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HUNTINGTON UNIV MAGAZINE

O’Donnell meets the press with Arthur

FOR RELEASE April 7, 2005

James O'Donnell

HUNTINGTON, IN— Jim O’Donnell, author of Letters for Lizzie and Walking with Arthur, has been busy lately. In the midst of a full-time teaching schedule as a business professor and executive-in-residence at Huntington College, he has been traveling to radio and television interviews across the country.

His most recent book, Walking with Arthur, details his coming to faith in the midst of his Wall Street career, through a friendship with a fellow commuter and Harvard educated lawyer. While some would qualify the book as a spiritual memoir, O’Donnell sees it differently. In a recent interview for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, O’Donnell stated:

“I firmly believe that my coming to know Christ changed my life,” he says. “But having done that, I feel this sort of precious burden to try to reinterpret the ‘code’ for people like me that didn’t grow up in faith, who are often put off by the code and the lingo and the slang – the clubbishness that can overcome this wonderful gift that we have been given.”

His message has had the opportunity to reach many people in high places, who, like the Jim O’Donnell of the past, may be looking for something more. O’Donnell, along with wife Lizzie, were the subjects of a feature article in a September issue of The Wall St. Journal. The author, Amy Dockser Marcus, recently received a Pulitzer Prize for the article, a story that has been the most requested of her series featuring the stories of cancer survivors. Marcus has also won the 2005 Pulliam Award in Indiana for the O’Donnell story.

In addition to more than a dozen radio and some television and magazine interviews, O’Donnell was recently interviewed for a story in the New York Times. And he was invited to speak at the Business School of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, where he was able to share his story with “a number of fine people,” he said.

Huntington College is a comprehensive Christian college of the liberal arts offering graduate and undergraduate programs in more than 70 academic concentrations. Following a decade of growth and development, Huntington College will become Huntington University in mid-2005. U.S.News & World Report ranks Huntington among the top comprehensive colleges in the Midwest. Founded in 1897 by the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, Huntington College is located on a contemporary, lakeside campus in northeast Indiana. Huntington is a member of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) and was named one of the 50 best Christian places to work by Christianity Today magazine.

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