James J Bruss

James J. Bruss, A retired journalist and World War II veteran, died October 29, 2014 at the VA Hospice Unit in Tampa. He was the son of the late Al and Gwendolyn Bruss who spent their lives in Detroit, Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Jim and his wife of 59 years, Frances, came to Temple Terrace in 1974. Fran died in 2010. Born Feb. 22, 1926 in Detroit where he attended Catholic grade school, Jim was a graduate of Cleveland’s John Marshall High School in 1944 when he joined the Army Air Force. He was a B-29 crewman and helped photograph the atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands in 1946. After his discharge, Jim attended Ohio University where he received his BS in Journalism degree. He joined the Mansfield, Ohio, News Journal in 1951 first as courthouse reporter and later as its state editor. He left the Journal in 1955 for a year as news editor of the Chagrin Valley Herald near Cleveland. He then went to Kent State University as director of its news bureau, a post he held for the next 17 years. In May, 1970, he and his staff, helped with media coverage of Ohio National Guard shooting deaths of four Kent State students and the wounding of nine others. Jim joined the University of South Florida’s Information Services as its director from 1973 to 1980. Jim left USF in 1980 and headed a landscaping business until he retired. Jim was a member of Corpus Christi Catholic Church and the St. Vincent de Paul Society. He was an avid fisherman and a competitive bridge player at the Tampa Bay Bridge Center. For more than 10 years, he and Fran were volunteer ushers at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. Jim is survived by son, David and his daughters, Jennifer, Amanda and Tiffany; son, Douglas and daughter-in-law Kala and their daughters Megan and Lauren; daughter, Reenee Weyand and son-in-law Scott Young and her children Michael, Jaime and Andrew; and son, Daniel and daughter-in-law Michelle and their sons Adam and Alex; Great Grandchildren, Parker, Dawson, and Jaxson Hunn, Grayson Dean & Sophia Naranjo; Also, a brother, Howard and sister, Ruth Fondi.

Visitation will be held at Blount & Curry, Terrace Oaks Funeral Home on Saturday, 11-8-14 at 4:30pm followed by a memorial Mass at Corpus Christi Catholic Church at 6:30pm and internment in the National Cemetery in Bushnell on Monday, November 10th @ 10:30am.

In lieu of flowers please make donations to the Tampa VA Hospice Palliative Care Unit.

Arrangements under the direction of Blount & Curry, Terrace Oaks Funeral Hom, Temple Terrace, FL.