As the media guy for Prime Horizons (and also part time teacher), Jim urged me to construct this About page page as it seemed most appropriate. So I'll tell this story which was left out of my biography of Jim by his request. But now I have permission and an incentive.

Jim Maxey wanted to be a teacher and became a journalist writing hard hitting news opinion and exposé and as the 21 year publisher and editor of The Oregon Herald until he sold it in 2022 and writing articles on linkedin.com

Investigative Reporter
Private Investigations
Newspaper Publisher
Journalism School CEO

Prime Horizons Inc business registry

It was Helen Keller's story that led Prime Horizons founder Jim Maxey to actually have a third vocation and become a teacher. The path was long and tedious, spending most of his early life studying to become a television broadcast engineer, later a tv news reporter then a newspaper publisher and editor.

Prime Horizons Inc was founded and launched by Jim Maxey in 2015 in Portland, Oregon where he was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. You can view his professional background as one of the Internet Pioneers on bbsdays.com. The story is true. I wrote it; a story of an American man down on his luck with sole custody of his six year old daughter trying one last desperate idea - that worked big time! - and helped to change the online world.

Jim went to Vietnam in late 2016 then returned to Portland for a while in March 2017 then back to live in Saigon district 7 and to take care of a totally disabled Vietnamese woman he calls Emily.

After returning to Portland, Oregon briefly, Jim wanted to create another business. That was rather ambitious and in my mind foolish. He was already the publisher and editor of a successful Portland based newspaper, The Oregon Herald which he ran for 21 years then sold it when his money ran low, as often happens forcing a turning point in history, his history. That link will show you many of the stories still available to read on the glorious Wayback Machine, news stories mostly written by Jim under his pen name Aubra Salt and J Richard Maxey.

The publication was nonprofit and Jim refused to accept donations or advertising. It seems that his main purpose for selling the newspaper was to travel to the Philippines to visit his daughter Julia then 3-years-old in 2022 and two years later, Julia Maxey now 6 years-old. I hope that went well. Jim never talks about it.

Unfortunately, the new owners of the newspaper reneged on their promise to keep the domain as a newspaper; the new owners of oregonherald.com simply used it as a link to a gambling site! My guess is that you sold too cheap and I hesitate to ask you. You should have got that in writing. Sorry Jim, but that was kind of stupid. Not a genius. You worked for 21 years with what you told me was your "baby" and dedicated your life to that newspaper but you let it go so easily? You said I could write the truth as I know it or could find it.

Then there's the school. Jim found a vacant building in Portland that had gone through several owners, including a college fraternity. After paying the first monthly rent and I assume a hefty deposit, Jim quickly turned the upper third floor into several classrooms. The renovation wasn't expensive and the college was happy enough to have the building occupied to discourage squatters and vandals.

Just like bbsdays.com, the school was a true rags-to-riches example of an American man down on his luck trying an idea that worked.

You showed me the videos and told me and others how you scrubbed and painted the new classrooms, forced to replace the entire upper story floor with 3/4 inch plywood because walking on it was a bit bouncy. You fixed all those broken windows, bought tons of tables and chairs, painted all the walls and even the stairs. I saw the photos. You should make them available here what you showed me. I can just see you with sawdust everywhere and the cleanup must have taken a month of time you never had. You had already sent the word out that poor people would be free for the first course. I understand how you felt but unless you were a rich man, it was foolish. You have to turn a profit. Of course, I commend you for making the changes to online and in-person classes. It works and you can relax and leave the driving to us, your teacher friends who still believe in you.

I understand that no one foresaw the pandemic and businesses that were forced to close, especially schools. It must have been horrible. Sickening. But then if none of this had happened, you never would have met the love of his life, a 35-year-old Vietnamese woman he named Emily. Sometimes good things come after disasters. Sometimes they get worse. And anyway, Jim has his school back. Kind of. No massive classrooms but we have students and it's working. And they are learning English.

Anyway, as usual, I'm writing too much detail and sidelines. But some of our students may find this interesting.

Jim's English school was a work of love and hardship. The school was located in an academic environment; Portland, Oregon, one of the most beautiful regions in the Pacific Northwest.

I work for Jim and have got to know him pretty well. I don't make much but I'm retired and don't need much. The story of how I met Jim is featured on bbsdays.com but I got to know Jim much better since that time back in the early 1990s.

After returning to Portland from Vietnam, Jim confided in me that he wanted to start an English school if he could find the right place and if it was cheap enough.

Image of school desks Jim and crew renovated.

