Pittsburg State University honored alumni Jim Bishop with the Dr. Ralph J. Thomas Distinguished Service Award at the annual Apple Day ceremony March 5.
Bishop is a Pittsburg real estate broker and owner of Jim Bishop and Associates, a franchise of the national Coldwell Banker real estate firm.
Raised and educated in the Parsons (Kan.) school system, Bishop earned a Bachelor of Science in business administration in 1965 from PSU before heading into the U.S. Air Force, where he was commissioned as a second lieutenant. He went through pilot training and was assigned to a fighter squadron in Arizona before spending a year in Vietnam.
When Bishop returned to the U.S., he served with a New Mexico fighter squadron. He left the Air Force in 1970 and moved back to Pittsburg.
Bishop began selling real estate and in 1975 bought Crawford County Realty. Eight years later, he bought into the Coldwell Banker franchise and led his business into becoming one of the company's top franchisees.
During his years in real estate, Bishop has served as president of the State Association of Realtors and as a director of the National Association of Realtors. He won the Kansas Realtor of the Year Award in 1997, and serves currently as president of the Pittsburg Board of Realtors. He has also served in various community organizations including the Pittsburg Area Chamber of Commerce, the YMCA, and the downtown revitalization committee.
Bishop has served as co-chair of the fundraising campaign to build the Veterans Memorial; a volunteer with the Community Campaign; a PSU Foundation trustee and past-president; a lifetime member of the President's Society; and has established an endowed scholarship.
His wife, Nancy (PSU '82) works as office manager for the Pittsburg orthodontics business owned by their daughter, Gina Pinamonti. Both Gina and their other daughter, Lisa Grosdidier, an accountant, are also PSU graduates.
