Friday photos: More Jim Kauffman
While scrolling through some photos, whom do you think I found?
The name James M. Kauffman is familiar to many readers of Special Education Today and, indeed, of the literature of special education. As recently as August 2024 he published an editorial—”Fix or buy new”—right here in SET.1
I’ve had the privilege of knowing Jim as a colleague, collaborator, and pal since the 1970s. During those years I’ve amassed a collection of photos of Jim, and I thought I would drop a few of them here for readers’ pleasure.
Knowing that people routinely snag things from the Intertubes, let me prompt folks to read and adhere to the Creative Commons guidance in the captions: You may use the images, but you should provide the attribution to my work here:
The photo catalog
Here are 11 photos of Jim from my stash. It’s not all of that I have, but it’ll give readers a little imagery to go with the works they’ve read.
Jim has had many collaborators over the years (foremost among them is Dan Hallahan). In many of the following photos, I’ve cropped the image so that it only shows Jim, though those collaborators are just a tad “off screen” (should I say). Jim gave me permission to post photos of him. Both because I wanted to feature him in this post and because I didn’t want to struggle with securing permissions from others who appeared in the photos with him, I’ve focused on Jim in the following images.
High school!
The fisher of fishes
I’m not sure to whom to attribute this photo. I was not among the fishers on the fishing trip, but I think the likely photographer was either Mike Nelson or the late Lew Polsgrove.
Charlottesville in 1999
The summer of 1999, a gang of folks concerned about emotional and behavior disorders were all together in C’ville. I got this one on my back porch during a get-together.
Pennsylvania in 1999
For a long weekend, Jim and our spouses (both named Pat) visited the Amish areas west of Philadelphia in the summer of 1999. As was often the case, when out in the sun, Jim wore a lot of sun screen and a broad brimmed hat. Here he was “outstanding in his field.”
Publicity photo 2003
Jim muted!
Jim and some of his neighbors raised concerns about effluent from a local landfill. As I recall, they were told they could not speak individually at a hearing about the problem, so they voluntarily wore pieces of green tape over their mouths when they attended the hearing. Ir’s kinda hard to imagine Jim gagged, silenced, muted, no?
Close up in 2016
Lunch in 2016
A gang of young fogies met for lunch at a local place in the fall of 2016. Here Jim is looking away from his food. He probably didn’t want to miss what someone else was saying.
2017
I visited Jim and his wife Jeanmarie Bantz at their home multiple times. This shot is from one of those visits.
TECBD 2022
Jim had a banner day at TECBD in 2022. Two former students of ours—Melody Tankersley and Tim Landrum—gave featured addresses. Just to Jim’s left is Melody.
2024
This one’s from a visit to Jim’s home with Jeanmarie in February 2024. Jim’s always been good about smiling when he knows he’s about to be photographed.
Commentary
If it’s not already obvious to readers, Jim was a pretty happy man. He hasn’t shied away from discussing difficult topics and doing so with a lot of seriousness. He did so, however, from a positive perspective, looking to make things better. Even at times of substantial sadness in his life, I knew I could expect to see smiles like those in these photos.
For more about Jim, see his Websites at JMK9T.com and JamesMKauffman.com (created by Who’s Who).2
Footnote
Yes, I know this is not publishing on a Friday…I’m only using the familiar name for this feature. It’ll be easier to find later, I think.
If you go searching the intertubes for Jim, don’t confuse him with a doctor of osteopathy who tried to kill his wife and then committed suicide. That’s not our Jim!
Awesome post, John. Great pictures. Thanks for taking the time to find them. I'm sure you are already thinking about including these pictures a possible celebration of his life later this Fall.
Thanks for sharing!