James Lee St. John

Family-Placed Death Notice

ST. JOHN, James Lee (Jimmy) Jimmy St. John, 75, a mechanical engineer, musician, and active church and community volunteer, died on November 26, 2012, after undergoing lung surgery a month earlier. He is survived by his wife of nearly 13 years, Frances Satterfield St. John; a son, Gregory Claude St. John (Amy St. John); two stepsons, Ryan McLean Parnell (Meredith Lewis Parnell) and Brendan Hunter Parnell (Molly Keeton Parnell); granddaughters Heather St. John Paul (Bradley Paul) and Elizabeth Ann St. John Herring (Kyle Herring); grandsons Christopher Lee St. John (Holly St. John) and Bryan James St. John (Jeffrey Ice); and three great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his parents, Hazel Pearl Stokely St. John and Madison Lee St. John, a former Political Editor of the Atlanta Constitution. His first wife, Dolores, died in 1998, and another son, Ronald Lee St. John, died in 2008. Jimmy was born on July 1, 1937, in Atlanta, Georgia, and raised during his early years in Americus and Macon. He graduated in 1955 from Southwest High School in Atlanta, where he played in the band and ran cross country. In 1959 he completed his studies at Georgia Institute of Technology with a degree in mechanical engineering. While at Tech, he was a member of Delta Tau Delta fraternity. At the age of nine, he began learning to play the clarinet and while in high school he began lessons on the tenor saxophone. At Georgia Tech he played with a Dixieland band composed of fraternity members. After retirement, he joined the Roswell branch of the New Horizons Band movement and played both instruments in the concert, jazz, and Dixieland sections of that nonprofit music ensemble. After graduation from Georgia Tech and six months of active military service at Fort Bliss, Texas, he worked for the El Paso Electric Company and then for Standard Oil Company's pipeline operations, also in El Paso. His career continued with Colonial Pipeline in Signal Mountain, Tennessee. Then in Charlotte, North Carolina, began a 35-year career with Byron Jackson (now Flowserve Corporation), interrupted by a brief stint with Applied Engineering in Orangeburg, South Carolina. Jim, as he was known by his professional colleagues, spent 10 years in New Orleans, before being transferred in 1986 by Flowserve to Saudi Arabia, where he and his wife spent the next eight years. He concluded his career with the corporation in Houston, Texas, before returning to Atlanta, from which he continued to provide training services to the company on a contract basis. Jimmy and Frances were married on December 28, 1999, the same year in which he joined her congregation, Central Presbyterian Church. At Central he sang bass in the Chancel Choir, became a Ruling Elder, chaired the Global Mission Council, and did all the planning for a church mission trip to Kenya. From 2005 to 2008, he made three trips to Merida in the Yucatan section of Mexico to establish a water system for that community. Jimmy also served on the Administration Council and helped to conduct a survey of the church's air conditioning and heating system, recommended upgrades, and oversaw the installation of a new HVAC system for the church that achieved significant reductions in energy costs. On his own he conducted an analysis of the church lighting system. Jimmy also served as treasurer of the Delta Tau Delta House Corporation, treasurer of his homeowners' association and had recently been asked to join the editorial board of Georgia Engineer, a publication of the Georgia Society of Professional Engineers. He also was a member of the Atlanta Council on International Relations. He and Frances both loved to travel and had the opportunity to visit many parts of the United States as well as both Eastern and Western Canada, Alaska, Scandinavian and Russian ports on the Baltic Sea, England, Germany, Eastern Europe, Australia and New Zealand. In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorial contributions to the Central Outreach & Advocacy Center or to the Music Ministry of Central Presbyterian Church, both at 201 Washington St., SW, Atlanta, GA 30303. A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m., Sunday, December 2, in the sanctuary of Central Presbyterian Church, after which there will be a reception in Tull Fellowship Hall. Funeral arrangements are being handled by the Cremation Society of Georgia.