From his eighth grade year through high school graduation, the family lived in Aberdeen, which was the largest city (population 25,000) they had lived in Jim attended college on a tuition scholarship in Wichita Falls, Texas. Their summers were spent in a cabin on a lake, where Jim helped his grandparents in their store, seining minnows, clerking, and putting up ice. For the first few years of his life, the family moved around a lot to accommodate his father's job as school superintendent. James Deacon was born at home in White, South Dakota.
