Jim Bankston: Protector of wildlife in ‘God’s country’

For 30 years, he was Rappahannock’s game warden

Jim Bankston, Rappahannock’s game warden and protector of people and wild resources for 30 years, was a conservation law enforcement officer. His first allegiance was to conservation, and his priority was education, aimed at building respect for shared natural resources and encouraging a protection ethic for Rappahannock’s natural commonwealth.

With his death Dec. 19 at age 78, Bankston leaves a legacy for Rappahannock in his lessons for young people and their elders about appreciating and conserving wildlife and practicing responsible hunting, fishing and boating. 

“Jim taught Hunter Safety courses, visited classrooms to give presentations, manned exhibits that were both informative and fun at school programs and local carnivals, taught nature study classes at 4-H Day Camp and shared his love for his job at the high school’s Career Day,” recalled Joanne Bankston, the college sweetheart he married 51 years ago. 

Often invited to speak at Lions Club’s meetings and other gatherings, Bankston was always ready to answer questions about wildlife habits, harvest, law and other particulars. And he was happy to spread the good word on fish and wildlife at “intelligence gathering expeditions,” as Bankston called his regular rounds of the general stores to talk to folks and take the temperature of the county. 

The coffee klatches began in the 1980s at the old W&J Grocery in the F. T. Valley over Nabs and java with Bankston and regulars including Col. E. P. “Pete” Luke (former chairman of the Board of Supervisors), Eugene McCarthy (former U.S. senator and presidential candidate) and Walter Kilby (local resident and Culpeper pediatrician.) Reportedly, Clean Gene jokingly promised that if he ran again and was elected, he’d appoint Rappahannock’s warden to be his Secretary of Interior. 

Gathering intelligence at the country stores remained an important part of Bankston’s day past retirement and right up until COVID struck. Only then did he stop being a fixture for morning coffee, Little Debbie doughnuts and conversation at the 211 Quickie Mart.

 “Jim loved talking to people, and he had a wealth of knowledge and experience. He read widely and he remembered everything – he was the family’s finder of glasses, keys and cellphones! That memory helped make him a teller of interesting tales. Plus, he was a good listener, and that’s an even rarer talent,” his wife added.

Bankston’s early years

Jim Bankston didn’t have a life-long dream of being a game warden. He grew up poor in a military family, starting work at an amusement park when he was just 12 and voluntarily surrendering his pay to his mom, never considering it “his” money. He changed schools often, moving with his stepdad, mom and four younger sisters from Virginia to Texas to Alabama to North Carolina. 

“Jim picked cotton, rode horses, worked on road crews and took advantage of every opportunity,” Joanne said. “With organized sports and team sports, equipment was expensive, so he shot and hunted for recreation. And he never thought he had a deprived childhood, thanks in large part to the wonderful people who took an interest in him.”

Bankston knew that education was the key to escaping poverty, but he’d been a mediocre student until , at a new high school his senior year, he landed in a group of serious and exceptional young scholars who, with their teachers, welcomed and encouraged him. After graduation, he went on to night school at East Carolina College, but he was working full time at a warehouse for recreation equipment and couldn’t carry enough hours to avoid the draft. So he enlisted instead in the Navy and cruised the Mediterranean and Pacific on the destroyer, USS Bordelon. “Jim was the Interior Communications Electrician  and the most popular person on board because he repaired and operated the ship’s movie projector!” Joanne added, chuckling.

Out of the service in Fairfax, Bankston worked at Safeway, drove a taxi and installed IBM typewriters, using the GI Bill at George Mason University to earn a bachelor’s degree in elementary education in 1972, aiming to teach, but then changing course for a master’s degree in industrial psychology and a career in human resources. 

Jim and Joanne met at the university. She noticed him at a party, wringing out washcloths and patiently caring for a blind date sick with the flu. “He was so attentive and considerate, so unconcerned  about having a good time, I remember thinking, ‘I want a man like that!’” 

She sought an introduction from a mutual friend, who confirmed that Bankston had also been watching her, and that was it. They dated and two years later, they married. 

Settling in Rappahannock

What with Vietnam vets and the GI Bill, graduate degrees were plentiful but openings in Bankston’s field were not, so when he spotted an ad in the post office, he gave it a shot and hit his target – Rappahannock County Game Warden.

The couple plunked down on Red Oak Mountain, and Joanne, programmer and systems analyst with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, commuted to D.C.  A self-described city person, she admitted she was “scared of everything” in the country. She worried that the groundhogs, holed up under the house, were eating through the floor to get to her; a mouse could keep her huddled on top of the kitchen table until the game warden came home to save her. “Don’t get too upset. Just give it time. It will work itself out,” she recalled her warden advising.

