![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WWWColney_Photo2_OptionB-gigapixel-low_res-scale-4_00x-1024x683.jpg\"){kind=tracking}
A young Jim<\/p>\nHow many people can say they spent their first full day in Jacksonville with the Jacksonville Jaguars\u2019 then-owner Wayne Weaver? Yet that was precisely Jim Colney\u2019s introduction to the Bold City.<\/p>\n
It was late 1999, and Colney was working with a Milwaukee-based company designing medium- to high-end home furnishing retail centers. A headhunter had been pestering him about a general manager position in Jacksonville at Liberty Furniture, but Colney was adamant that he had no interest in moving.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust by chance, he reached back out one more time around Thanksgiving,\u201d Colney recalled. \u201cIt was a day that the family had just been at each other\u2019s throats, and I\u2019d had enough. I said, \u2018What is it you got in Florida?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
A couple of days later, he was on a Saturday night flight from Milwaukee to Jacksonville. The next morning, he met with the owners, had brunch and walked the facility.<\/p>\n
\u201cAround noon, [the owner] Mr. Sherman said, \u2018I didn\u2019t tell you this, but we\u2019re going to take you to the Jaguars game,\u2019\u201d said Colney.<\/p>\n
Sherman went on to explain that they would be sitting in a skybox with his friend and golf buddy. And that is how Colney got to watch the best Jags team in franchise history, sitting next to Wayne Weaver during his first 24 hours in town.<\/p>\n
Colney accepted the Liberty Furniture job and moved to Jacksonville days before Y2K, much to the dismay of his friends and family, who worried about him being so far from home when mass computer malfunctions might cause a societal meltdown.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll my friends, relatives, thought I was crazy at the time. My son couldn\u2019t get out of here fast enough,\u201d said Colney.<\/p>\n
Colney\u2019s love for architecture and design was born during his summers in Chicago as a boy, where he wandered through lush suburban neighborhoods, admiring homes.<\/p>\n
A young Jim<\/p>\n
After Liberty Furniture, Colney spent two separate stints working at Reddi-Arts, where he met many local artists with whom he is still friends today. After years of working in design-focused careers that demanded precision, he cherished the chance to express himself freely. He\u2019s converted his garage apartment between Boulder and Inwood streets into an art studio where he paints and sketches.<\/p>\n
Colney\u2019s life post-retirement has been shaped by curiosity and a love of learning. Since stepping away from Reddi-Arts in 2012, he\u2019s taken on a variety of roles \u2013 not for the paycheck, but for the experience. From working at an antique mall to tending plants in the garden center at Ace Hardware, spending a year with Habitat for Humanity, and even joining the bakery at Publix to learn the craft of baking, each job has been a chapter in a life driven by interest rather than income.<\/p>\n
Over the course of his life, Colney has lived in 34 different homes \u2013 a testament to his willingness to embrace change and follow his interests wherever they lead.<\/p>\n
Today, he works with Underhill Staffing, supporting older men with early-stage dementia, and also serves as a crossing guard at Hendricks Elementary five days a week during drop-off and pick-up.<\/p>\n
![\"Jim](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/WWWColney_Photo1-1024x683.jpg\")
Jim Colney<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t let many people get past me without a wave or a smile. And I\u2019ve had a number of people stop and say, \u2018I haven\u2019t smiled until I get to you,\u2019\u201d said Colney.<\/p>\n
Colney loves getting to know his neighbors, something he attributes to his Midwestern roots, growing up in a small Wisconsin town known as America\u2019s \u201cLittle Switzerland.\u201d He loves attending parties and get-togethers, and enjoys making specially curated photobooks of the event for the hosts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m the person that\u2019s always in somebody\u2019s face with my phone, getting your photo and everything,\u201d said Colney.<\/p>\n
Colney is notorious among his family and friends for a total lack of any sense of direction. GPS is of no help to him. He drives a truck willed to him by his dear friend and artist, Jim Smith, who passed away in March 2025. Cemented on the truck\u2019s dash is a 1950s hula girl.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe knows I\u2019m always lost, so she\u2019s always slamming her head into the windshield. And I\u2019m always saying, \u2018Jim, I know you\u2019re here,\u2019\u201d said Colney.<\/p>\n
He may always be lost on the roads, but Jim Colney has found his home in Jacksonville and never seems to lose sight of the things that make life worth exploring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How many people can say they spent their first full day in Jacksonville with the Jacksonville Jaguars\u2019 then-owner…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":487299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,3188,723,7310,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-487298","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fl","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-jacksonville","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-united-states-of-america","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115826067035388089","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}