Crenshaw man remembered for rendezvous with John Glenn

Family and friends of James C. Cox, 88, will have funeral services tomorrow for the retired educator who died April 21 at Diversicare in Batesville.
Cox, who served in the U.S. Navy in the early 1960s, was aboard the USS Randolph CVS 15 aircraft carrier, assigned to rescue America’s most famous astronaut John Glenn when he first orbited Earth in 1962.
Seaman Cox was one of 3,300 sailors aboard the vessel deployed from its home port of Norfolk, VA, to pick up Col. Glenn who orbited Earth three times.
The country’s space program was fledgling at the time, and Glenn’s successful liftoff from Cape Canaveral, Fla., and orbit mission in the Friendship 7 spacecraft was a major accomplishment for NASA.
Family members report that Cox was proud of his role in the mission to pick the returning astronaut up from the sea, and closely followed Glenn’s career.
National newsman Walter Cronkite was also on board that day, reporting the splashdown live to a national audience, anxiously awaiting news of a successful rescue.
The space hero became a U.S. Senator, and later ran for President as a Democrat.
Cox, a Sardis native, was a long-time Panola County educator, and elementary school principal.
He first spent three years in the U.S. Army before enrolling in Mississippi Industrial College in Holly Springs.
Cox then joined the U.S. Navy and also served in the Korean Conflict from 1959-62.
He was a resident of Crenshaw before spending his last years at the assisted living facility.