Jim "Sparrow" Adelman

When Jim left RHS, he headed out to St. Cloud, Minnesota to attend St. Cloud State College where he earned his Bachelors Degree in Physical Education. He then decided that the Bachelors Degree wasn’t sufficient and so he went to New York City to get his Masters Degree in Education at NYU. Not too surprisingly this initiated a career in teaching. He taught first in New York City and then in the State of Oregon.  

However, he ultimately decided that he wanted to pursue a new career in commercial insurance sales and went back to Minnesota to do that for approximately the last 20 years of his life. Shortly after getting to Minnesota, he met and married Yolanda. Although this was Jim’s second marriage, she was clearly the love of his life and was incredibly supportive and strong for Jim during his battle with cancer. Yolanda is a regional sales manager for Toro Lawn and Garden Products. Jim and Yolanda had no children. 

Jim was always into physical fitness and throughout his life was a regular “runner” and thoroughly enjoyed racquetball, which he played often. On lazy days, he liked nothing more than doing a little fishing in the local rivers and lakes of Minnesota. 

Perhaps he was best known among his friends for his “Uncle Jimmy’s Tours”. These tours consisted of Jim collecting about 5 or 6 of his buddies, getting Yolanda to take them into Minneapolis for a guy’s night out where Jim selected the restaurants and the other “entertainment”. Then when the evening was done and it was time to go home, Yolanda would get the call and obligingly pick them up.  

Jim and Gary Graham also had another interesting way to have some fun. They would often go to “Champps” (the local watering hole) and have the weird combination of beer and hot fudge sundaes. 

Jimmy certainly had a lot of ‘style’ and personality. He was one of those people that once you met him, it was highly unlikely that you would ever forget him. 

(Special thanks to Gary Graham for providing me with the information for Jim’s biography.)