Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. on Thursday, April 17, 2025, at First Methodist Church in Grenada for Mr. James A. “Jim” Cooper Jr., 96, of Grenada, who died on Friday, April 11, in Collierville, Tenn. Burial will follow in the family plot in Charleston City Cemetery. The Rev. Daniel Herring will officiate. The family will receive friends from 5:30 p.m. until 7 p.m. on Wednesday evening, April 16, at McKibben and Guinn Funeral Service and one hour prior to the service on Thursday, April 17, at the church.
Jim was born on April 17, 1928, in Madisonville, Ky., the son of the late James A. Cooper Sr. and the late Edna Carter Cooper. He graduated from Oxford-University High School in 1946, and attended the University of Mississippi, graduating in 1952. He was a member of the Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity. During the summers in college, Jim worked for the United States Forestry Service in Idaho as a logger and firefighter.
Jim also served in the United States Army during the Korean Conflict, and worked in intelligence for the National Security Agency both in a military and civilian role. Jim would later return to Ole Miss and graduate from Pharmacy School in 1962. Jim moved his family to Grenada in the late 1960s where he became an owner of Dyre-Kent Drug Co. with the late G. Spivey Kent. His son, Al, would later join them at Dyre-Kent after he graduated from Pharmacy School in 1984.
Jim was a devoted Christian and member of First Methodist Church in Grenada. Jim was a kind, compassionate and generous husband, brother, father and grandfather, and a servant to the Grenada community through his pharmacy work and longtime membership in the Exchange Club. He was also a pretty funny guy and always had interesting stories to tell. Jim loved golf and loved to play in golf tournaments. He received his first set of clubs at the age of 5 from his father when they lived in California, and did not hang up his golf spikes until the age of 90, while often shooting his age in his 70s and 80s.
In addition to his parents, his wife, Mary Frances Driskell Cooper; one son, James A. “Al” Cooper III, and his sister, Muriel Cooper Strong, preceded Jim in death.
Survivors include, one son, Ken Cooper (Holly) of Memphis, Tenn.; grandson, Casey Cooper, and granddaughter, Mary Margaret Cooper, both of Memphis, Tenn.; brother, William (Margaret) Cooper of Bartlett, Tenn.; special cousin, Kay Nesbit (Tim) of Foley, Ala., and numerous nephews and nieces whom he loved dearly.
Online condolences can be expressed to the family at www.mckibbenandguinn.com
McKibben and Guinn Funeral Service in Grenada is in charge of arrangements.
