Jim Lucas was born a third generation Checotahan on June 22, 1914.  He graduated from Checotah High School in 1931 and attended the University of Missouri.

Jim Lucas’s first job was as a reporter for the Muskogee Daily Phoenix.  This meant that he gathered information and wrote a report for publication in the newspaper.  He was also a reporter for the Tulsa Tribune.  After working on the Tulsa Tribune, he enlisted in the Marines in 1942 and became one of the Corps’ first combat correspondents. 

He made eight island landings in World War II, including Guadalcanal, Tarawa, and Iwo Jima.  While there he won a battlefield commission with a Bronze Star during the Southwest Pacific Battle of Tarawa in 1943.  He was also given the “National Headliners Award” for best reporting that same year.  After VJ Day, August 15, 1945, the day that victory over Japan was celebrated by the Allies, he became military correspondent for Scripps-Howard newspapers.  He worked as a reporter and foreign correspondent in Washington, D.C. for 25 years.  He attended the first atomic bomb test at Bikini Island.

In 1947 Jim Lucas was one of the privileged members of Admiral Richard E. Byrd’s Expedition to the South Pole.  While there they mapped and explored over 2,100,000 sq km of territory, about one third of it newly discovered.  He also made a trip to the North Pole.

At the start of the Korean War, Jim Lucas went to the front lines and remained there until 1953 when the last prisoner was returned to the United States.  While in Korea he received the Pulitzer Prize, annual prize established by Joseph Pulitzer and given for outstanding work in journalism, literature, and music for international reporting and journalism, during the following year, he received the Ernie Pyle Memorial Award, the George Polk Memorial Award from Long Island University, the VFW’s Omar Bradley Gold Medal, and the Marine Corps “Not for self but for Country” Award.

Jim Lucas went to Vietnam as a war correspondent in January 1964, where he won the Ernie Pyle Award again.  He was wounded slightly in 1964, when a helicopter on which he was a passenger landed to pick up the crew of a downed helicopter.  He made seven trips to Vietnam.

He is the author of “Combat Correspondent”, “Dateline: Vietnam”, and “Agnew, Profile in Conflict”.  Jim Lucas was the only journalist ever called to give a briefing at the White House before the President and 100 Congressional leaders.

He also has won the American Legion’s Fourth Estate Award, the Disabled American Veterans’ Distinguished Service Award, the Marine Corps League’s Distinguished Service Award, and similar awards from the National Press Club and Washington Advertising Club, and the Medal of the Republic of Korea.

Jim Griffing Lucas died on July 21, 1970 and was buried with a full military ceremony in Checotah.  He lived a wondrous life and was greatly appreciated and respected by not only his fellow Oklahomans but also many from around the world.  Checotah, Oklahoma honored him with the naming of the Jim Lucas Memorial Library on May 2, 1971.  Later the name was changed to the Jim Lucas Checotah Public Library.