James Malcolm Rives

James Malcolm Rives was born on December 18, 1932 in Lincoln County Tennessee and grew up in Lincoln County. He is the son of the late James Clyde Rives and the late Elton Beatrice Creson Rives. He is also preceded in death by his brother Ross Douglas Rives (Claudette) of Huntsville, AL, as well as his wife of 59 years, Carol Madolyn Hudgens Rives.

Malcolm attended grade school at Petersburg Elementary School and graduated from Marshall County High School in Tennessee. He attended and graduated from Middle Tennessee State College where he majored in mathematics and minored in chemistry and physics. He then furthered his education with graduate studies in physics at Vanderbilt University in Nashville and the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and he attended a year's study at the Oak Ridge School of Reactor Technology in Tennessee.

He served proudly in the United States Army as a special weapons nuclear officer in the U.S. 7th Army, 9th Ordnance Battalion in Germany and was responsible for training and technical evaluation of various army artillery user units. He began his work career with the Army Ballistic Missile Agency in Huntsville, where he worked on the Juno, Jupiter and Pershing Launch Vehicles. He was responsible for the Pershing Weapon System nuclear warhead development and testing.

Malcolm served as an aerospace engineer with the Marshall Space Flight Center where he worked on several NASA projects, including the Saturn-V Reactor-In-Flight-Test vehicle, Satum S-IVB Stage design, Satum S-IVB Workshop, S-IVB Skylab, Satum Apollo Test Mount, Apollo Lunar mission operations, X-Ray/Gamma Ray/Cosmic Ray Observatories operations, Space Shuttle Vehicle design and operations requirements, Spacelab Missions Data collection and processing requirements, Aries-1 and -V Launch Vehicles and Engine design requirements development.

Malcolm is survived by two daughters, Patrice (Wade) Miller of Southlake, TX, and Lydia (David) White of Harvest, AL, and a son, Dr. Eric (Lisa) Rives of Santa Clara, CA, and four grandsons Corey Rives, Cameron Rives, Addison Miller, Weston Miller, two step grandchildren, his sister, Robbie Colene Rives Horst (Max) of Huntsville, AL and several nephews and nieces.

Malcolm loved and cared for his children, family, friends and neighbors. He loved God with all his heart, soul and mind. He was a dedicated and faithful member of the Mayfair Church of Christ where he served as a deacon for about nine years and 43 years as an elder of the Mayfair Church.

Visitation with the family will be held on Saturday, June 22, 2024 from 12:00 to 2:00 with a Memorial Service to follow at 2:00 PM at Mayfair Church of Christ, 1095 Carl T. Jones Drive, Huntsville, AL 35802.

Memorial donations in his memory may be made to the Missions Ministries at the Mayfair Church of Christ, 1095 Carl T. Jones Drive, Huntsville, AL 35802.