After a fulfilling twenty year career teaching physics at UC Davis, Jim retired in 1987 to build his house in rural Nevada County.

Some of the personal characteristics that helped Jim become an effective researcher and teacher were useful in his new pursuit of home construction- his creativity and a belief he could solve most problems. Meticulous attention to detail carried his carpentry skills from furniture reproductions to home construction.

Jim soon became involved in leading the development of the Lake Vera-Round Mountain Neighborhood Association. He served as a leader until his death, managing a blog on neighborhood activities and the how to’s of a rural Nevada County lifestyle, a favorite seasonal offering – “let a faucet slowly drip over the cold nights to keep pipes from freezing”.

Jim, always a mountain hiker, transferred his Sierra Club membership from Davis to Nevada County. Living in the foothills brought more frequent opportunities and Blue Lake became a favored destination.

As Jim’s awareness of the local wildland fire threat increased, he became involved in early Firewise activities and was named 2018 Volunteer of the Year for FireSafe Nevada County.

The election of many officials in Nevada County in the 1995-2020 period can be directly attributed to Jim’s neighborhood by neighborhood data base work on individual voter history. His effort was the background for door-to-door efforts and became an integral part of most campaigns to elect effective progressive candidates.

Jim’s love of dogs was ever constant – Dave, Gladys (Golden Retrievers) were Davis hiking companions; also serving as actors to demonstrate physics principles in classroom demonstrations. Anabelle and Mirabelle, whose names came from Mayberry USA filled the Nevada County years.

Jim had an insatiable quest for knowledge and was a gifted teacher: always willing to share his wealth of information. He had authored physics textbooks and a treatise on time, entropy and statistical physics–A Paradox in Time, James P. Hurley, BookLocker, 2004. Even in his final months, Jim updated his various essays dealing with human behavior, genetics & evolution and statistical physics. His last essay was published posthumously https://arix.org/abs/2409.19033.

Jim is survived by his brother, Edward Hurley, many friends, neighbors, and former students.