Dr. James D. Higgason Sr.

May 4, 1935 - August 1, 2021

Dr. James D. Higgason, 86, of Memphis, TN, passed away on August 1, 2021. Jim Higgason was born on May 3, 1935 in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. He excelled in athletics from a young age and was an All-State running back his junior and senior years in high school. After high school, he moved to Memphis to attend college at Southwestern at Memphis (now Rhodes College). In the three years before he graduated from Southwestern, he became a Division III All-American running back, broke numerous school football records, and was President of his fraternity. He also ran track, was captain of the football team, was admitted to Omicron Delta Kappa leadership society, and in 2001 was inducted into the college's Athletic Hall of Fame. After graduating from Southwestern, he received a DDS from the University of Tennessee Dental School and a post-doctorate degree in periodontia at the University of Indiana. In 1961 he returned permanently to Memphis, where he practiced periodontia and taught at the University of Tennessee Dental School until he retired. Jim had a broad range of interests. Among other things, he was golfer, a runner, a pilot, a scuba diver, a motor cyclist, a baker, a bonsai enthusiast, a carpenter, a deacon at Idlewild Presbyterian Church, and, later in life he got a great deal of pleasure driving patients to cancer treatments. He was married for 63 years to the love of his life, Nancy Pickens Higgason, who he met at Southwestern. Dr. Higgason is survived by his wife Nancy, his son, James D. Higgason, Jr., his daughter-in-law, Kelly Noel Higgason, and two grandchildren, Thomas Pearson Higgason and Noel Marie Higgason.