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

a Christian, a devoted member of Wingate
Baptist Church, but he didn’t wear his
religion on his sleeve. That was simply the
way he chose to live his life.
Jim was happy as a bachelor but happier
when, at age 38, he married the former
Cheryl Simpson. I guarantee you this: a
bride who will accompany her husband to a
major league baseball game on her
honeymoon is a good woman. They went to
Fenway Park in Boston. (My wife Kandie
nearly froze in the upper deck in Candlestick
Park in San Francisco on our honeymoon in
1979. I am reminded of that compromise on
her part on a semi-regular basis.)
Jimmy was a baseball nut. He loved the
game and its many intricacies. He had hoped
to visit every Major League Baseball
stadium in the country but wasn’t able to
accomplish that goal because of his illness.
I do wish he had made it.
Remembering Jim
Jim did achieve his final goal. When he
learned he was out of treatment options, he
wrote that he’d “rather live shorter and
better than longer and miserably.” He died
30 days later, without an extended period of
suffering.
Jim Muldrow was a man of many talents,
the greatest of which, in my opinion, was his
ability to listen. Always the newspaperman,
he looked for the feature story in every
individual. And there is at least one story in
everyone. Jim was willing to mine for gold
in seemingly barren soil.
There was no pretension in Jim Muldrow.
He was sincere, he was genuine, and he was
compassionate.
He was, simply put, a good man who made
friends everywhere he went, and they, we,
will all miss him.
Fred Sparger retired from SPCC in 2010 as
vice president of College and Community
Relations.