James Albert Avary ’64

JIM DIED Dec. 16, 1990 after a valiant fight against a brain tumor. At the time the Illness was diagnosed, Jim was engaged in what would most likely have been a successful campaign for election as a justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.

Jim was born Oct. 11, 1941. In La Grange, Ga. He lived most of his life in Lanett, Ala., but during a three-year family business stint in N.Y.C., he graduated from the Riverdale Country School before attending Princeton. At Princeton, Jim majored in religion, took his meals at ivy Club, and generally prepared himself for a life in the practice of law.

In 1967, he graduated from Emory Univ. Law School, where he was executive director of the law Review After a brief period with an Atlanta law firm, he returned to Lanett and started his own law firm in 1970. In 1976, he was elected presiding judge of the fifth Judicial circuit in Alabama, a position he held at the time of his death.

Jim was a true "southern gentleman." In the words Of his good friend, Walter Empson: "his classmates will remember Jim's unhurried and unruffled manner, his willingness to take time for others, his thoughtful, quiet and wise nature ... qualities which served him well in life."

Many of Jim's classmates also will remember and cherish a delightful, impromptu treatise he authored entitled "Judge Avary's Guide to the Redneck Riviera" which served as the "bible" for a Class minireunion in Pt. Clear, Ala., which he hosted just prior to our 25th.

To his widow, Leewood; his daughters, Pye and Scottie; and his brother, T. Scott Avary, Jr. '62; the Class extends its deepest sympathy. We will all miss Jim.

The class of 1964