Obituary: Telopeo Blade - Friday December 20, 2002

JAMES BARNES, 1913-2002
Oregon teacher was WW II glider pilot

James Barnes, 89, a longtime teacher in northwest Ohio, including 25 years at Clay High School in Oregon, died Tuesday in the Heartland of Oregon, where he’d been for four days.

His wife, Betty, did not know the cause of death.

At Clay High, Mr. Barnes taught driver’s training, sociology, and, to close his career, outside worker’s education. He retired in 1976.

Former students often would stop him when he and his wife were out to express their appreciation.

"The kids just loved him," Mrs. Barnes said. "He took a stand for the underdog. He would counsel them when they needed that and pay attention to them after hours."

His last assignment was to help those whose school work consisted of finding and reporting to a job. The ultimate goal was to make sure the students had a way to make a living after high school, she said. But Mr. Barnes often found himself teaching basic life skills.

"Sometimes [the students’] parents didn’t teach them how to get up in the morning and get cleaned up and look decent" for a job, his wife said.

His first year at Clay, 1951, he coached freshman football.

Mr. Barnes grew up on a farm in western Lucas County and was captain of the football team at Swanton High School.

He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Toledo.

He taught high school for a year in Seneca County before he joined the Army Air Corps during World War II. He was a glider pilot when Allied troops captured Eindhoven in the Netherlands.

Afterward, Mr. Barnes was hired at Holland High School in Lucas County, where he taught sociology, history, and hygiene and coached the sports teams.

"He had all the sports and very little equipment," his wife said. "It was right after the war, and you couldn’t even buy football shoes."

He later taught for two years at Lafayette High School near Lima, Ohio, his wife said.

Mr. Barnes and his wife taught Lakota Indians at a school in South Dakota in retirement. He was principal of a Christian school in Swanton for a short time.

He was a member of Toledo Hope Wesleyan Church in East Toledo.

Surviving are his wife, Betty, whom he married Aug. 27, 1940; daughters, Gayle Broom, Carol Howell, Judy DePeal, and Janice Pekema; sons, Dr. Jim Barnes and Rodney Barnes; sister, Esther Cain; 15 grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.

Services will be at 10 a.m. Saturday in the Freck Funeral Chapel in Oregon, where the body will be after 2 p.m. tomorrow.