Dear All,
Please join us for a Celebration of Life for our colleague, Jim Bransfield. A program is planned for Sunday, March 4, from 1:00-2:00 PM at the Middletown High School Stadium. The program will be held outdoors. Please dress accordingly.
The service will also be live-streamed at 1pm on Sunday March 4th. Click here to view the service online.
When the feed is live please click link below to "view live feed"
Obituary
James Edward Bransfield, 72, died February 24, 2018 following complications from surgery. He was a graduate of Middletown High School and Central Connecticut State University. Jim was predeceased by his parents, Dorothy (Cameron) and Paul Bransfield and his son, Dana Bransfield. He is survived by his son, Chris Bransfield and his wife Megan and their children, Clara and Henry of Massachusetts. He is further survived by his two brothers, Paul "Cam" of Torrington, and Douglas and his wife Karen of Cromwell, nephew Brian Bransfield and wife Heather, and their children Aysa, Jacob and Ethan of Manchester. Jim is also survived by his extensive family of relatives and friends that provided care, laughter, support, and baseball game companionship over many years. Jim was an avid, loud, and opinionated Yankee fan. He liked other sports, too, but looked at anything other than baseball as merely filling the time during baseball's off-season. Most of all, Jim was a teacher and he taught through inspiration. He did so for well over 30 years, starting at Hale Ray High School while completing most of his tenure at Middletown High School. Textbooks and curricula were merely a guide to how he ran a classroom. His immense knowledge of social studies and history made it unnecessary to have any lecture notes from which to speak. He found an artful way to make history relevant to his students, inspiring them to relate to what had happened before them so they could be thoughtful, courageous adults in whatever was ahead of them. By extension, as advisor to the MHS award-winning student newspaper, Blue Prints, he expected students to write with conviction, honesty, and courage. He wrote the same way for The Middletown Press for well over 30 years, up until his last column just 4 weeks ago. Jim believed in the importance of community and being your brother's keeper. He fought for LGBTQ equality without compromise and believed any functional democracy required full participation from a citizenry that believed in and fought for equality. Following retirement from teaching, Jim continued to write for The Middletown Press, served as public address announcer for countless local sporting games, served as Master of Ceremonies for numerous events, spent time loving and spoiling his grandchildren, gardening with his son, and traveling to Florida whenever he could to find peace and relaxation from his very public life.
In lieu of flowers, please donate to the Middletown American Legion Baseball program at Bernie O'Rourke Drive, the Tommy Fund for Childhood Cancer at Yale-New Haven Hospital, York St., New Haven, or the Southern Poverty Law Center at 400 Washington Ave., Montgomery, Alabama, 36104, which fights organized hate groups in America.
Marco Gaylord
Director of District Operations
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