Jim Cristy

James Crapo Cristy, Jr. was a financial manager for the Updike Company, and a school board President. He was an American competition swimmer who specialized in distance freestyle events while swimming at the University of Michigan in the early 1930s. He won a bronze medal for the United States at the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California in the 1500-meter swim, edging out his better-known freestyle distance rival and future actor Buster Crabbe, who had taken a bronze in the event in the previous Olympics in Amsterdam. Though his career would be in insurance and as a long-serving financial manager for Upjohn Company pharmaceuticals in Kalamazoo, in his spare time he would take an interest in public office, and serve as an elected school board member of the small Kellogg Consolidated School system. In 1961, he would run as a delegate to Michigan's constitutional convention and in 1968 be appointed by successive Michigan governors to serve on an advisory board to investigate options for public employee pensions and retirement funding.