TRIBUTE TO JAMES  COX by-Bob Johnson

Mr. Cox  started teaching at Lepanto High School in the early fifties and taught there until leaving for California in 1960 to continue his teaching career.  While at Lepanto, he made a lasting impression on many of his students.  He was a compassionate and understanding mentor who treated all students and fellow teachers with respect and showed no favoritism.

Mr. Cox was also basketball coach and will be remembered by those of us who passed through Lepanto High School between 1955 and 1960 as the person who brought respectability to Panther basketball.  He was the most dedicated coach I ever had in any sport.  He treated all of his players equally, ranging from sharecroppers' kids to the town leaders' kids,.   Mr. Cox felt basketball needed to be played year round to excel and encouraged his players to practice throughout the year.  During the two years I played for Mr. Cox, some of us could not afford a good basketball and a hoop to practice with and he provided them for us at his own expense.  He certainly had great teams from 1955 until he left and it was a direct result of his dedication to teaching the sport.  Those other athletes and/or students of any of the years he taught and coached at Lepano High School are certainly welcome to add paragraphs to this letter with your memories of Mr. Cox.

I left Lepanto after graduation in 1956 and my next contact with Mr. Cox was in 1960 when he came to California to continue his teaching career.  He started teaching at Santa Ana Valley High School in Santa Ana, California and taught there for twenty years before retiring.  He could afford to retire by that time due to his part time business in Real Estate. During this time he was also very active in his church, had done quite a bit of writing, and had some of his religious books published and distributed around the world.  With the benefit of his real estate wealth, upon retirement from teaching, he started doing church missionary work around the world including such places as Scotland, Nigeria, Ghana, Spain, West Indies, Australia and New Zealand. Mr. Cox continues his church work as of this date in June 2002.

Bob Johnson  Class of 1956

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