Jim Roselle – A Life Well Lived - the Chautauqua Sports Hall of Fame

Jim Roselle – A Life Well Lived
Article Contributed by
Walt Pickut
Fortunately, if that is so, the transmitter
there is surely better than the one
Mark Russell kidded Jim about when
he said, “The Jim Roselle show on
WJTN can be heard from
Jamestown, New York all the
way to Mayville, New York
and occasionally to Westfield,
New York. On a clear day. The
WJTN transmitter is powered
by a union hamster running
on a circular treadmill relieved
by a substitute hamster on
weekends.”
The key to Roselle’s
broadcast success may have
come from his often stated
conviction that “Everyone
has, no…everyone is a story.
And they should be heard.”
That comment revealed the
kind of humility that made
Jim a radio interviewer of
rare and fabled skill. He
preferred to help his onair, on-the-phone and Dew
Drop In studio guests tell
friends over so many years, perhaps most
pointedly his good friends and local
community leaders, Bill and Pat Locke
of Dewittville, New York. The clincher
Within 24 hours of Jim Roselle’s
passing in the small hours of
Wednesday morning, March 23,
2016, word had spread of Jamestown’s
great loss. Whether by word of
mouth, on social media, in the press
or over his beloved WJTN airwaves,
the world quickly learned that Jim
Roselle would no longer be able to
share his famous morning Cup of
Happiness with his community, his
thousands of friends and his family.
But Jim’s friends need only remember his
every morning greeting, beamed into their
kitchens, their car radios, their workplaces
and even into milking parlors of local farms
where the cows were said to have given
better milk for listening, “Good morning
Jamestown, friends and neighbors.
Welcome to the Jim Roselle Show. This
happens to be the first day of the rest of
your life.”
On learning of Jim’s passing, his
longtime friend and Chautauqua
broadcast sparring buddy, Mark Russell,
said, “Jamestown and Chautauqua
without Jim Roselle? Like a martini
without the gin, it will take awhile
getting used to it.”
“I’m sure he’s already got a microphone
in his hand and his voice is gracing the
airwaves of Heaven,” listener and friend,
Catherine Colvin of Lakewood said.
Josephine Roselle
Joseph Roselle
for Jim, though, was that his story would
be best told by telling the stories of the
wonderful people he introduced to his
audience for 61 years at WJTN and 41
years from Chautauqua Institution.
“Will it still be Jamestown tomorrow?”
someone asked on Thursday morning.
Like saying, “See you next year” on New
Year’s Eve, everyone knows the whole
world can change with a single tick of
the clock.
Parasiliti Roselle. Born on “Tax Day”
April 15, 1926, Jim was often said
by friends to have brought at least a
little sunshine to that infamous date.
“Andare nel sole,” his mother always
told him. “Go in the sunshine.”
Jim once recalled to a friend that, back
in the old days when his friends, the
kids on the block, his old Franklin
Street Gang, saw the sun set and the
street lights come on, it would be time
to go home. In his memoir, “The Best
Times Of My Life*” are these words:
“At the end of the day, as the streetlights
come on and we all go home, Jim will
sign off as he does every day on his radio
show, “Thank you for your company.
Take good care of this day. Live, love
and enjoy.”
Good night, Jim Roselle. Thank you for
your company. Rest in peace.
*www.jimroselle.com
Jim and Kathy Roselle
their own stories rather than tell his
own.
For Jim Roselle, his is a story about the
elevation of the common man to the
nobility of great accomplishment. At the
same time, it is the story of the common
humanity shared by world leaders,
pedestalled celebrities, celebrated
scientists, athletes and astronauts and
even a few famous Rascals.
A Jim Roselle FaceBook friend said,
“Wonderfully humble, Jim was always
surprised that his popularity spanned
the globe. He often reflected he was
just Jim Roselle, and that he grew up in
Jamestown... ‘what do these people see
in me that is so special... that makes me
so different from anyone else? I’m just
a hometown boy...’ You will be greatly
missed. Your story will live forever.”
Jim did, however, eventually relent and
allow his own story to be told, after
years of encouragement by so many
Whether world famous guests at
Chautauqua Institution or local
mom & pop shop owners, they
were all simply Jim’s friends and
he delighted in inviting his radio
neighbors to meet them one-onone at his broadcast table.
But, perhaps more important,
Jim wanted his story told – his
memoir written – as what some
would call a love letter to the
future generations of family he
knew he would never meet…
the grandchildren and great
grandchildren still to come. Jim
and his wife of 40 years, Kathleen
“Kathy” Billgren Roselle, have
six children and a still-growing
clan of “grands”, both locally and
across the United States.
Family was everything to James
Samuel Roselle, the son, along
with three brothers and three
sisters, of Joseph and Josephine
Jim back in the day when DJs spun vinyl.