James A. Murray Jr. of Morrisville passed away Sunday, Feb.14, 2016, at Manor Care of Yardley. He was 89.

James was born April 15, 1926, in Philadelphia. He graduated from Morrisville High School in 1944 and served in the U.S. Navy (Pacific Theatre of Operations) from 1944 to 1946.

Jim studied at Rutgers University, majoring in Journalism and graduating with a Bachelor of Letters (Litt. B.) degree in 1950, with minors in English and history.

He fell in love with a vivacious blond, blue-eyed junior cheerleader, Jane Landis in his senior year at MHS and they were married June 25, 1949. Their sons, Jim III and Jay, were born in 1951 and 1952 (both graduating from Muhlenberg College in 1970).

Jim had dual careers, one as a journalist/writer and the other as an expert on weight training. He had played football at Morrisville where he began to lift weights with his close friend, Jim Lorimer in 1939; they were co-captains of Morrisville’s championship Lower Bucks County football team in 1943. Jim Murray was recruited to play football by Coach Harvey Harman at Rutgers but he suffered recurring knee injuries that ended his football playing days. His second sport, track and field, enabled him to win letters as a javelin thrower at Rutgers three years, which he continued in Masters Competition through his 50's and 60's, winning several area and state championships. He won silver medals at the National Masters Sports Festival in the javelin throw and weightlifting in 1982.

After a year as a newspaper reporter, he was hired as editor of Strength and Health, the leading weightlifting and bodybuilding publication at that time. He edited S&H magazine from 1951 to 1956. As a freelance writer he wrote seven books on strength training and weightlifting from 1954 to 1982 (published by A. S. Barnes and Co., Ronald Press, Prentice-Hall, John Wiley & Sons and Contemporary Books). He co-authored Weight Training in Athletics with Dr. Peter Karpovich (for Prentice Hall) which was ‘the first science-based book on the subject of strength training. The Murray-Karpovich book revolutionized the field of training athletes and was also adopted as a textbook in many physical education classes.’ (Jan and Terry Todd, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2003.) The Prentice-Hall book was published in 1956 and updated in 1983.

Switching first to medical writing and then public relations. Jim completed his career at Johnson & Johnson as assistant director of Public Relations, where he worked for Larry Foster, J&J corporate vice president. Jim was editor of Corporate Publications, specializing in science and medicine. (Larry spearheaded the public relations group that handled the Tylenol poisoning disaster successfully).

After retiring from Johnson & Johnson, Jim wrote an Arcadia Publishing book on Morrisville - Images of America in 1997, which sold out in two years. He then self-published Morrisville, Yesterday and Today (with design by Earl Davis) to raise funds for Historic Morrisville Society in 2003. His last effort was a revision of the Images of America book for the benefit of Historic Morrisville Society in 2010 (again with design by Earl Davis.)


Source: https://amp.buckscountycouriertimes.com/amp/18133642007