In Memory

Jimmie Armsey - Class Of 1935

Jimmie Armsey

URBANA – James W. Armsey, 90 a Ford Foundation executive from 1956 through 1977, died on Nov. 2, 2008, at Clark-Lindsey Village, a retirement community near the University of Illinois in Urbana, where Mr. Armsey had lived since 1981.

Mr. Armsey was born in Olney, Ill., on Dec. 13, 1917, the son of William H. and Mary Ann Abbeehl Armsey. He was married in 1941 to Beth L. Loveless. She survives him.

During his 21-year tenure at the foundation as consultant, adviser, assistant to the president and director of programs in higher education, public broadcasting (then called educational television), journalism education, and miscellaneous domestic and international activities, Mr. Armsey was responsible for grants totaling almost a half billion dollars ($497 million).

By personal choice he received no acclaim for his greatest accomplishment: a key role in the desegregation in the early 1960s of private higher education in the Southern United States.

During World War II, he served five years with the U.S. Army as a public relations officer (PRO) in the United States in the Office of the Chief Signal Officer, Washington, D.C.; PRO at the Western Signal Corps Training Center at Camp Kohler, Sacramento, Calif.; assistant PRO, Ninth Service Command, Fort Douglas, Salt Lake City, Utah; and overseas, assistant PRO, India-Burma Theatre, New Delhi. His rank in India was major.

Since his retirement, Mr. Armsey has been active as a member of the Illinois Arts Council (1978-88) and of its Executive Committee; the University of Illinois Foundation (1978-present) and of its President's Council; the University of Illinois Friends of the Library (1981-present) and of its Executive Committee; the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (1983-87) as a public member; the Southern Illinois University Foundation (1983-89), member of its Board of Directors; and a variety of educational, cultural and artistic organizations and activities in the Urbana-Champaign and Chicago areas.

News-Gazette, The: Web Edition Articles (Champaign-Urbana, IL) - Friday, February 5, 2010