A good man passed away. Bishop Coleman, R.I.P.

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After serving in the U.S. Army, he continued his education at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He later obtained a Master of Divinity at The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee and a Doctorate of Ministry from the Seminary of the Southwest at Wake Forest University. After his ordination in 1957, Jim served as priest in the towns of Lebanon, Gallatin, Johnson City, and Memphis, Tennessee as well as Martinsville, Virginia.

In 1975 he was called to serve as rector of St. James Episcopal Church in Baton Rouge where he remained until 1989. Jim was rector of St. John's Episcopal Church, Memphis when he was elected Bishop Coadjutor of the Diocese of West Tennessee in 1993, and served as its Bishop from 1994 until his retirement in 2001.

He returned to Baton Rouge and St. James Episcopal Church in 2005 serving as Bishop-in-Residence until 2020. Jim strived to deepen the spiritual life of the faithful. He called on his congregations to foster transformation and new life and always urged them to be attentive to the needs of the community. He was a kind and devout man of humble spirit, deep integrity, wry humor, and enormous strength and intelligence. Jim formed many treasured relationships with fellow clergy, staff, and parishioners in each place he served, forging bonds that lasted a lifetime. Jim loved the outdoors.

He held close the memories of daring, work-intensive adventure as a smokejumper for the U.S. Forestry Service in the Pacific Northwest. During college summers he parachuted into remote mountain areas to extinguish forest fires usually caused by lightning during thunderstorms. He hiked the Appalachian Trail with his sons and friends every year for over 40 years. He loved nature and found it in abundance along the Trail with its wildflowers, trees, animals, and other hikers. One of his crowning outdoor achievements was a trek to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania on a once-in-a -lifetime trip to Africa in 1989. To maintain his fitness for these pursuits Jim ran five miles daily around the Walnut Hills neighborhood, where his family resided in Baton Rouge.

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