April 14, 2003 – Friends of James M. Dawson Jr. will gather for an informal memorial service at 6 p.m. Thursday at Percy's Bus Stop.
Dawson, a Port Authority executive in the late 1970s and an Associated Press bureau chief for the Virgin Islands and the Caribbean, died of pulmonary fibrosis on Dec. 6, 2003, in Madison, Wis.
He thought of himself — and many thought of him — as a citizen of the world. He had been associate director of the Peace Corps in India, a foreign service officer and Peace Corps director in Fiji and Tanzania, director of Oxfam America's overseas program, and a vice president for international business development and government and trade relations with ABS Global Inc., a bovine genetics and biotech company. Most recently he managed an agricultural consulting project in Bangladesh for the Louis Berger Group.
Dawson held a bachelor's degree in political science from Florida A&M University and a master's in African history from Fisk University. He completed course work for a doctorate at the University of Massachusetts Center for International Education.
During his years on St. Thomas, he was active in many phases of community life. Among his early enterprises here was J.D.'s Flea Market in Frenchtown.