Jim’s Family and newspaper career

Jim and Melanie have been happily married for 55 years and living in Shenandoah for almost 21 years. Both were born and raised in south Texas. Jim is from Corpus Christi and Melanie is from Victoria.

Jim was born into a newspaper family and began his lifelong career in newspapers at the age of 11 as a paperboy. He delivered newspapers twice a day until his graduation from Victoria College. While in Victoria he also worked full time at a convenience store where he met Melanie and transferred to the Huntsville Item (another Harte-Hanks newspaper) to work full time in advertising sales while working his way through Sam Houston State University.

After graduation from SHSU, Jim continued his newspaper career with Harte-Hanks back to Corpus Christi, where he entered the corporate management training program and was promoted to the San Angelo Standard-Times and Bryan-College Station Eagle as Advertising Director. Then he was recruited to McClatchy Newspapers in California working for the Fresno Bee and Sacramento Bee. His career continued with executive management roles at the Los Angeles Newspaper Group, Houston Chronicle, Houston Community Newspapers (Villager/Conroe Courier, etc) and finally launched Community Impact Newspaper in The Woodlands.

Jim and Melanie have two sons, Mike & Jeff, and six grands (Austin, Madelynne, Haley, Victoria, Blake and Bella). Jim, Melanie, Mike, Jeff and Madelynne all graduated from Sam Houston State University. Victoria is a Sophomore at Texas A&M in College Station. Blake & Bella will eventually graduate from Oak Ridge High School where their brother and sisters also graduated. They all attended CISD.

Jim served on the Board of Directors of The Woodlands Chamber of Commerce, The Board of Directors of The Woodlands Area Economic Development Partnership and was Vice President of the Voter Awareness Council. He is very well known by Elected Officials and community Leaders throughout Montgomery County.

Jim brings a business perspective focused on serving the needs of our residents to the Shenandoah City Council.