Sept. 19, 1929 – Aug. 21, 2024

James Colton Javens, known to many as Jimmy, Jim, Dad, The Great One, Dr. J., and El Capitan, said goodbye to his time here on earth Aug. 21, 2024. He lived a full and adventurous life centered around family, travel, teaching and music.

Jim was born Sept. 19, 1929, in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, to Ira Leroy Javens and Idella Brenneman-Javens. He was the younger brother of Joel, whom he deeply loved and admired. As young men they built several houses together. Coming from a family with roots in Western Pennsylvania dating back to the early 1700s, Jim taught his children to be proud of their heritage and the family’s contribution to the beginnings of this great country.

Jim’s love for music began in childhood with piano lessons, later expanding to trombone. His talent earned him a place in the Beaver Falls High School band while still in junior high. He became first chair trombone, played in the school’s dance band, and was first chair in the All-State High School Band of Pennsylvania. Jim played his trombone in a big band orchestra performing in different clubs and at one time played with Henry Mancini. Later, when teaching at Grantsville High School in Grantsville, Utah, Jim directed the school’s award-winning high school “Cowboy Band.” He played his trombone in the Grantsville Community Theater’s orchestra alongside his wife Jerry, who played the cello. He was also director of the orchestra.

Jim’s educational journey included graduating from Geneva College in Beaver Falls, attending the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, and later earning a master’s degree in psychology from the University of Utah. He was a polyglot, fluent in Spanish, Latin, Greek, French, and German, which proved useful during many family travels. Even after suffering a stroke at 86, he could still be found reading the Bible in the ancient Koine Greek and conversing in French.

In 1950, Jim married his high school sweetheart, Geraldine (Jerry) Walcott. He and Jerry met in the Beaver Falls High School band while both were trombonists. They married and went on to have three daughters and one son. During the early years of their marriage Jim became a top salesman for J&L Steel Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He and his family loved camping and hiking the trails of Western Pennsylvania as well as Idaho, California, Utah, and Washington.

The adventurous spirit of Jim and Jerry along with always wanting to move West, the family moved to Ririe, Idaho, where Jim took on a new career as a teacher. He taught English and coached drama at Ririe High School. Ririe provided many new experiences, including the annual potato harvest, during which schools would close, and everyone joined in the harvest. Later, the family moved to Riverside County, California, where Jim became the head of the English Department at Banning High School and began his master’s degree in psychology at Redlands, California.

The summer of 1970 the family settled in Tooele County, Utah, where at Grantsville High School he was the director of the marching band. His understanding and love of music revitalized the band. The band won numerous awards marching at events across the Western United States, including one time besting the Brigham Young University marching band. The band traveled to Disneyland multiple times to march in the Disney Main Street parade and performed regularly at the Days of ‘47 Parade in Salt Lake City. There were also numerous trips to Las Vegas to march in the El Dorado Days parade. The band always performed at the Grantsville Old Folks Sociable, which was never complete without the “Cowboy Band” marching through the audience. Every 4th of July Jim would have the band only march in the nearby Tooele and Grantsville parades so band members could be close to home for the holiday.

In 1999, Jim moved to the Seattle area to spend his retirement years with part of his family who now live there.

Some of Jim’s greatest loves in life were his family, dogs, and vanilla ice cream. He was also passionate about exercise, lifting weights, and jumping rope daily well into his mid-eighties. He was often seen riding his ten-speed bike on the ten-mile trip from Stansbury Park, Utah, to the high school in Grantsville.

In 2016 he suffered a major stroke. Beating all odds and proving the doctors wrong, Jim remained determined to stay active through daily exercise and learning how to once again speak. He also learned how to do daily tasks with his left hand. Jim always looked his best, setting out his clothes each evening, just as he did his whole life.

As a Shakespeare enthusiast he always had a ready quote and was a stickler for grammar. Jim had a great sense of humor and a strong dedication to his many students. These traits endeared him to all who knew him. He was fortunate to travel the world with various family members, always bringing fun to the journey—except when he was hungry!

In 1981, Jim’s beloved wife Jerry passed away unexpectedly, a loss that devastated him. He always said Jerry was his first and last love, and so he remained single for the rest of his life.

Jim will be greatly missed and leaves behind:

Brother: Joel G. Javens and wife Rebecca (Becky) of Freedom, Pennsylvania

Daughter: Christine and husband Tim Williams of Salt Lake City, Utah

Daughter: Robin and husband Michael Jackson of Kent, Washington

Son: James David Javens and husband Gerard Barton of Normandy Park, Washington

Eleven grandchildren

Eighteen great-grandchildren

Jim was preceded in death by his wife Geraldine Joy Walcott Javens and daughter Nancy Craig Sampson.

A celebration of life will be held in Seattle at a later date.

In lieu of flowers, the family would be pleased to have a donation made to the animal shelter of your choice.

The following was written as a memorial to Mr. Javens by one of his Grantsville High School band members.

KNOWING

by Scott Hatch

Helldorado Days Parade. Las Vegas morning in Early May 1978. Already as hot as a thin dime on the plains of hell. The band mills aimlessly along a suburban side street off Fremont Avenue. Gaggles of kids sitting on curbs, leaning against trees, clinging to bits of eucalyptus shade. Glitter Gulch, a glow in morning sun at the end of the street. Chattering and pestering kids: blades of grass in ears—how many twigs and pebbles and whatever-bits-of-stuff can you slip into David Javens’ tuba without him noticing. Here and there, a saxophone, a trumpet, a clarinet running scales or a bit of “Washington Post,” trailing off into the heat. Spit valves idly clicking. A wishful bit of Sharon Nunley’s snare drum trying to hurry the parade, the fitful sparkle of Debbie Anderson’s bell lyre.

We always seem to be ignored and slotted toward the end of the parade. Most bands want to be toward the front, when spectators are fresh. But Mr. Javens knows that after those bands pass through, zombifying the crowds, we’ll shock them awake with even more impact. But now, for us kids, life is just about waiting, sun-baked, in a sweaty polyester cowboy-cut suit, under our Stetsons.

At last we assemble into ranks, and Lois Walk whistles the march cadence. The band has a fairly new innovation: the timp-tom trio, which Billy Wells is playing. A few other bands might have a timp-tom trio, but no one has the vision for that instrument that Mr. Javens has. The timp-tom rolls like a snake among snares, bass drum, cymbals. The percussion section is pure rolling thunder. And as we approach Fremont, that cadence trickles then floods like a thousand biting snakes out onto Glitter Gulch. The crowds lining the streets had been standing listless, slack-from the dirge-like shuffling of previous bands. They stir awake. We turn onto the gulch in a crisp right-post turn—not a plodding raggedy fan turn like every other band. And as we pivot through the right-post turn, the white backs of our suit jackets flash a handful at a time, like sun bouncing off a mountain stream. Almost through the turn, we start “Smoke on the Water,” and the entire band spins on its choreographed heels, and our white backs explode all at once in a blinding burst of sun, and those first thundering notes roll over the crowd, trapped and reverberating between the walls of the gulch. And the crowd erupts as if for a moment the gulch had broken open under our feet in the searing white glare of light and music.

Among an infinity of moments, I imagine the picture posted here of Mr. Javens to be of his pleasing certainty in the slender moment before we turn onto Glitter Gulch—of his knowing exactly what would happen. Mostly, I’m trying to say that having been here once because of our teacher Mr. Javens, we are always here in this immortal moment—all the pictures of his and our pasts and futures pointing to this infinite moment, and on again into our lives. He could have chosen many paths through life. But he chose us. We hardly knew what a blessing.