(1931-) A founding member of the Calgary Centre; involved with planetaria in Calgary and Vancouver; received the Service Award (1967).
JAMES F. WRIGHT (1931-) joined the RASC in 1946. As a student at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in 1958, he was a founding member and the first Vice-President of Calgary Centre. He was an active auroral observer and contributed to the IGC Visual Meteor Program in 1960. Having built his own observatory, he joined the AAVSO and became the Centre's co-ordinator of planetary observations in 1962.
His expertise in designing electrical and optical systems led him to take an important part in planning the Calgary Centennial Planetarium, and he became its Technical Supervisor when it opened in 1967. For his enthusiastic role in promoting the planetarium and astronomy within the community, Jim Wright received the Service Award. Also during Centennial year he served as President of the Calgary Centre and his wife, Norma, was Secretary. They then moved to Vancouver where he accepted a position as Assistant Director of the MacMillan Planetarium. He naturally became involved in the Vancouver Centre, holding a number of Offices including the Presidency in 1974. Norma unfortunately passed away after the Wrights returned to the Calgary area in 1988.
—Peter Broughton (from Looking Up)