Of course, the prediction came true. One day soon thereafter, driving back from D.C., she felt her heart swell at the first glimpse of the Blue Ridge. “Why are you fighting this? It’s paradise,” Joanne remembers chiding herself. 

John McCarthy, Rappahannock’s former county administrator, recalled a Board of Supervisors’ meeting focused on an upsurge of bear damage. It offers an example of the Bankston approach, developed through solo encounters in isolated places with hunters and anglers who were almost always armed with guns or at least sharp knives, often drinking and sometimes breaking the law. He lowered tension and disarmed with friendliness, good nature and a little half smile. He did the same at that courthouse meeting.  

“Long-time residents and newcomers, farmers and weekenders, everyone was upset,” McCarthy recalled. “The Department of Game and Inland Fisheries had changed its policy and stopped relocating problem bears, and everyone was mad at Jim.” 

A weekender complained that a bear had destroyed the bird feeder on her deck. So, she ran the bird feeder up a pole. The bear pulled it down, so she strung a cable from the porch to the tree and suspended the bird feeder half way. The bear unlatched the cable. And Bankston observed, “Ma’am, what you have is a bear feeder, not a bird feeder!”  

“Jim got along with everybody,” agreed Phil Parrish, long-time warden from neighboring Fauquier County who served in that post while Jim was in Rappahannock. “That’s why we elected him president of the Virginia Game Warden Association. He had great people skills. He was a great officer, well thought of by his peers. We all loved the guy.”

“Jim taught me how to be a game warden. He taught a lot of us how to be wardens,” acknowledged Owen Bullard, the warden in Culpeper County. “He was a kind, gentle soul. In all the years of working with him and for him, we never had a cross word. Wardens are alone, in remote areas most of the time, and we’ve got to be careful. Jim would always say, ‘Your best weapon is your brain. Just be patient and use your head.’”

Serious violations deserve citations 

Bankston wrote tickets for only the most egregious offenses. His philosophy was you don’t mess up a person’s enjoyment of the wild if you can help it. Bullard remembered a day the two spent working together: they were driving in search of food when he spotted an angler up ahead and suggested they stop and check for a license. “We’re on our way to lunch. Leave the poor guy alone!” Bankston countered.

According to Bullard, Bankston as sergeant and district supervisor was always battling headquarters on behalf of his troops in the field. “He was adamant. He was so outspoken on their behalf that we came to be known as the District 54 Malcontents! Jim considered the rank and file like family. So much so that he willingly worked weekends and holidays to give his subordinates the time at home.” 

Bullard and Bankston became great friends off the job as well, and they “saved the world and solved all its problems” in their long and regular telephone calls.

“Jim has been a blessing and light in our lives since we moved here in 1994,” wrote Bullard’s wife Martina, who teaches English as a second language at Rappahannock’s elementary and high schools. “He always had a kind word, joke, twinkle in his eye and a gentle way about him.”

The Bankstons bought a home at Rock Mills, where they’ve lived for 45 years. The acreage was allowed to transform itself into a wildlife sanctuary, “so Jim wouldn’t have to do anything with the land,” Joanne laughed. 

“Let Nature take its course. That was Dad’s favorite and most frequent pronouncement,” noted daughter Julie. 

Basically, Bankston gave up hunting and fishing, at least in Rappahannock; he just didn’t want to kill the animals he was working to protect. He also passed up promotions and pay raises to stay in Rappahannock for his entire career with the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. “Jim wanted our children to grow up in ‘God’s country,’” Joanne explained.

(Their son Jonathan shares the attachment; he and his wife Krystal will build on the 18 acres at Rock Mills. Joanne will soon move down the street from her siblings in North Carolina, closer to daughter Julie in Durham.)

Gathering intel from the couch

Bankston retired early, in 2004, when he was just 59, but already battling the diabetes that impacted his heart and kidneys, left him with neuropathy in his feet and robbed him of energy. He spent more time on the couch with his iPad and his cellphone, gathering intelligence electronically from friends and fellow wardens. He and Joanne poured over that yearbook from his senior year in North Carolina where he transformed himself into a serious scholar. “Jim told me everything about every one of those kids – they were so important to him. He dearly wanted to make the 60th reunion.” 

They listened to hours of music, always including the Righteous Brothers’ “Unchained Melody.” 

“That was our song when we were dating and throughout our married  life. When we slow-danced to that, I was in another world,” Joanne remembered, eyes shining. “And ‘Endless Love’ made Jim emotional because he felt, ‘It’s about us.’”

Jim Bankston died four days before their 51st anniversary. A celebration of his life will be held later this year, here in the place he loved. 

“Jim was so embedded in his community,” John McCarthy observed. “Rappahannock has always benefited from the people who care about the county in an outsized way. Jim Bankston was one of those people.”

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