ELIASVILLE, TEXAS – Jim McCullough, 90, peacefully entered the Church Triumphant on Sunday, April 6, 2025. Beth, his wife of 68-years, was by his side. A memorial service will be held at San Gabriel Presbyterian Church, Georgetown, Texas, on April 26 at one o’clock. Memorials gifts may be made to Presbyterian Children’s Homes and Services of Texas, P.O. Box 140888, Austin, Texas, 78714-9981.
Dr. James Allen McCullough, M.D. Lt. Col. (ret.), born October 28, 1934, to Howard and Lucille McCullough in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, grew up in Torrington. He is survived by his wife Elizabeth Hester McCullough and their four children and seven grandchildren: son Bryan, daughter Rachel Matthews (husband Matt and their sons Joseph, Benjamin and wife Faith, and John Mark), daughter Sarah (husband Seth Major, daughter Isla and son Liam), son Alan (wife Kristen and sons Jacob and Zachariah).
Jim attended the University of Colorado Boulder, enlisted in the USAF in 1955, and completed his undergraduate degree in Meteorology at New York University having been awarded a Founders Day award and elected Phi Beta Kappa. In 1965, he paused his Air Force career to attend Austin College prior to entering medical school at the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas, where he was a member of Phi Rho Sigma medical fraternity. He graduated in 1969 and resumed his Air Force duties until retirement.
He completed primary flight training (Cadet Class 56-U) at Stallings Air Base, Kinston, North Carolina. During secondary flight training at Reese AFB, Lubbock, Texas, he met his wife Beth in Sunday School at Westminster Presbyterian Church. While posted to Johnson Air Base, Saitama Prefecture (NW of Tokyo) with the 36th Air Rescue Squadron, he completed search and rescue training on Grumman Albatross SA-16 flying boats in West Palm Beach, Florida. After a Lubbock wedding, Beth and Jim spent their first two years of marriage in Japan where he was copilot in rescue.
During his Air Force career, Jim was a pilot, meteorologistand a physician. He was a weatherman at Ellington Field, Houston, during Project Mercury where he met the Mercury Seven astronauts. He served as a Air Force weatherman in South Korea for the US Army. He served in Vietnam at Da Nang Air Base as Hospital Commander in 1973, nine-months before the ceasefire. He had specialty training in OB/GYN, urology, and flight medicine and completed his residency in Family Practice. He practiced family medicine in the Air Force until his retirement in 1978. After private practice in Clifton, Georgetown and Indonesia, he joined the Veterans Administration hospital, Temple, Texas, in 1988. He was a Diplomate in the American Academy of Family Physicians.
Jim was an active member of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), singing in choirs, and serving where needed. He was a deacon at University Heights Presbyterian Church, Bronx, New York, and a founding member and elder of San Gabriel Presbyterian Church, Georgetown, where he loved cooking pancakes for the men’s group.
Jim loved music from his days playing clarinet and singing tenor in Torrington High School. He played well into retirement and sang in community choirs in Georgetown as well as San Gabriel Presbyterian and other church choirs over the years. Panis Angelicus and Morning Has Broken were his favorite solo pieces. He built and flew remote control model aircraft. He loved flying both sailplanes and tow planes for Fault Line Flyers Glider club, Briggs, Texas. He was a voracious reader, an amateur photographer, a gardener, a baker, and a loving custodian of cat Mimi and numerous other cats and dogs over his lifetime.
A private graveside will be held at a later date in Eliasville, Texas.
