CHINA, MAINE — Jim Arnold died Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022, at his home in Maine after an eight-plus year battle with multiple myeloma. His wife of 25 years, Sheri Haag Arnold, was at his side.
Born in April 17, 1949, in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, Scotland and emigrating to the States in his youth, he graduated from Roosevelt High School and SUNY Geneseo. He spent decades writing about local news in the Central New York area, training new editors and eventually becoming the executive editor of 12 Eagle newspapers.
Mr. Arnold was a well-known, award-winning columnist, editor, writer, and satirist, for Eagle and Brown Newspapers, a community theatre actor, author and director. His “Arnold’s Alley” and “So” columns brought wit, laughter, and political awareness to readers from across all communities in Central New York.
Mr. Arnold was very involved in theatre in the Syracuse area. He acted, directed, produced and wrote plays for several area groups including Clay Towne Players, The Talent Company, Contemporary Theatre of Syracuse, Rex Henriot Theater Company and the Writer’s Company, which he founded in 1980 to provide new playwrights with a company interested in producing their scripts. He taught adult acting classes and gave many youth their start through the Cicero Amateur Summer Theatre.
In the late ‘70s he was director of communications for the American Dairy Association and Dairy Council of New York and in the early ‘90s he was the community relations director for the Cicero-North Syracuse Central School District.
Mr. Arnold was a devoted and involved father to his two daughters, Jennifer and Alison. He instilled in them a love of theater, music, books, photography, and family. He cast them in community theatre productions and even performed with them in Clay Towne Players’ production of Carnival in 1978. He took them to rock concerts and played music trivia for cash during car rides. He encouraged his girls to come to him with their problems and extended that invitation to their friends. He enthusiastically welcomed their husbands into the family and delighted in the birth of each of his five grandchildren.
He was a devoted father and grandfather and considered the “king” of musical trivia amongst anyone who knew him.
Before leaving Central New York, he married the love of his life, Sheri Haag Arnold and the couple moved to China, Maine, where he worked as day web editor at Kennebec Journal and the Morning Sentinel. He also brought his writing to the internet with his “Finding the Pony” blog.
He is also survived by his daughters: Jennifer Arnold Terry, Alison Arnold Bouchard, sons-in-law Mark Terry and James Bouchard and grandchildren: Jacob, Matthew and Joshua Terry and Emma and Sam Bouchard, stepdaughter Kristie Dahlia Home, Stepson Jason Haag, close friends from his Central New York days and new friends from his time in Maine.
Friends and family planned to celebrate his life on Sunday, March 6, at the home of his daughter, Alison Arnold Bouchard. Donations may be made in his name to the International Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation.
FROM THE ARCHIVES: Read a column Jim Arnold wrote after leaving Eagle Newspapers for the North Syracuse Central School District.
