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In Memoriam: James Popwell, Jr.

March 2023 Posted in Obituary

Jim was born to James and Peggy Popwell in Montgomery, Alabama on Jan. 11, 1952. After moving with his family to Hawkinsville, Georgia, at the age of one, Jim enjoyed a wonderful childhood being the big brother to two sisters, Connie and Brenda.

He was a member at First Baptist Church for many years and a member of the 1970 graduating class at Hawkinsville High School. Upon graduation “Little Jim” (as he was affectionately known) joined the National Guard. After his service he began working as an engineer helping James Popwell, “Big Jim” run several of his busineses at Mid-State Cable TV, WCEH Radio and P&P Technologies, just to name a few.

Together they helped local businesses with products that needed to be built and he became a mentor to many others in their technological endeavors. Little Jim was an avid reader, but his true passion was electronics. He even built one of his first computers in Pulaski County, Georgia. In his later years he picked back up his childhood love of building and rebuilding go-carts and even began racing them himself well into his 60s. Other hobbies included tennis, baseball, flying,
scuba diving and riding motorcycles.

Jim was preceded in death by his father, James D. Popwell, Sr.; mother, Peggy Popwell Lowery; and sister, Brenda Popwell Conley.

“A sweet selfless man who came into our family’s lives in 2005 via my braveness of exploring online dating, namely, eHarmony. He was on the East Coast almost, Hawkinsville, Georgia and me being on the West Coast, Silverton Oregon. We had both lost our spouses and that is maybe what brought us together because we were both hurting from the loss of our loved ones.

“Jim was an exceptionally smart man. He read schematic manuals just for interest. He would tear perfectly good electronics and appliances apart just to see how they ran. There wasn’t anything electronic or mechanical that Jim couldn’t figure out. Jim and his father had a radio station in Hawkinsville, Georgia that Jim automated before people actually knew what it was all about… Jim tackled everything head-on. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t reason out with his brain and fierce determination and grit. If he was asked about figuring something out – anything out – he was fully in on it. To say he had tunnel vision is an understatement!! I can only envision how he drove people crazy before he came to Oregon that final time in 2005.

“Jim wanted to get married immediately when we met and I said, ‘Why, we’re older? And we have families of our own.’ But finally in January 2022 on his birthday, on the way home from a family vacation in Yellowstone, we stopped in Jerome, Idaho and I am so grateful we did… We got married there and came on home and it was before we knew that he was sick.”

“We are very grateful for our time with our Jimbo.”

He leaves his wife, Sandi; his bonus daughter, Sonia; a bonus son, Michael; grandchildren, Briana & Matthew Landau and Katelyn, and grandsons, Jordyn and Lethin; four great grandchildren all here in Oregon and Washington; his sister, Connie, and her five children in Georgia; his adopted daughter, Janna, and her two children in Georgia.

“Everyone is devastated by the loss of this beautiful human being.”      – Sandi

Arrangements made by Unger Funeral Chapel – Silverton.