Watercolor portrait of Jim Gordon which was the cover of the ONPA newsletter in 2003. (Dennis Balough/Akron Beacon Journal)
Jim Gordon died at his home in Bowing Green Saturday after a two-month battle with cancer. Gordon was 82.
Gordon was an editor, educator and photographer and was recognized for his work in each of those fields for many years.
Gordon was the emeritus editor of NPPA’s News Photographer magazine and professor emeritus at Bowling Green State University where he taught from 1966 to 1991. Gordon retired as editor of us Photographer in 2003 after publishing more than 300 issues.
As a newspaper photographer Gordon got his start at the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram and worked at The Toledo Blade. During the Korean War, Gordon was a Photographer’s Mate in the U.S. Navy Seabees.
Gordon was made an NPPA Life Member in November 1996. Gordon was recognized with the NPPA Kenneth P. McLaughlin Award in 1979, with the inaugural NPPA Jim Gordon Editor of the Year Award in 2002, and with NPPA President’s Medals in 1978, 1982, 1991, 1999, and 2003. And he was presented with NPPA’s highest honor, the Joseph A. Sprague Memorial Award, in 1986.
Jim Gordon (back left) poses with students taking part in a Day in the Life of Bowling Green project Nov 14, 1974.
Gordon was a recipient of the Robert S. Carson Award, ONPA’s highest honor in 1978, and was the organization’s Photographer of the Year while working for The Blade in 1970. Upon his retirement as editor of News Photographer magazine ONPA
added his name to the Ohio Understanding Award which recognizes the best in-depth photojournalism in the annual ONPA contest.