sisters. Jonne and Cheri, for bringing additional dishes, and granddaughter Annika for making lemonade!
- Paul Rudy, for bringing the portable mic and speaker.
- Julian Garcia, for shooting JimJam video and to his assistant, Lauren, for shooting stills during the event.
- Storytellers. for digging deep inside their memory banks to share experiences that we assume actually happened!
For those who wanted to attend but could not, I hope the videos and photos of the day will help you experience it vicariously. Sincere apologies to anyone who didn’t receive an invitation and would have liked to come (it’s always a challenge to find people’s current contact info).
Stay tuned for more on the campaign to fund the James A. Rothwell Memorial Scholarship.
