INTERACT FORUM
More => Music, Movies, Politics, and Other Cheap Thrills => Topic started by: KingSparta on November 06, 2009, 05:50:50 pm
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Does The "J" In "J" River = Jim?
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It was originally James River Group when first incorporated in 1981. My name + River because we're a block west of the Mississippi River.
In around 1994, we changed to JRiver, Inc. to avoid confusion with the James River Corp, a huge paper company. They immediately merged with Fort Howard, another huge paper company, and became Fort James. If they had, instead, become James Howard, they would have been named after the famous gymnast from my team at Lincoln Southeast High School in Lincoln, Nebraska. Jim went on to be the assistant gymnastics coach at the University of Nebraska under his former high school arch rival, Francis Allen, who was the head coach there for many years.
A little known fact -- Francis Allen's coach, Phil Sprague, watched me perform on parallel bars in the city meet (3 high schools) in 1963. I came in second to Bill Marple. Mr. Sprague came over after the meet and said, "Nice job, kid. I thought you won."
Ancient history.
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Ah, another ex-gymnast! I used to train / work out at w/ former Olympian Mitch Gaylord, U.S. Olympic Trials champ Charles Lakes. I remember like yesterday Mitch and our couch Dan Connelly inventing the Gaylord Flip and later the "Gaylord II". A great, and very talented bunch of folks.
I don't miss the rips.
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Wow. Who knew! I too was a gymnast for a time. Never anything as serious as MrC or Jim in this case (I quit at the beginning of high school), but my sister was a gymnast all the way through college, and was fairly good for a regional athlete. I definitely attended more than my fair share of girls gymnastics meets, which was totally uncool until about highschool (which, the rare times I had to go that late on, was even then somewhat uncool to be stuck with mom and sis all day long - though the leotards helped ease the pain).