James Booth Thompson

"Jim" was born in Sanford, FL on October 18, 1926, to James Moore Thompson and Isabelle Booth Thompson and died on January 31, 2025 at the age of 98 while living in Longwood, Florida. His father was a Presbyterian minister and his mother a schoolteacher who moved to Lake Mary in the wilds of Central Florida in the early 1920’s. They often recounted stories of driving to their new home on rutted sand roads through the Florida scrub.

His family moved to St. Cloud in the 1930’s where he attended St. Cloud High School and played on the football team, graduating in 1944. He fondly remembered a summer job where he installed power poles using sticks of dynamite to blow holes in the ground to place the poles. It was in St. Cloud where he met the love of his life, Florence Fannin Morrison.

Jim was known for his love of all things related to flight. He received a degree in Aeronautical Administration from Auburn University in 1948. He was a lifelong Auburn Eagles football fan and member of the ΣAE fraternity. He was commissioned to the United States Navy as a Lieutenant after graduating. Jim and "Flossy" married in 1948 and moved to Orlando while on active duty with the USN where his daughter Tracey Shannon was born. He proudly served on active duty until 1953 and then in the USNR until 1972. He was a man of faith whose Presbyterian convictions helped him through times of adversity.

In 1952 the young family moved to Guam where he was stationed in the Navy. This is where his oldest son James Paul was born. ‘"Jimbo" accidentally snipped off the tip of their dalmatian’s tail in the screen door while in Guam, but Bedelia just kept on wagging…

Upon discharge from active-duty military service, Jim entered the USNR and returned to Orlando to begin working with Eastern Airlines. It was back in Orlando where his two younger sons Jonathan Alan and Jeffrey Scott were born.

They moved to Sanford, Florida after a brief time in Wichita, Kansas. Over the years he worked with other companies in the aerospace industry including Bendix, Lockheed, Martin-Marietta and McDonnell-Douglas, working on projects like the Apollo program. During a short stint out of the industry, he owned and operated Sun Travel Agency and worked for Southern Line Company with his oldest son James. The Travel agency enabled Jim to take the family on a memorable vacation to the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean.

He then went on to his dream job of working for NASA on the Space Shuttle program as a Quality Control Engineer in 1978, from where he retired in 1988. Before retirement they moved back to his hometown of Lake Mary and then after retiring, he and Florence loved vacationing in the mountains of North Carolina and traveling to see their son Jon on the west coast.

Florence died in 1998, and he remarried to Donna Zellers in 1999. They lived in Sanford, FL and then Longwood, FL where Donna passed away in 2022.

Jim is survived by his sister Francis Bland and her daughters, Theresa, Francine, Barbara, Kathryn and their children. He is survived by his daughter Tracey Wight, her partner Robert Tango, and by his son Jeffrey Thompson and his partner Raymond Cox. He is also survived by Donna's children, Tim Talton(Melinda) and Tina St. Germaine(Mark).

"Boppa" as they called him, greatly loved his grandchildren Jennifer Wight Dalrymple, her husband Keith, his granddaughter Jessica Wight Kolb, her husband Damon, granddaughter Jennifer Polinek, and his wonderful great grandchildren, Connor James Dalrymple, Siena Simone Kolb and Trevor Anders Kolb.

Funeral Services will be held from 1:00PM-2:00PM on Saturday February 15, 2025 at Baldwin Fairchild Funeral Home in Winter Park, Florida. See below for more information