Featured Pro: The Doctor Halvorsen

ILONA SAARI

JIM

HALVERSON

JIM IN MAN OF LAMANCHA PHOTO BY MARTY BABAYCO

That title question is sometimes called out to a theater audience if someone’s sick or injured. But in Ojai the audience might look to the stage, instead. More on that later...

Meet Jim Halverson, born in Winnebago (the town, not the camper) a rural farming community named for the Winnebago Indians in southern Minnesota. Not a place with much call for actors (zero, actually), but doctors were always needed, and Jim’s father, Don, was one of two physicians for the town and neighboring communities. His mom, Jane, had a love and talent for oil painting, a talent Jim empathically claims he did not inherit. ano and trumpet lessons. He loved the trumpet. Piano, not so much. But, at age 13, his life was uprooted. One of Don’s patients was holed up in his home with a shotgun, threatening to kill his wife and himself. The man refused to talk to the police, but he would talk to his doctor. Unarmed, Don bravely entered the couple’s home and talked the man into surrendering. This had a profound effect on Jim’s mother, enough for the family to leave Winnebago. Don and Jane packed up Jim and his younger sister, Sue, and headed for the warm sun of San Bernardino, California, where Jane enrolled in a Fine Arts Master program to work on her painting, and Don resumed his work as a family doctor.

LEFT: JIM ELWOOD P. DOWD IN HARVEY PHOTO BY ALEXANDER SCHOTTKEY

JIM & ROBYN

versity of California, Los Angeles, planning to become an engineer. Though he had never considered following in his father’s footsteps, it wasn’t long before he realized engineering was not for him and switched to Biochemistry. For a break from his studies, he became a trumpeter for UCLA’s marching band. During his junior year, he met freshman, Robyn Andres, a linguistic major raised back East.

Thinking Jim might be related to the Halversons she knew (he wasn’t), she looked him up just as he was leaving his dorm room dressed in full marching band regalia. Robyn took that “man in a uniform” archetype to heart and it wasn’t long before they began dating.

After graduating with a B.S. in Biochemistry, Jim entered Duke University Medical School in the fall of 1978. In ‘81, Jim and Robyn married and in ‘82, Jim graduated from Duke.

The newlyweds returned to California where Jim did his internship and residency in family practice medicine at Ventura County Memorial Medical Center, where he met and became friends with fellow residents, Mary and Lanyard Dial. In 1984, Robyn gave birth to their first child, Jenna

To pay back his student loans, Jim became a physician for the National Public Health Corps. He moved his young family to Burney, California, a logging community high up in the Sierra Mountains, where he lived a “Northern Exposure” doctor’s life, not unlike his father’s practice in Minnesota. The nearest hospital to Burney was mountain roads away in Fall River Mills.

As Robyn settled in and made new friends, Jim treated patients and traveled to the Fall River Mills hospital for doctoring shifts, often sleeping there, rather than drive the mountain roads late at night back to Burney. It was there that their son, Brad was born (now a contractor in Ojai, Chief Peak Builders).

Doctoring in the mountains led to some touch-and-go medical situations, such as a boy of 16 who came to the hospital unconscious from a blow to the head. The hospital wasn’t equipped to handle brain injuries, so Jim called the Redding Hospital (60 miles away) and spoke to a neurosurgeon who instructed him to drill a hole in the boy’s head to relieve the pressure. Unfortunately, the Fall River Mills hospital did not have a medical drill, so the neurosurgeon suggested that Jim sterilize and use a carpenter’s drill because the boy might not make it to Redding alive otherwise.

But… a blizzard was raging, leaving no way to find such a drill, and a medivac helicopter was out of the question. Determined to get his patient to Redding alive, Jim intubated him, massaging the air bag that pumped breath into the barely breathing boy, as he convinced the neurosurgeon to send an ambulance halfway to Fall River Mills, 30 miles over mountain icy roads in blizzard conditions, where he would meet it and transfer the boy from the Fall River Falls Hospital ambulance to Redding’s.

Jim kept pumping air into his patient during the entire, harrowing ride, not stopping until he could hand the boy and the bag over to the attendants in the Redding ambulance. He stayed with the boy the rest of the way, who miraculously survived, suffering no brain damage.

