The James Alan Cox Foundation for Student Photojournalists

Focus of work and entries: PHOTOJOURNALISM. Scholarships will be awarded to those students whose work “tells a story”. This is a fairly broad topic and may include a variety of subject matter and approaches (breaking news, sporting events, etc.)  Please keep in mind that, for the still photography submissions, we are NOT looking for “art” photography.

Suggestions for subject matter: As we emerge from the worldwide COVID pandemic, there are still stories to be told about the effects of illness and isolation, but we are at last able to also focus on other things that are unrelated to the virus. For instance, your video submissions or photo images can relate to stories in your community or school – scenes from a graduation, induction into the military, a scientific experiment, police response to an emergency, sporting events … or even an unsolicited act of kindness such as helping an older person or rescuing a pet.  Whichever videos or images you choose, they should be timely, objective, aesthetically interesting and tell a story.  In terms of still photography, you may submit individual images that stand alone, or a series of photos related to one topic or story.  

Again, we are looking for photojournalism. We are asking you to do a lot with this application – write an essay and send us your transcript and letters of reference – so if you are submitting still photos, please don’t ruin your chances of being considered by entering images of flowers, glamour shots or kittens – no matter how adorable they may be.  

Scholarship applications must be submitted between July 15, 2023 and Midnight, the Evening of November 15th, 2023.

Scholarships will be announced and awarded in early to mid-December.

About Jim

Jim Cox–our son, brother, and friend–lived an all-too brief life, dying on July 27, 2007 in a mid-air media helicopter collision over Phoenix. (Also killed in the accident was Jim’s good friend and colleague, Scott Bowerbank). While he was only 37 when he died, Jim’s life was happy, full and jam-packed with adventure and fun. He ran “full throttle” all of the time, and accomplished twice as much as most people do in an entire lifetime.

Jimmy to his family, or Cox to his co-workers, was born in Kingston, New York, but spent most of his childhood in Huntington, Long Island. While he loved his adopted state of Arizona, he was a true New Yorker, through and through. After graduating from Huntington High School, Jim moved out to the southwest to attend Arizona State. He took advantage of his new environment from the very beginning; going to the Grand Canyon; skiing outside of Flagstaff; or driving over to California or another neighboring state for the weekend. Whenever his family called him, during college, he seemed to be on another road trip. They often wondered if he attended classes or if the diploma he received on graduation was actually real. He did and it was. That was just Jimmy for you–he could do it all and have a lot of fun doing it.

After college, Jim worked for the Arizona Cardinals before going to work for KTVK, Channel 3. He loved his job there and the people he worked with–and they loved him. Reporters knew that Jim was a perfectionist and that their work would be even better because of his creativity and professionalism. They also loved working with him because he was a great, nice guy and very, very funny–a “nut” as some have said. His colleague and friend Steve Bodinet commented: “We all like to laugh and that’s why we all wanted to work with Jimmy.”

Besides work, Jim was passionate and talented at so many other things. He spent years, for instance, renovating his home in a historic district of Phoenix. Every nail, every board, was lovingly placed by him–and all by code! But that was not too unusual, as Jimmy could build, fix, take apart and then put back together just about anything–cars, motorcycles, sailboats, you name it. As his friends have joked, Jimmy was the second “MacGyver”. Jim was also extremely athletic, becoming proficient at numerous sports: skiing, sailing and golf to name a few.

But Jim’s true passion was his family. As he stated on his MySpace page, his parents were his heroes–a feeling, which was, and is, reciprocated by them. He also adored his sisters, Leslie and Jenny, and his nieces and nephew. Natalie, Emily and Nate always looked forward to getting together with their “Uncle Dude”.

Jim will be dearly missed by everyone who knew him. It is hard to imagine a world without this funny, intense, passionate “ball of energy”. If anything can be gained from this terrible tragedy, perhaps it is the lesson that we should all try to live life like Jimmy–passionately and with conviction. That would make him smile.