Celebration of Life for James Bishop, Jr.

Sedona AZ (September 21, 2019) – A Celebration of Life for James Bishop, Jr. will be held on September 28, 2019, 4:30 – 6:00 at the Posse Grounds Pavilion (The Barbara Antonsen Memorial Park).  A reception will follow from 6:30 – 7:30 at the Sedona Hub (next to the Park), 505 Posse Ground Rd, Sedona, AZ  86336.

Jim, an award-winning author and Sedona resident for 33 years, died on April 23, 2019 after a brief illness. He was 82 years old. Perhaps best known for his book, Epitaph for a Desert Anarchist: The Life and Legacy of Edward Abbey, Bishop, a former journalist, also was a well-known environmental activist and champion of the arts throughout the Verde Valley.

Jim’s friends are planning to put a 10 x 14 inch bronze plaque on a rock by the old Juniper tree, just where you enter the Posse Grounds Pavilion area, to honor Jim.  If you would like to contribute to this, please contact Madeleine O’Callaghan, 928.821.2534 for details. 

The following was written by Jim’s daughter, Amie Bishop:

James Bishop, Jr, prolific author and activist.

James Bishop, Jr., an award-winning author and Sedona resident for 33 years, died on April 23, 2019, after a brief illness. He was 82 years old. Perhaps best known for his book, Epitaph for a Desert Anarchist: The Life and Legacy of Edward Abbey, Bishop, a former journalist, also was a well-known environmental activist and champion of the arts throughout the Verde Valley.

James Duane Pell Bishop, Jr. was born in New York City and raised on his familys farm in Mt. Kisco, N.Y. A graduate of Colby College, where he studied English and excelled at ice hockey and tennis, he started his career in journalism in 1958 as a correspondent with Newsweek Magazine. In 1962, he was transferred to the Los Angeles Bureau of Newsweek, where he covered the aviation industry and the burgeoning consumer rights and environmental movements. In the early 1960s, he co-authored his first book, Let the Seller Beware. In 1966, he became the Deputy Bureau Chief for Newsweek in Washington, D.C., covering the White House, Watergate, and the energy and environmental crises of the 1970s.

After leaving Newsweek in 1977, Bishop served under President Jimmy Carter as a senior member of the White House Energy Policy and Planning Staff, taking part in the creation of President Carter’s nationwide comprehensive renewable energy plan. Bishop moved on to become a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy, responsible for communications, where he worked until 1980. He was awarded the Secretary’s Medal for Outstanding Service. He then worked as an energy consultant for several years. publishing his second book, Creating Abundance: America’s Least-Cost Energy Strategy.

Bishop moved to southern California in 1984, where he undertook research on energy policy for the Rand Corporation and tried his hand at screenwriting. In early 1986, he arrived in Sedona, Arizona, where he would spend the rest of his life. There, he wrote hundreds of articles over the years about environmental causes and the American Southwest and its peoples, publishing frequently in the Arizona Republic, High Country News, Arizona Magazine, Phoenix Magazine, Sedona Magazine, the Red Rock News, and many others. In 1989, he and his friend, Morrie Horowitz, co-founded the Sedona Excentric, a satirical newspaper known for its keen humor. In the late 1980s, he was also featured on CBS’s show, 48 Hours, as a key commentator on the New Age Movement. He is remembered for his line, “Sedona is the only town in the country where there are 243 channels but only 3 TV stations.” (This was many years before cable TV.)

In 1995, he published his labor of love, Epitaph for a Desert Anarchist: The Life and Legacy of Edward Abbey. Abbey’s writings had inspired Bishop for decades and his causes remained close to Bishops heart. His car was easily recognized around town by its Hayduke Lives! bumpersticker.

His next book, The Pink Nectar Café: Myths and Mysteries, published in 2011, was a fanciful collection of stories about which his friend and colleague, Michael Consol, wrote: When Bishop writes about the Southwest, it becomes a painted desert, stark and electric, an enchanted, windswept land of shadowy dawns and psychedelic dusks. The author’s writing is picturesque and emotional – leaden with an intense affection for a region he considers sacred. At the time of his death, he was working on two books with his assistant, Karen Walker.

In addition to his writing, Bishop was tireless in his intellectual pursuits and civic engagement, serving on the Sedona Arts Commission, Red Rock Arts Council, Chairing and serving on the Board of Directors for Sedona Recycles, and teaching writing and poetry classes through Northern Arizona University, Yavapai College, the Sedona Arts Center, and many other venues. He and his dear friend, Madeleine O’Callaghan, led a 15-year campaign to establish the Barbara Antonsen Memorial Park, on the Posse Grounds in Sedona, which opened in 2017.

Throughout his life, he was a lover of books—DH Lawrence, Edward Abbey, Barry Lopez, Loren Eisley, John Steinbeck, Mary Oliver, Robert Frost, Terry Tempest Williams, and Barbara Kingsolver, to name a few, and reading many simultaneously. He was a newshound who reveled in political debates, as long as he got everyone to agree with him. He had a sardonic wit and a sharp tongue but also a tender heart. As he frequently said, “Every day’s a miracle”

James Bishop, Jr. is survived by his sister, Laura Matson; his three children and their spouses, Amie Bishop and Renee Holt; James (Jeb) Bishop, III and Alex Knapp; and Bill Bishop and Carol Chow; and by six grandchildren: Benjamin, Nicholas, Kiran, Ariel, William, and James IV.

Jim was a moving force in Sedona and well loved by many. He will be greatly missed.

A Celebration of his life will be held on Saturday, September 28th at the Barbara Antonsen Memorial Park (Pavilion) at 4pm. In lieu of flowers, please donate to the Sedona Public Library or the Sedona Heritage Society.