← Columns

Jim Brim

The Source

I don’t know how long the frozen turkey sat in the hallway. Rumor has it, it was there for the entire Christmas vacation and the janitors had to sneak in and haul it out when Mr. Brim was gone for the night. The traveling school supply salesman had apparently not known much about James Brim. When the paper peddler made his pitch to our superintendent Brim then left a frozen turkey as a “gift” with the secretary, Brim saw it for the bribe it was and gave orders that the turkey was to sit there until next month when the briber returned. That was Jim Brim. …one of the most thoroughly honest people I’ve ever known. Flesh and blood integrity. We lost him recently. He passing was marked with only a local obit and a graveside service. But oh, the hundreds…the legions of people who were affected by this great man’s life. Originally from Perry, taught at Barry and Franklin, superintendent and principal at Triopia, past president of the IHSA, interim superintendent at North Greene, served at Okinawa with the Illinois National Guard, member of the National High School Association board, Passavant board member, Chapin Bank director, Superintendent of Illinois Natural Resources, newspaper columnist, lay minister. But that’s just the bio…the real Jim Brim can be found in the hearts (and often the tails) of the students who encountered this man to whom there was no compromise with what was right and what wasn’t. The stories still float around our area… jerking the ladder out from under a fan who was about to remove one of Triopia’s basketball nets after a tournament victory (without first asking permission), standing nose-to-nose with a basketball coach who refused to leave the gym after he was ejected by the ref’s, keeping an old loosely-hinged cabinet in his principal’s office. It didn’t hurt when he threw you up against it, but the clanging of the noisy doors scared the paddiddle right out of you. I heard a noise one fall afternoon and looked out my classroom window to see a student trying to escape school. If you try to escape Triopia you have a long run ahead of you on foot. The student was spared the long walk by a flying tackle from Mr. Brim, landing headfirst in the school’s lawn and ready to return to math class. Jim Brim did not waste other people’s money. I once walked into the sparkling new offices of the IHSA in Bloomington. The spacious boardroom featured a solid slab of mahogany table with plush chairs for the board members. At the end of this expensively gargantuan piece of furniture was a straight-backed oak chair. A man next to me said, “That’s Jim Brim’s chair. He didn’t vote for the fancy furniture.” When the National Association of High School Associations met in Las Vegas, Mr. Brim declined to attend. That was not the best use of other people’s money. But to a student…and I’ve heard hundreds speak of Mr. Brim…to a student, they all graduated with not only respect but admiration for their principal. No matter what your crime or what Brim’s punishment, you knew exactly where you stood with him, and after you’d done your jumping jacks or received your whacks (Brim didn’t believe in expulsion…he’d take care of it himself), his forgiveness was total and complete and genuine. It was not uncommon to see him tear up as a former delinquent crossed the graduation stage. Perhaps Jim’s only defeat came at the hands of the Reagan administration. The former President was to make a visit to our community and the Secret Service informed Mr. Brim that Triopia would have to cancel school that day so the Prez could make a landing on our football field. Mr. Brim informed the U.S. Government that Triopia would not cancel school. They won. I think they had guns. I learned a typical Brim story just this week. A former board member told me that “the red phone” was left in Brim’s office for a few days after Reagan’s visit. One night the phone rang during a board meeting. The official U.S. Presidential By-Golly Red Phone rang! Mr. Brim stared at the phone and said, “Do you gentlemen think that call is for you?” They shook their heads, still in shock. He continued, “Then it’s not for me,” and they continued the meeting with the phone ringing. Once…twice…maybe a few times in our entire lifetime we get to know and learn from models of absolute integrity. Many of us were blessed with just such an experience if we knew Jim Brim.