With permission Jim was able to rent an unused college warehouse top floor and turn it into three English teaching classrooms. The rent was very low as Jim agreed to renovate the classrooms at his cost. Jim has spoken of volunteers who found old school desks, sanding or replacing floor with new plywood in some cases. For a couple of months Jim and crew spent spare time getting the classroom ready for a deadline when new students might actually show up. The promise to the college was that Jim has to make it clear that his classes, mostly evening classes, are not associated with the college and that the classes were not necessarily credit classes students could use in an accredited school environment.

Jim gave me this narrative about the renovated classrooms:

"In the largest classroom, we stuffed the three window archways with padding to remove the Gothic theme which Jim doesn't seem to like. They scraped and painted walls, sanded or replaced floor sections, lowered the ceiling with Drop Out Foam Ceiling Tiles, sanded old desks and chairs and replaced side panels with colored sections, scrounged and hung large chalkboards, replaced toilets and sinks as needed."

Jim returned to Vietnam once students began to arrive, slow at first then it kind of snowballed a bit until there were too few teachers for students. It was suggested to Jim to raise tuition prices but apparently Jim said no but left most of the details to his partners, volunteers, and staff Karen Inglewood and Thom Gothem.

Without Jim's presence and guidance, class attendance in Portland began to decrease. On his return to Vietnam Jim visited friends in the Philippines and one of those friends later visited Vietnam and she and Jim lived together in Dalat for 4 months. As it happens, she became pregnant. He moved to the Philippines for 17 months for the birth of Julia and quite excited to become a father again. See the video Jim made about this daughter. It's called, The Day I Met You.

Years passed and the school in Portland continued but attendance was ever decreasing. I'm not sure of the school history from 2019 but Jim taught ESL classes at a large school in Dalat, Vietnam. Vietnam and at another learning center. But during covid-19, Jim was forced to close the American school in the US and classes. Jim said it was heartbreaking and that he was also responsible. He changed and adapted to an online tutoring business, accepting a few good teachers and a few also taught private classes in their local areas. All payments went through his Prime Horizons Oregon corporation.

Jim Maxey writes on his Facebook page that Vietnam is a peaceful country with minimal crime, no guns allowed, and the Vietnamese people have high standards, are friendly and exhibit a strong sense of duty and decency. Emily was confined to a wheelchair all her life without a love of her own until Jim ‘rescued’ her. That's a true love story in itself and from Vietnam." Robert Talmadge writes on bbsdays.com about how Jim met and decided to take care of a totally disabled Vietnamese woman who could not walk but draws artistic colored landscapes.

Jim takes care of her, 24/7 as no one else will and it's apparent Jim loves her and gave her the American name Emily, as he says “...  an intelligent, perceptive and a wonderful human being.” (Her Vietnamese name sounds similar). He says she contracted polio as a child because her parents failed to vaccinate her. She was then confined to one room in her parents’ house for 32 of those horrible, lonely, sad years. Her parents never took her to the outside world. Rarely or never — except several times to the hospital for major bowel surgery.

Her parents feared that Emily would grow used to going outside to see the world. But perhaps her parents knew it was difficult to transport a person who cannot walk, so why get a disabled woman used to enjoying the outside world?  What a horrible life, apparently not important enough; disposable. This may sound cruel and it was. Beyond cruel, devastating, inhuman. But Emily made the best of it by watching TV and listening to her parents and two younger brothers who were joyfully vaccinated. It's difficult to understand how a person could survive that kind of treatment and solitude — until Maxey heard about her and flew all the way Ho Chi Minh City (three separate times) then eventually flew with her to his home, now their home.

Maxey wrote that now, because of the pandemic and the closure of the teaching business where he taught English, he can’t work outside their apartment as he did before he met Emily. It is his decision to take care of her 24/7. The problem is that at least so far no university or English teaching center will allow Emily in a class Maxey would teach.

So he gives Emily a good life because as Maxey says on Facebook, “… she’s an angel and deserves to finally have a life. She laughs now,” he says. “She finally knows happiness. I just had to take care of her. She’s so much better than me.”

 

One of the fun things about being a teacher in a privately owned school, the headmaster and founder who also happens to be the CEO, can do what he wants. Learning English is often quite fun as this example demonstrates when Jim Maxey has a t-shirt custom made and creates an outing slogan, Reach For The Stars. Seems like a good idea to have fun while learning English the natural way.

The children learn from participating, discovering words and sentences they might otherwise forget. With a fun and exciting experience, students are more likely to remember new words they've learned. Back in class the next week, students will go over what new words they learned during the outing, using words that relate directly to the day-trip outing and what they may personally like to add.