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| Curator Mary James |
Mary James is a human resource manager and a respected mover and shaker in the small, west central Missouri town where she grew up and raised her two sons. She is a tireless volunteer and fundraiser, a former teacher, and — since March 3 —a member of the University of Missouri System Board of Curators. James, 49, of Harrisonville, was appointed to the Board to succeed Sedalia resident Adam Fischer, whose term expired.
Her ties to the University of Missouri began with her father, the late J.W. Brown, a 1931 graduate of the MU School of Journalism, who with his wife, Wanda, became publisher of The Cass County Democrat-Missourian in 1955. James recalls making many childhood trips on old Highway 40, traveling with her parents to Columbia to attend football games and Journalism Week events.
James graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1971 with a bachelor's of science degree in education. After working as a teacher for one year in San Antonio, Texas, she returned to her hometown and taught for three years in Cass R-IX Schools in Harrisonville.
James' son, Alex, 23, earned bachelor's degrees in computer science and electrical engineering from UM-Columbia in 1997, and Doug, 21, is a junior at UMC.
Her husband, Bill, is the current publisher of The Cass County Democrat-Missourian. As the human resource manager for Cass County Publishing Co., The Belton Star-Journal and The Lee's Summit Journal, James is responsible for managing payroll and benefits for more than 80 employees.
She says that experience has educated her about issues important to employees. The company offers a full range of benefits, including a cafeteria plan, and her job is to explain to employees how their benefits work and help them with any related problems.
"If someone has a problem with a medical claim, for example, he or she can come into my office and I get on the phone," she says. "I've tried to demonstrate to them that it is possible to sort these things out and get a positive resolution - but sometimes that takes persistence. I have learned from experience to document who I talk to and on what date whenever I deal with insurance companies."
James and her family were instrumental in spearheading a drive to raise $1.1 million to establish an endowed chair in community newspaper management at the MU School of Journalism. Her father, who was president of the Missouri Press Association in 1963, first proposed the idea for the chair.
"Dad always felt it was important to give back to the community," James says. "He began a campaign to fund the chair, but suffered from medical problems and died before it could really take off." Her mother, Wanda, made a significant gift to the campaign, and James and her husband also donated. Bill James, who served as president of the Missouri Press Association in 1998, also raised money from several Missouri community newspaper publishers.
The School plans to use the chair to attract a faculty member with superior academic and professional credentials who will help educate students for successful careers in community newspapers. Students in the program will be exposed to the news, advertising, circulation, sales and production sides of newspapers, traditionally taught in business schools. Students also will serve as interns for community newspapers in Missouri and around the country.
James is active in many organizations in her area — she says she prefers to focus on programs that will benefit young people — but her most important criterion for getting involved with a project is whether it is something she cares about deeply. "I don't work on things for which I have no passion," she says. "I am fortunate to have had an opportunity to do things that make a significant difference in the community."
Getting that done is not always easy, she says, because in Harrisonville there is no large corporate base to support philanthropic projects. That means most of the projects she has worked on require raising money through personal solicitation, a task she does not find intimidating. "You have to get past the fact that not everyone has the same passion for every project. I look at it as giving people the opportunity to participate."
James first became involved in community projects as a member of the local booster club when her two sons were active in high school sports. She was asked to help with a project to replace rotting bleachers in the football stadium. She raised $50,000 in six weeks.
She has served on the Harrisonville Park Board since 1988 and is currently vice chairman. She says as a bedroom community, Harrisonville must work hard to provide services to its residents to keep them interested and involved in the community. Among the projects the Park Board has completed is a $3 million state-of-the-art swimming center to replace a small, public pool built in the 1960s.
After the Harrisonville community came out to support outdoor theater presented on a flatbed trailer parked in a basin, the Park Board raised $125,000 to construct a permanent amphitheater scheduled to open July 4.
The Board also is in the planning stages of a project to build an $8 million community center to house events for all local residents — from summer day care programs for children to meals and dances for senior citizens.
Darold Shelton, chairman of the Harrisonville Park Board, worked with James for three or four years to complete the municipal pool project. "Mary is one of those people who, once she commits to something, she's there and she sees the project through," he says. "She is a very professional and caring lady."
James also serves as vice chairman of the Cass Medical Center Foundation, which has worked to develop rural health care and wellness programs in the area, including providing services in nearby Archie, and Garden City, Mo. As executive director of the Foundation from 1990-1992, James worked as the chief fundraiser for the organization.
She says her work for the Cass County Medical Center helped prepare her to participate in the University's examination of a possible purchase of Columbia Regional Hospital. "If nothing else, I am accustomed to the vocabulary surrounding the operation of a hospital," James says, "I grasp words like 'Medicare reimbursements,' and I understand physicians and their issues."
She says she will focus on what's best for the University, and the needs of employees and patients, when making decisions about the purchase.
Among her other activities, James is a trustee of MU's Jefferson Club and a former member of the MU Legislative Information Network. For her service as immediate past president of Mu House Corporation of Delta Gamma sorority at MU, she was recently honored with the Ophelia Robinson Shepherd award.
James also has received the Missouri State High School Activities Association Distinguished Service Award and the Harrisonville Chamber of Commerce Outstanding Volunteer Award.
She says she is looking forward to her six years as a member of the Board of Curators. She is completing an initiation period to learn more about the four campuses, but from what she has seen thus far she believes the University of Missouri System is "phenomenal."
When asked if there are particular areas she will focus on as a curator, James says she is interested in technology - specifically in providing increased access to the University.
Whatever issues face the University's governing board during her term, James says don't expect her to be a rubber stamp. "The way I look at it, I have a duty and obligation to know what's going on, to ask tough questions.
"I have found there is an impressive talent pool among the people who work at the University," she says. "I see how hard they work and that energizes me to do a good job, too. The end product is nothing less than providing education to the people in our state."
Please look for profiles of new curators Connie Silverstein and Sean McGinnis in the July issue of Spectrum.
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