Jim Russell served Fallbrook right until the end

James Clair Russell was 36 years old when he was badly hurt in a motorcycle accident.

It was Christmas Eve 1977. He was coming home from visiting his fiancée in Bonsall when he hydroplaned and crashed. The accident left him paralyzed from the waist down.

A crash that devastating is certainly life-altering, and Russell couldn’t have been blamed if it caused any course changes for him.

Except he didn’t let it stop him. Russell had only been living in Fallbrook a year when that crash happened. He would stay in town for the rest of his life, and become one of Fallbrook’s most prominent local leaders. Russell, who became chair of the Fallbrook Community Planning Group and served in that position for around 30 years, died in January.

He was born in Pennsylvania in 1941, and grew up on a farm there. He had five children with his first wife and served in the Marine Corps for 20 years, something that made his and his family’s life rather transient during that time.

“My father did many tours of duty overseas because of the nature of his work in the Marine Corps, and so typically when he would go overseas we would move back to Pennsylvania,” his daughter, Melissa Johnson, said. “So until the mid-70s we lived in and out of Pennsylvania.”

Russell ended up in Fallbrook and met Barbara, the woman who would become his second wife, a teacher at Bonsall Elementary School, Johnson said. So he stayed in Fallbrook.

“He loved Fallbrook because it was a conservative, agricultural mindset,” she said.

The motorcycle accident in 1977, Johnson said, “didn’t slow him down at all.”

“He retired from the 20 years in the Marine Corps, starting as a Private and ending as a Major, and he went back to farming,” she said.

He earned a bachelor’s degree from Chapman University and a master’s degree from San Diego State University, both in business, and started Russell Family Farms, which mainly grew macadamias but also raised 30 other kinds of nuts and fruits, according to Johnson.

Russell’s first involvement in local government came during efforts to incorporate Fallbrook in the 1980s. He founded a group, Friends of Rural Lifestyle, to advocate for keeping Fallbrook rural and preventing dense development, Johnson said.

“They were not against incorporation, they were just against bringing sewers into Fallbrook and turning it into Orange County,” Johnson said. “He didn’t have anything against Orange County, he just didn’t want to live there.”

Two referendums were held to incorporate Fallbrook, one in 1981 and the other in 1987. Both were ultimately unsuccessful.

Russell joined the Fallbrook Community Planning Group and became its chair. Group members attributed his longevity in that position, he served for around 30 years, to his wisdom and sense of fairness.

“I found him to be about the fairest guy I’ve ever known,” planning group member Roy Moosa said. “He had the ability to look at any particular situation and put all emotions aside and put up a decision that was based on logic, the law and helping to preserve Fallbrook.”

Jack Wood, who has now taken over Russell’s position as chairman of the planning group, called Russell “my mentor and my friend.”

“He taught me to always look at two sides of a story, that there’s always another side to consider and never just say ‘that’s just what I believe’ and that’s it, period,” Wood said. “He would always say, ‘well, maybe you might just want to look at it from this perspective.’”

Moosa said Russell always, always made sure everyone got their position heard.

“Like, there was a guy once who sat in the audience and held up a sign that was against one of the planning group members,” Moosa said. “And it was embarrassing, but he had a right to do that. And Jim just let him sit in there and do that.”

The planning group, of course, was far from the only thing Russell did.

For 40 years, he was the representative to Washington, D.C., for the Cal-Diego Chapter of Paralyzed Veterans of America, his daughter said.

He set up multiple sports programs for veterans. He worked with local real estate agents to teach them things to look for in helping the disabled community buy homes. He was one of the founding members of the Fallbrook Arts Association and president of the California Macadamia Nut Society.

Russell died at the La Jolla Veterans Affairs Hospital on Friday, Jan. 17. And he was working right up until the end.

“Jim was on a conference call on Wednesday and we went down a whole list of what we thought we would like to have as far as (committee assignments) were concerned,” Wood said.

Russell had been hospitalized for close to eight months, but he still worked on the agendas for the planning group that entire time.

Wood was elected chairman of the planning group on the Monday after Russell’s death. He called taking the position over from Russell “overwhelming.”

“If I were to make any type of statement, I would say I was elected to fill Jim’s shoes, however, I can’t do that,” Wood said. “There’s no one who can fill Jim’s shoes. All I can do is hope to take the mentoring that he gave to me and be able to carry his legacy on in Fallbrook.”

Will Fritz can be reached by email at [email protected].