In 1987, after Jim and his family had been in Burney for two years, his old friend Dr. Mary Dial asked him to join her and Dr. Carl Gross in their Family Medicine practice in Ojai. Having visited Ojai during his resident years in Ventura, he and Robyn accepted and moved to the Valley.

As the children were growing up, Robyn became an active fundraiser for the children’s schools and worked, first as a volunteer, then an employee, for the school district as an administrative assistant at the Nordhoff Performing Arts program. Jim discovered singing and acting when he joined the Ojai Presbyterian Church choir, (which he now directs) and volunteered to play trumpet in the Nordhoff High School theater production orchestra, where he met beloved actor, director and drama teacher, John Slade.

Slade was auditioning for his production of “Our Town,” and was looking for a real doctor to play the doc. He asked Jim if he’d be interested in doing the part. Jim agreed, and during the run of the show, he was thoroughly bitten by the acting bug (for which there is no vaccine.)

Since his debut in “Our Town,” Jim has done numerous shows in Ojai, mostly musicals, including the Ojai Art Center Theater’s presentations of “A Funny Thing Happened on The Way to The Forum,” “Hello Dolly,” and “Man of La Mancha,” a co-production with Ojai Performing Arts Theater (OPAT), as well as featured roles in OPAT productions of “She Loves Me,” and “Grand Hotel.”

Before the pandemic reached America, Jim was cast in his first lead role as “Elwood P. Dowd” in an Ojai revival of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “Harvey,” co-directed by Broadway producer/director Craig Anderson, and Richard Camp. Surrounded by a solid cast of professional and community actors and a gorgeous set, opening night was a week away, when the lockdown hit and theater doors closed.

But, “Harvey” will rise from the ashes like a phoenix, health issues willing. Jim and the cast will return, rehearsals will resume, the set will be taken out of storage, and the show will go on … hopefully this Fall.

As his family practice maintains a pandemic safe environment for its patients, Jim has also been writing a Covid-19 information column for the Ojai Valley News, keeping Ojaians up-to-date on the latest data regarding the virus and vaccines. Recently, the Santa Paula Times has picked up Jim’s column and is running it both in English and Spanish.

In some ways, Jim has come full circle. Like his father (now a resident of the Gables), he’s living a small-town family doctor’s life where he’s active in the Rotary Club of Ojai West, was chief-of-staff of Ojai Valley Community Hospital and is a past president and on the Board of the Ojai Valley Community Hospital Foundation.

Also like his father, who’s a musician and singer, Jim’s been able to enjoy his love of music and acting, first in the church choir, then in the orchestra pit of Nordhoff productions (which he now produces), and on stage, as he continues to care for his patients in a town he loves.

May 23, 2021

Byron Katie & The Work will be returning to Flourish Ojai

Photo Courtesy of Gerdi Alvarado, Ojai Artist & Community Member

March 21st 2021

AN OUNCE OF PERMISSION

All you need is an ounce of Permission to change, to grieve, to release, to forgive, to manifest, to feel, to move through the next chapter of life…

April 22nd-25th 2021

6 Feet of Connection Back to Our Roots

We invite our Ojai community to participate in creating art and contributing to this Earth Day Event featuring local artists, International guest artists, free workshops, and more!

WWW.FLOURISHOJAI.COM

Donna Sallen

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There’s no place like home ... Let me find yours.

A hidden little gem! Very private, quiet, respite right in town. Bright, light-filled modern turnkey home that features ease of indoor-outdoor living with a modern kitchen with Viking stove and Subzero fridge, outdoor shower, bike and surf shed, and ample shade from a multitude of fruit trees including persimmon, fig, mulberry, apricot, plum and pineapple guava. This home is zoned residential and commercial. Come experience this unique in-town Ojai oasis where views of the Los Padres and a sense of peace will surround you.

Beautiful, flat useable lot, just under an acre located in the City of Ojai. great views from this lot. Zoned commercial — come build your dream! If you are looking for a quintessential downtown cottage with a guest house ... then look no more. Located in the heart of downtown Ojai. Located in the Golden West neighborhood of Ojai downtown, this incomegenerating home is very warm and welcoming. The backyard is a gardener’s delight.

Donna Sallen

805-798-0516