Dr. William “Bill” Joseph James, of Rolla, MO, passed away Sunday, January 26, 2025, at the age of 102. He was born on September 17, 1922, in Providence, Rhode Island to the late Rose (Petit) Levasseur. On August 23, 1942, he married Arlene Ruth (Carll) James who preceded him in death. In addition to his mother and wife, he was also preceded in death by a sister, Patricia Slack.

Bill will be greatly missed by his surviving family which includes: two daughters, Varie Lynch and husband, Dr. James Lynch of Brandon, Mississippi and Candice Metcalf and husband, Dale of Rolla, MO; one sister, Anne Bell of York, Maine; three grandchildren, Joshua Lynch and wife, Sarah, David Lynch and wife, Angela, and Lauran Layne and husband, Jacob; and four great grandchildren, London Lynch, Brigid Lynch, Abby Lynch and Rowan Lynch. He is also survived by four nieces: Maura Trottier, Kathy Denis, Colleen Falardeau, and Anne Marie Goldwasser.

Bill grew up during the depression in Lowell, Massachusetts. He met Arlene Carll at a dance which his mother made him attend. Luckily, he grudgingly attended and met the love of his life at fifteen. Their relationship lasted 77 years. When he graduated from high school, Bill enlisted in the army. There were no jobs at the time, and he had taken his senior year a second time. So, he decided the Army Air Corp would be a good option. He went to Chanute Field where he was trained in airplane mechanics. Bill did very well in his course work and began teaching. He advanced to the rank of Staff Sergeant Air Mechanic. His dream was to be a pilot, but due to depth perception issues he couldn’t be a pilot, so he became a navigator. He was sent to Guam navigating B-29s on bombing missions to Japan. By the end of the war, Bill was a second lieutenant, and married with a baby daughter, Varie. He used the GI Bill to go to college. He went to Tufts, where he earned his undergraduate degree and then went on to Iowa State and received his PhD in physical chemistry.

Bill was offered a job as an assistant professor in the chemistry department in 1953, when the university was named The Missouri School of Mines. In 1961-1962 he was a Fulbright Research Professor working in Nobel Laureate Prof. Louis Neel’s laboratory at the University of Grenoble on magnetic materials. In 1964, when MSM was renamed UMR, he co-founded with Dean Ted Planje the Graduate Center for Materials Research where he served as director until 1975 and then served as director again from 1980 to 1982. In his time at the university, he had forty-eight graduate students. Bill was ninety when his last graduate student received his PhD. Along with his many academic achievements and teaching awards, he was a pioneer in establishing start-up companies based on university research. In 1973, he along with Tom O’Keefe, and Ken Mahan formed Meade Chemical. Meade produced compounds sent to Bell Labs used in producing microchips supplied to the semiconductor industry worldwide. Bill was instrumental in bringing Brewer Science to Rolla and believed completely in Terry Brewer’s vision for his company. On May 14, 2010, the Graduate Center for Materials Research was renovated and renamed Straumanis-James Hall in honor of Bill, who was professor emeritus at that time. In the evening, on that date, he addressed the graduating students at a commencement ceremony and received an honorary doctorate. Bill loved teaching. It was his life. He and Arlene established the Bill and Arlene Scholarship Fund in chemistry to help students who needed financial assistance. He always said he would not have been a successful teacher if his students didn’t go on to be more successful than he was. He attributed his success to Arlene, who always supported him. He loved fishing and went to Alaska to fish for salmon and halibut every summer for many years. He and Arlene owned a house at Popham Beach, Maine.

The family made many wonderful memories there, spending the summers enjoying the beach and eating lots of delicious seafood, particularly lobster. Bill was an optimist and never met a stranger. He loved to talk and tell stories about his time as a navigator, his many travels, and of his many fishing exploits. He also loved “puttering” in his yard, planting all kinds of trees and plants.