James "Jim" Clinton Cooke

Dr. James C. “Jim” Cooke, 69, longtime Abilene Christian University professor, outdoorsman and environmental educator, died January 13, 2019 in Abilene after a brief illness.

The visitation is planned for 5-7 p.m. Wednesday, January 16 at Piersall Funeral Directors, 733 Butternut. Services celebrating his life will be conducted Thursday, January 17, at 10:30 a.m. at Minter Lane Church of Christ, 2502 Minter Lane.  Burial to follow at the Exray Cemetery in Erath County.

Jim was born December 28, 1949, in San Francisco, California, to Clinton C. and Alleen (Ott) Cooke, their second child and only son.  Jim was only five years old when his father died in a plane crash, weeks before his younger sister was born. Growing up without his father led him to a lifelong commitment of care for his mother and sisters, Cary and Cate.  Summers were spent with his grandparents in Cordell, Oklahoma and in Arkansas with his grandfather and beloved Uncle Bob & Aunt Pat. Those family members and neighbor Martin Franklin played pivotal roles in his early life.  Jim grew up in Menlo Park, south of San Francisco and graduated from Menlo-Atherton High School where he lettered in track and football and was elected president of his senior class.

After high school Jim attended Cal Poly San Luis Obispo for two years before transferring to ACU.  He had never seen the campus or even been to Texas when he arrived in fall 1970.  That September he met Cynthia Litton after she winked at him in the Campus Center, and following her graduation, the two married July 15, 1972. He student taught in the fall and graduated in December.  They started their life of adventure together and moved to Eugene, OR where he enrolled in graduate studies at the U of O.  Later they moved back to Denton, TX where Jim earned an M.S.Ed. in Industrial Technology in 1978 and later an Ed.D. in Higher Education in 1994 from the University of North Texas.  He taught industrial technology in the Hurst-Euless-Bedford school district and in Denton before spending a year teaching at Western State College in Gunnison, CO.  He joined the ACU faculty in fall 1982, teaching in the industrial technology department and eventually serving as its chair. He taught in the agricultural and environmental sciences department beginning in 2004 and retired from full-time teaching in 2018.  He was an innovative, award-winning teacher who helped lead several environmental projects benefiting the university and the community.

Throughout his life, Jim was a passionate advocate of the environment as an expression of Christian stewardship. In the late 1990s he involved students in the design and installation of solar panels for the industrial technology building and led a group of students to create the purple bike project, providing a small fleet of shared bicycles for student use.

After the industrial technology program was closed, Jim arranged for tools to be shipped to Honduras where he designed and built a woodworking shop for Mission Lazarus to provide vocational training for local young people.

He continued to involve students in rebuilding efforts through disaster relief, leading a group to Florida in 1992 after Hurricane Andrew.  He led other groups to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and to the Bolivar Peninsula after Ike.  In the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake in 2010, he volunteered with a group from Global Samaritan.

An avid outdoorsman, Jim spent spring breaks with family and friends skiing in NM and CO.  He also loved sailing and was a longtime member of the Abilene Sailing Association. Jim loved riding motorcycles and last year fulfilled the life-long dream of an 80-year-old friend by taking her for a ride on his Harley-Davidson.  Summers were spent leading young people on backpacking adventures. For more than 15 years he led numerous Summer Summits groups to the Weminuche Wilderness near Pagosa Springs, Colorado.  In more recent years he led groups from Minter Lane Church of Christ where the Cookes have served for almost 40 years.  There he was a one-man fellowship team, organizing annual fall campouts at Hords Creek Lake near Coleman and all church spring picnics for more than 20 years.  He sought every opportunity to bring people together through outdoor adventure, volunteer work projects and neighborhood efforts like the annual Hillview Road Fourth of July Parade.

Locally, Jim was an early and ardent advocate for creation of the Cedar Creek Waterway project spending many hours organizing student groups to clean up the waterway and hauling out dumpster loads of trash and debris.

Jim is survived by his wife, Cynthia, and their three children:  Jennifer and David McMillian of Atlanta and their children, Maddy, Brooklyn and David; Emily and Jacob Wardell of Belton, and their children, Ella, Jackson and Witten; and Jonathan and Emily Cooke of Abilene.  In addition to their biological children, Anita Vigil of Carrolton held a special place in his heart as an “adopted” daughter.  He is also survived by two sisters, Cary MacMahon and her husband Ray of Pittsboro, North Carolina, and Cate Dudley and her husband Mike of Escondido, California; by several nieces and nephews and by a large Litton family that he loved as his own.  Jim and Cynthia lived a life of hospitality and generosity by opening their home and hearts to family and friends always creating a place for fun and fellowship where everyone felt they belonged. That was never more evident than through the way he loved and nurtured his children, grandchildren, and all family members as beloved Papa and Uncle Jim.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that memorials gifts be made to the Jim and Cynthia Cooke Endowed Scholarship at Abilene Christian University. Checks can be mailed to ACU Box 29132, Abilene, TX 79699-9132 or made online at acu.edu/give , specifying that the gift is for this scholarship.  Other memorial gifts can be made to: Mission Lazarus, PO Box 150524, Nashville, TN  37215 or online at missionlazarus.org; Cedar Creek Waterway c/o Dick Spaulding, 1850 Elmwood St., Abilene, TX 79605; or Christian Service Center,  3185 N. 10 ^th St., Abilene, TX 79603.