Jim & Mary Hollis and Colleen (Hollis) Myers '01

As St. Mary’s County schoolteachers, Jim and Mary Hollis often spent their summers off taking Jimmy and his sister, Colleen, camping, hunting, hiking and fishing around their cabin in Western Maryland, an area Jimmy would continue to enjoy years later as a student at FSU. It was out in the rustling woods where the plants and animals Jimmy read about on the pages of Ranger Rick and Your Big Backyard came to life, and his mom and dad were always ready with guidebooks on birds and insects to help him study the natural world around him. “We enjoyed looking for salamanders and crayfish under rocks in streams … the kids often took nature walks with park rangers – everything was hands-on learning,” Mary says. “Science for Jimmy was just part of his environment.”
Jimmy’s wilderness adventures were supplemented by another kind of eye-opening education – watching his dad teach in the classroom and accompanying Jim when he took his students on field trips to the White House and museums in Washington, D.C. “We used to take as many as 10 field trips a year,” Jim says, remembering how much his classes loved having his son tag along with them. “We had a blast. … All my kids would have given their lives for Jimmy, when he was a wee little guy.”
Not surprisingly, when Jimmy got to college and it was time for him to pick a major at FSU, he chose elementary education. As a teaching intern, he used his experiences in the great outdoors to get his own students excited about learning. At Grantsville Elementary, he turned the celebration of Thanksgiving into a science project for his second graders, dressing up as Squanto, the Indian who helped the pilgrims learn to farm, and conducting a class experiment involving corn seedlings, sardines and egg cartons. The purpose was to teach kids about the indigenous practice of using fish as fertilizer, with corn seeds planted in egg cartons containing soil enriched with sardines. To keep the corn plants alive over the Thanksgiving break, Jimmy took them to his house near campus, where he could tend to them until school started again. During that break, he and his father took a hunting trip up on Savage Mountain in Garrett County, one of many they shared over the years. Realizing the corn plants had been neglected too long while he was away, Jimmy insisted he had to get back to town. “So down the mountain we went for 40 minutes to water the little corn plants and make sure they didn’t die, to make sure he had them on Monday for the kids,” Jim laughed.
It was because of moments like these that the Hollises chose to set up a scholarship in Jimmy’s memory when his life was tragically ended by a car accident in November 2000, just weeks before he would start a job as a teacher in St. Mary’s County. “Jimmy was so dedicated. He was born to teach. He absolutely relished it,” Mary says. “He once said to his dad, ‘I can’t believe they’re going to pay me to do this.’” Over 1,200 people attended Jimmy’s viewing in St. Mary’s County, including a group of FSU faculty and staff who braved a terrible snowstorm to be there. “People were around the block and down the street at the funeral home,” Jim says. Witnessing the love people felt for their son and receiving generous donations in Jimmy’s memory convinced Jim they needed to do something to honor and celebrate Jimmy’s life.
The Hollises often correspond with the scholarship recipients and tell them about Jimmy. They have received warm letters of thanks from students who have benefited. “That fact that someone received the scholarship and takes time to let us know it’s appreciated is an amazing feeling. It’s a very uplifting feeling,” Mary says. “We know we did the right thing. We know this is what Jimmy would want. Because kids meant so much to him. … We have found it has given us a whole lot of positive to look forward to, as opposed to just focusing on the loss and the negativity.”