August 26, 1939 – June 13, 2025 

James is survived by his devoted wife of 60 years, Mary; his children, Dosha and David; his daughter-in-law, Kirsten; and his grandchildren, Jakob and Judith. 

Born in Lyons, Kansas to Julia and Dale Fankhauser, Jim was the eldest of three siblings: his brother, Tom Fankhauser (deceased) and his sister, Dana Cooper. Jim was a football player in high school, where he had an excellent music teacher. He participated in school plays and was in the school choir. He played trombone in the school band. 

In summers, Jim would drive threshing machines north, also to Canada, for the harvests. After graduation, he went to a nearby college for a couple years; then Jim enrolled at Oberlin College in Ohio, where he was in the Conservatory of Music. Jim was in the Oberlin College choir with a fabulous conductor, Robert Fountain, and studied singing and conducting. He and his choir conductor both enrolled in the Eurythmics course taught by Inda Howland, a brilliant drummer who parachuted into Borneo in the 1940’s to drum with the Chief. Both Jim’s and Robert Fountain’s conducting style was informed greatly by Inda Howland’s Eurythmics course. 

After a sabbatical replacement job at Smith College (where he led the choir and taught voice and sang a concert of Schubert Lieder on Smith College stage), Jim took the Music position at Hamilton College. There, he led the choir, taught voice and sang concerts. At Hamilton, there were several choir tours (two to Europe) and some local choir tours (one going to Canada). When Jim was supposed to get tenure, a new dean was trying to eliminate positions. Jim started applying to various universities, and UBC asked him to fly out for an interview. Jim made the short list, and UBC decided to hire him for choral conducting, teaching voice, music theory and music history. 

He stayed at UBC for 27 years until he retired in June 2000. At this point, Jim and Mary moved to Kamloops, where they finally had time to become Canadian citizens. 

The family kindly requests for no fragrances to be worn by those attending the service 

You may offer a message of condolence at Schoening Funeral Service for the Fankhauser family. 

• Date : 2025-06-13
• Location : Kamloops