NB: Post extracted from March 2019 TownCrier, written by Phoebe Hayes

Dr. James (Jim) W. Hawthorne, was a retired clinical psychologist and long-time resident of Dickeyville. He was twice past president of the DCA. Born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, Jim was known to all as a bird lover and, ironically, a cat lover too.

Dr. Hawthorne was Associate Director of the Southeast Baltimore Drug Treatment Program at Francis Scott Key Medical Center (now Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center) from 12/71-6/75 and Director from 6/75-1/85 where he had clinical and administrative responsibility for a methadone maintenance program and an adolescent drug free treatment program.

From 1/85 to 4/90, Dr. Hawthorne worked for MEDCO, a for-profit substance abuse treatment program in Baltimore, and was responsible for the oversight of three primary care medical centers and a specialty center located at Francis Scott Key Medical Center.

In 1990, Dr. Hawthorne joined Green Spring Health Services of Maryland where he was Director of HMO services.  At Green Spring, he had administrative and clinical responsibility for a multi-disciplinary clinical practice serving 190,000 BCBS HMO members in Central Maryland.  He also had responsibility for the management of psychiatric services for 95,000 HMO members living outside the area.

Between 1999 and his retirement in 2008, Dr. Hawthorne was employed as a Social Science Research Analyst in the Office of Research and Demonstrations at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Dr. Hawthorne was a star badminton player during college and played on the soccer team.  He loved the outdoors and spent many years camping, skiing, biking, canoeing, and birdwatching with his family and friends.  He was also an excellent musician and loved playing the guitar and banjo.  One of his greatest memories was attending Woodstock in 1969 and personally meeting Woody Guthrie.

Post-script: A celebration of Jim’s life was held in the Dickeyville Presbyterian Church.