April 2013 - Tribute to Jim Muldrow - South Piedmont Community ...

Jim Muldrow: 2-time colleague, long-time friend
Fred Sparger
It was right around Christmas that our friend
Jim Muldrow learned that he was out of
treatment options for the intestinal cancer
he’d courageously battled for two years. In
his last Caring Bridge journal entry, dated
December 26, he wrote that he was “at
peace with this news and it was not totally
unexpected. I just had a feeling for some
time that this was the way things were
headed.”
What must it be like to get that news? Like
the initial cancer diagnosis two years earlier,
it had to be devastating for Jim and his wife,
Cheryl. But Jim being Jim, he handled it
with grace and dignity. He handled
everything with grace and dignity.
I last saw Jim in mid-December, before that
final diagnosis. He was gaunt from having
lost 40 pounds. His face was a blotchy red,
a reaction to medication. He obviously had
no energy. But he was working, had a smile
on his face, and was more interested in how
I was doing than telling me about his health
situation. That was typical Jim, typical of
the Jim Muldrow I knew for more than 30
years.
I first met Jim (he was Jimmy then and, in
truth, forever thereafter I struggled to call
him Jim) in 1980. He was fresh out of
journalism school at the University of North
Carolina. I hired him as a reporter at The
Union News and Home, a weekly newspaper
in Marshville. He didn’t stay with me long,
leaving after just a few months to become a
Remembering Jim
sports writer at The Enquirer-Journal in
Monroe.
Moving on should have been an easy
decision for Jim, but it wasn’t. It was a
more prestigious job. It paid better. It
allowed him to deal exclusively with sports,
which is what he wanted to do. But Jim
agonized over the decision. Leaving
conflicted with his sense of loyalty.
That sense of loyalty made him a mainstay
at The Enquirer-Journal for nearly 30 years.
I’m sure his decision to leave there in 2009
and join South Piedmont as coordinator of
marketing and communications produced
even more agony for him. He was loyal to a
fault.
Jim quickly embraced his new career at
South Piedmont. He made himself at home
and befriended everyone he met. He never
said it, but I know he thoroughly enjoyed the
more realistic deadlines and the more
predictable working hours. Because of his
strong work ethic, his loyalty, and his sense
of responsibility, he continued to work until
his last few days on earth. He never, ever
wanted to let anyone down.
Jim Muldrow was a remarkable man. He
wasn’t a gregarious back-slapper but
everyone liked him. He had a wonderful
sense of humor, but it was very subtle and
produced more grins than guffaws. He was
an encourager, never a complainer. He was