CUMMINS, JAMES D. Jim Cummins was a reporter. For nearly thirty years he traveled the world for NBC News reporting on Today, NBC Nightly News and MSNBC. Cummins, 62, died Friday, Oct. 26, 2007 after a tenacious fight against cancer. His wife and their three sons and three daughters were with him. Steve Capus, President of NBC News: "The NBC News family has lost a gentle giant of a man." The funeral is Friday, Nov. 2 at 10 at the Sparkman-Dickey chapel with burial following at Hillcrest Cemetery. Jim Cummins was born and grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, one of 5 brothers. He was a star athlete--a high school All-American who led Regis High School's basketball team to the state championship in 1962. Cummins was considered by some to have been one of the greatest high school athletes in Iowa history. He went on to play basketball at Northwestern University while earning a B.A. and a M.A. at Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism. He married his high school sweetheart, Connie, in 1968. They have six children and two grandchildren. Cummins began his television career in 1969, traditionally, in small markets: Mason City, Iowa, Grand Rapids, Michigan, and then the NBC affiliate in Milwaukee, WTMJ-TV. In 1975, he joined NBC, working first as a local reporter at the NBC-owned station in Chicago, WMAQ-TV. In 1978 he was named a network correspondent based in the NBC News Midwest Bureau in Chicago. Bureau Chief Frieda Morris remembered Cummins' actions on May 25, 1979, when American Airlines Flight 191 crashed at O'Hare Airport, killing 271: "Jim was off duty, but he called in to say he was headed for the smoke." Throughout his career, Jim Cummins always headed for the smoke. He was nominated for a national Emmy for coverage of the Civil War in El Salvador and Hurricane Hugo. He won the Emmy for his coverage of the 1993 Midwest Floods, in his native Iowa, and for Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In 1989 he was named Bureau Chief and Correspondent for the reopened NBC Southwest Bureau, in Dallas. That put Cummins in place to cover the two greatest stories of his career-The Branch Davidian standoff in Waco, and the Murrah Building bombing in Oklahoma City. He reported from outside Waco for nearly two months. The morning the final assault began, April 19, 1993, he began reporting live for Today before daylight. When smoke began pouring from a second floor window in the wooden compound before noon, it was Jim Cummins who broke into NBC network programming with live coverage which continued for hours. Two years later, April 19, 1995, at his desk in Dallas, he got word of a massive explosion in downtown Oklahoma City. About to race for a flight from Love Field, he messaged the executive producer of Nightly News: "This is the anniversary of the fire in Waco." In an anniversary essay ten years later, Cummins wrote: "I remember standing in front of the blaze that killed more than 80 men, women and children in Waco like it was yesterday. I remember looking at the mangled face of the front of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City two years later and wondering: could the two events be related?" Cummins covered the whole continuing story of Oklahoma City, Timothy McVeigh's arrest, the implosion of the building, the anniversaries, the dedication of the Memorial, the trials of McVeigh and Terry Nichols, and finally the execution of McVeigh. In the 2005 essay, Cummins wrote: "In the days and weeks after that we learned that he had been at Waco during the government standoff with the Branch Davidians and it was that disaster that motivated the bombing plot. This story had come full-circle. "Over the years, I've returned to Oklahoma City and I've gotten to know many of the victims and their families. "It is painful to see the suffering in their faces and many of them continue to suffer to this day. They will always need our prayers." NBC News President Steve Capus: "It's fitting that Jim had a big family. After all, he spent decades making Americans feel right at home, with his down to earth, warm reporting style, delivery and presence. As Brian Williams recently put it, 'Jim was the definition of a field correspondent...who seemingly covered every story more than once.'" In addition to his wife, Connie, Jim is survived by daughters Kim Cummins, Chrissy Cummins and Molly Cummins, and sons John Cummins, Billy Cummins and Doug and wife Leah Cummins, and grandchildren James Cummins and Addison Cummins. He is also survived by two brothers, Richard and Bob. He is preceded in death by his brothers Jack and Billy and his parents Dewey and Dorothy Cummins. Memorials may be made to Camp Courageous of Iowa, PO Box 418, Monticello, Iowa 52310.

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