James L. “Buddy” Bynum

A service to celebrate the life of James L. “Buddy” Bynum will be held Thursday at 11 a.m. at Chapel of the Cross in Madison. Friends will be received at the Parish Hall beginning at 9 a.m. Interment will be at 4 p.m. in the Memorial Garden of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Meridian. Sebrell Funeral Home in Ridgeland is assisting with arrangements.

Mr. Bynum, 59, of Ridgeland, died Saturday, September 3, in his home.

Buddy was born on July 9, 1952, in Meridian, Mississippi. A 1970 graduate of Meridian High School, he was elected president of the student body and Mr. Meridian High School. After graduation, he attended the University of Mississippi where he pledged and was initiated in the Sigma Chi Fraternity.

He was a former communications director for Gov. Haley Barbour and Trent Lott during his time as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. InWashington, D. C., he served as Deputy Secretary for Congressional Relations of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The City of New Orleans conferred upon him the title of Honorary Citizen and the key to the city in March 1988. He was the editor of the Meridian Star, the Mississippi Business Journal, and the Oxford Enterprise. He began his journalism career as editor of the Daily Mississippian, while in college, at the University of Mississippi.

He is preceded in death by his brother, Kenneth Buryl Bynum.

He will be greatly missed by those who love him and will be remembered as a loving husband, father, son, and friend. Survivors include his wife, Sandy May Bynum of Ridgeland; a daughter, Sarah Elizabeth Bynum of Paducah, Ky.; a step-son Jarrod Lee of Magee; his parents Kenneth Donald and Verna Harrison Bynum of Meridian; two grandchildren, Alan Lee and Madelyn Grace Lee of Magee; a sister-in-law Buffy May Lusk and her husband, Clif of Troy, Al.; nieces Sandra Catherine Lusk, Mary Lacy Lusk, May Morgan Lusk of Troy, Al. and nephews Brandon Bynum of Ellisville, David Bynum of Meridian, and Clifton Lusk of Troy, Al.

In lieu of flowers, the family has established The James L. (Buddy) Bynum Scholarship for Excellence in Journalism at the University of Mississippi.