Melvin “Jim” Morley
January 6, 1923 ~ December 4, 2009
Burial:  Santa Fe National Cemetery
            Santa Fe, NM

Jim Morley, age 86, an inspiring principal figure in Albuquerque's theater arts community for decades, died December 4, 2009. Morley founded the theater department at the College of St. Joseph, which became the University of Albuquerque (U of A), and taught there for 27 years, training thousands of students and producing plays rarely seen elsewhere in the city. Morley built a theater and curriculum envied by other institutions. He retired at the end of 1984. To honor his contribution to theatre on the campus that once was U of A, in 2005 St. Pius X High School dedicated Stage I in the Fine Arts Center as The Jim Morley Theatre.

(Pictured above from the 1941 Spy; and below from the U of A archives when, as a student, he appeared in a production of Hamlet.)