Ye Olde History Snippets… Jim Bob Tinsley, a member of FKPC, was an avid outdoorsman, writer, and musician known for Western and cowboy songs.
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February 4, 2004
Article courtesy of: The Ocala Star-Banner (FL) Author/Byline: VICTOR O. OBASEKI Staff Writer OCALA — Jim Bob Tinsley loved the good feeling he got when cowboys sang about the West. He loved it so much that he spent many of his 82 years in Ocala and elsewhere performing, researching, lecturing and writing to give others the same good feeling about cowboys and their music. Apparently, it worked. “When my husband wasn’t feeling well, here comes Jim Tinsley to cheer him up with his guitar,” said Edna Jordan, a longtime church friend who attended Tinsley’s memorial service Tuesday night at Fort King Presbyterian Church. Tinsley, who began singing at age 13, died Jan. 18 in his hometown of Brevard, N.C. During his musical career, he performed and wrote with legends such as Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and Dale Evans. Eventually, Tinsley was honored with the Western Heritage Award in Music by the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. With research collected on frequent trips to the West, Tinsley also wrote 10 books on cowboys, Western music and the outdoors. Tinsley and his wife of 56 years, Dottie, lived and taught grade school in Ocala for more than 30 years before retiring in 1982. During those 30 years, the Tinsleys were active members of Fort King Presbyterian, but church friends remembered his dedication to people everywhere. “He was involved in his church, but he really went out and invested in the lives of others,” the Rev. James R. Bullock Jr. said. He sang to anybody and everybody to cheer them up and teach them about living the life of a cowboy — a life committed to “good over evil,” Dottie Tinsley said. John Linville, a Brevard, N.C., resident who met Tinsley 20 years ago, learned many musical and life lessons with him. On Tuesday, Linville sang three songs in tribute to his friend. “He was so full of a lot of knowledge about so much and just loved to share it,” Linville said. “Bob was a giver. He was a liver and a giver.” All of the artifacts, memorabilia and mementos Tinsley left behind can be found at the 10-year-old Jim Bob Tinsley Museum and Research Center in Brevard. |
  Photo from FKPC 2000 directory
Listen to Jim Bob Tinsley sing and tell stories. Note: second audio clip starts after about 10 seconds.
Courtesy of Florida Department of State
Florida Memory Program 500 S. Bronough St./MS #9D Tallahassee, FL 32399 http://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/238446    |
Jim Bob Tinsley was an avid outdoorsman, writer, and musician known for Western and cowboy songs. He was born in Brevard, North Carolina ion August 12, 1921. He graduated from Brevard High School in 1940, and served as a naval aerial photographer during World War II. After the war, he married Dottie (Dolores) Wilson and earned money for college by working as a cowboy in Arizona. In 1956, he graduated from the University of Florida with a degree in journalism. In 1958, he completed a master’s degree in education from what is now Northern Arizona University. He went on to a career in education, retiring in 1982 after 28 years with the Marion County School System.
He was an accomplished singer of cowboy ballads, beginning his career at the age of 13 performing with WWNC radio station out of Ashville, North Carolina. During the course of his career, he played with numerous musicians, including Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. Tinsley wrote books on western music, including For a Cowboy Has to Sing and He Was Singin’ This Song, which won the Cowboy Hall of Fame’s Western Heritage Award for music in 1982.
In addition to his books on music, Tinsley was the author of works on other subjects. He was an avid sportsman, which inspired him to write The Puma: Legendary Lion of the Americas, The Florida Panther, and The Sailfish, Swashbuckler of the Open Seas. His experience with photography helped him produce a work on waterfalls in his home state of North Carolina entitled The Land of Waterfalls: Transylvania County, North Carolina. He also wrote about the history of the Tinsley family in From Totopotomoy to Transylvania: A Descendancy Line of the Tinsley Family in America since 1638.
Tinsley received many awards and honors during his lifetime, including the Pioneer Award, the Cowboy Cultural Award, and induction into the Western Music Association Hall of Fame. He also was the recipient of the Will Rogers Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Western Artists in 2000. His passion for western music left him with numerous artifacts from the West. He and his wife Dottie opened the Jim Bob Tinsley Museum in 1994, which closed in 2007. He passed away in 2004 at the age of 82.
Source: https://findingaids.uflib.ufl.edu/repositories/2/resources/219