James Coleman Howes, 36, left this life on May 7, 2025. He was born on January 18, 1989, in Toledo, Ohio, to Christen Giblin and Geoffrey Howes, who survive. He grew up in Bowling Green, Ohio, where he attended Ridge School, St. Aloysius School, and Bowling Green High School. He turned one year, five years, and ten years old in Salzburg, Austria, where his father directed a study-abroad program.
At Bowling Green State University, he studied Political Science, Popular Culture, and German, earning his BA in 2010. After working as a political and community organizer in Bowling Green and Wood County, he earned a Master of Public Policy from the University of Chicago in 2015.
He worked at various jobs as a project manager with tech start-ups in Columbus, Chicago, and California before he discovered his true calling in 2022, when he began to paint striking pictures of everyday scenes with an edge of abstraction. Nearly all of these paintings, which he created mostly on commission, found an appreciative home—he painted to communicate.
In his early teens he was an avid BMX biker. In high school, he began playing with rock bands, first as a guitarist, and then as a drummer, drawing on the percussion skills he had gained through lessons starting at age six. Music was a passion he carried and that carried him through the rest of his life, as a sought-after drummer, or as a vocalist, frontman, and lyricist.
As a boy of five in Salzburg, Austria, he developed an intense interest in public transportation and fulfilled his goal of riding every Salzburg bus line from end to end. This fascination stayed with him throughout his life. He was never happier than when he was riding a New York subway line from end to end or admiring the architecture of the TWA hotel at JFK airport. He had a deep knowledge of many subjects, from economics to politics to cuisine to architecture to geography and high technology.
Jim, as some people knew them, and Coleman, as others knew him, had a formidable mind. From an early age, he/they could think faster and farther than he/they could feel, which was a mixed blessing. He was an adept speaker and writer—in the last few years, he wrote sophisticated poetry that went far beyond self-expression to a communion with the uncharted possibilities of language.
Above all, he was/they were a loyal and loving friend to many, many people. He/they knew how to listen and had a big, empathetic heart. The combination of analytical and emotional intelligence was also a mixed blessing. He/they could see and feel despair as much as beauty and joy. He was/they were a unique soul who always did things as he was/they were moved to do them. We will never know why he/they took a final step out of the world, a world that for him/them was fantastically complex.
Jim Coleman Howes is survived by his parents, eighteen aunts and uncles, and twenty-one cousins. He was preceded in death by his grandparents Joan and James Giblin and Joan and Geoffrey Howes, and by his uncles Dan Kush, Tim Beeler, and Jon Brent.
Visitation will be held Tuesday, May 13, from 4:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at Dunn Funeral Home, located in the Historical District of Bowling Green at 408 W. Wooster St. A memorial mass will take place Wednesday, May 14, at 11:00 a. m. at St. Aloysius Catholic Church, 150 S. Enterprise St. in Bowling Green.
Memorial contributions may be given to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention https://afsp.org or the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) of Wood County https://namiwoodcounty.org.
