Dr. James "Jim" E. Womack

Dr. James E. (Jim) Womack, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, at Texas A&M University, died peacefully at home on August 13, 2023 at the age of 82. Jim was born in Anson, Texas on March 31, 1941 to Charles Ernest Womack and Eva Mae Hollums Womack. Jim was an outstanding high school athlete, named to first team All-State basketball in both his junior and senior years at Hawley HS, Tx. After a sterling academic and athletic high school education in Hawley, Jim accepted a basketball scholarship and enrolled in Abilene Christian University in 1959. He led the ACU Wildcats to two consecutive conference championship and was elected to the ACU Wildcat Sports Hall of Fame. While at ACU, Jim met and married the love of his life, Raby Beakley. He graduated from ACU in 1965 with a degree in Mathematics Education and enrolled as a NASA Fellow in the Graduate School at Oregon State University. His doctoral thesis on effects of X irradiation on genetic traits in mice earned him the Ph.D. degree in Genetics in 1968. He and Raby and their two young children returned to ACU where Jim was an Assistant Professor of Biology. Jim immensely enjoyed teaching but also wanted to develop a research program in Genetics. It was at ACU he published his first comparative genetics paper on gene mapping in rats and mice and the study of comparative gene mapping and chromosomal evolution in animals was to become Jim’s scientific passion. During the summers of 1971-74, Jim and Raby supervised The Jackson Laboratory Summer Research Program for college undergraduate students in Bar Harbor, Maine. In 1975, Jim accepted a Staff Scientist position at JAX where he focused his research on comparative gene mapping in humans and mice. He was an active participant in a series of Workshops on Human Gene Mapping. One of his favorite sayings was “humans are excellent models for genetic analysis of other animals”.

Jim returned to Texas in 1977 to join the Department of Veterinary Pathobiology and the newly-formed Institute of Comparative Medicine, a joint program of the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. Soon after arriving at Texas A&M, Jim sensed his professional career in Texas might be more quickly advanced by a research program more appropriate for the Texas culture. So, at the prompting of his colleague and good friend, Stephen O’Brien, Jim pivoted away from mouse genetics and developed a comparative genetics program for cattle. His experiences in mouse and human genetics provided the tools and expertise to rapidly develop genetic maps of cattle. He was instrumental in launching the NIH/USDA Bovine Sequencing Initiative with Dr. Richard Gibbs of the HGSC at Baylor College of Medicine and served as the first coordinator for the USDA Cattle Genome Research Program. He served as past presidents of the International Society for Animal Genetics, the American Genetics Association and the Texas Genetics Society.

During his career, Jim supervised 47 graduate students, eight residents/interns/postdoctoral fellows, and two pre-doctoral fellows resulting in 358 peer-reviewed articles published in scientific journals. His commitment to student education led he and Raby to establish the Raby and Jim Womack Endowed Basketball Scholarship at ACU and, upon his retirement in 2018, his former TAMU graduate students honored him “for the impact he made in the classroom and in his laboratory” with The James Womack Endowed Fund in Animal Genomics. He received the The Student-Led TAMU System Award for Teaching Excellence in 2009 and the TAMU Faculty Distinguished Achievement Award for Graduate Student Mentoring in 2010.

Jim’s transformative research in cattle genetics was recognized with several national and international awards, including the 1993 CIBA Prize for Research in Animal Health (Basel, Switzerland), and the 2001 Wolf Prize. Jim was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1999 and the TAMU University Distinguished Professors in 2001. In 2008, Jim received the prestigious George Bush Award for Excellence in International Research and in 2016 he received the American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges (AAVMC) Excellence in Research Award. He was named ACU Outstanding Alumnus in 2006 and an OSU Alumni Fellow in 2013.

For all of these accomplishments, Jim would quickly say that his greatest love was people; his family and friends, his students and his faith in God. He loved fly fishing with friends in a clear Colorado stream in early summer, floating the rivers in Montana with his son Jimmy, and more recently teaching his grandson, JH, to catch bass in his farm pond with their dogs nearby. Jim and Raby loved entertaining friends and students at their farm near Franklin, TX and even in his last few weeks of life he never lost his sense of humor and quick wit. Jim and Raby were members of the A&M Church of Christ for many years and loved their Small Group Bible Study.

Jim was preceded in death by his parents, Charles and Eva Mae Womack, his son, James (Jimmy) Michael Womack and brother-in-law, Grover J. Beakley.

He is survived by his loving wife of 60 years, Raby Beakley Womack; his daughter, Wendy Anne Hill and grandson, James Hamlin Hill of College Station and father Bill Hill of College Station and Franklin, TX.; grandson, David Quaid Faltys of Reno, NV; sisters, Karen Wood of Franklin, TN, and Cathy Peacock and husband Clyde of Sand Springs, OK; brother, Gary Womack and wife Rose Ann of Hawley TX; half-siblings, Clara Barksdale, Casi Davis and Chase Womack and sister-in-law, Jenelle Beakley of Weatherford TX, and numerous nieces and nephews. Raby and Jim also wish to recognize their longtime family friend, Mary Williams and her son James.

Visitation for Dr. Womack will be from 5:00 pm until 7:00 pm, Friday, August 18, 2023 at Memorial Funeral Chapel College Station, 2901 Texas Avenue South, College Station, Texas 77845.

Memorial service and celebration of Dr. Womack’s life will be at 4:00 pm, Saturday, August 19th at A&M Church of Christ, 2475 Earl Rudder Fwy S, College Station, with a reception following. Services will be livestreamed and can be joined at https://link.am.church/Womack.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that contributions be made to the Texas A&M Foundation, 401 George Bush Drive, College Station, Texas 77840. Please designate the Jim Womack Endowed Fund in Animal Genomics in the memo line of the check. Should you wish to make an online contribution, you may follow this link: http://give.am/JimWomackEndowedFund.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.memorialfuneralchapel.com for the Womack family.