Dave James 'preached' from his reader board

He wasn't a minister, a priest or a rabbi, but his simple messages of faith reached thousands of people every day.

Dave James, who died Thursday at 66 after a long illness, was the owner/operator of The Vac Shop, a small vacuum-cleaner sales and repair shop in Seattle's Georgetown area.

His "pulpit" was the reader board outside his store, along busy Fourth Avenue South. "Surrender your heart for a brand new start," it might say one day, then the next, "The only power the devil has is the power you give him."

And always, the sign would note that free Bibles were available inside.

"I was led by God to do this," Mr. James said in an interview for a Seattle Times article in 2006. It was God, he said, who led him out of a life of drug addiction in Southern California, and who made it possible for him to purchase the Seattle store in 1995.

Born in Roscoe, Calif., in the Los Angeles area on Oct. 11, 1942, David E. James was a handsome, powerfully built young man with an engaging personality, said JoAnn James, his wife of 32 years. In the early 1970s, she worked at a stereo-speaker shop and was lunching with female co-workers at a pub when James approached, recruiting them to shoot pool in a mixed league being formed.

"He had these big, Popeye forearms," she said. "Right away, I told the other girls, he's off-limits. He's mine."

Mr. James worked his way up from a job with a mobile vacuum-cleaner service to owning four stores in Southern California. But feeling like a "big shot," he recalled, opened the door to deeper use of alcohol and cocaine. After emotionally, financially and physically hitting bottom, he sensed God was offering him another chance — one that required leaving L.A. and his drug connections.

In Seattle, he got a new start working at the Georgetown shop, which he was able to buy in 1995 when the previous owner agreed to accept regular payments, rather than be cashed out.

"He was thankful, because he felt God had given him the shop, and he wanted to do something for God," said Jim Bauknight, the Vac Shop manager who has worked for Mr. James since he bought the shop.

Bauknight said in their earliest conversations, "I just saw something in him that looked like he knew God. He was a quiet, humble person with what I would call a child's heart. If people came into the shop, and he knew they needed money for food or for their kids, he'd find a way to help."

The reader board, the free Bibles and the T-shirts Mr. James wore with sayings about Jesus were the most visible signs of his faith, but not the only ones, said Gary Georgeson, pastor of the Federal Way Vineyard, where Mr. James was known as "Hugger Dave" for the warm embraces he offered, particularly to those whose self-esteem needed a boost.

"He had a real heart for people who were broken in some way, who were struggling with addiction or other troubles," Georgeson said. Through the Full Gospel Business Mens Fellowship, Mr. James visited the Washington State Reformatory at Monroe, sharing his story and sponsoring an inmate making the transition back into society.

Mr. James, who lived in North Tacoma, spent his own money buying Bibles to give away at the shop. But he also knew of publishers who sold inexpensive Bibles, and he rounded up Bibles people had donated to the Salvation Army.

By his own count, he gave away 20,000 Bibles and other religious books in 2000, the only year he actually kept a tally.

In addition to his wife, Mr. James is survived by a brother, George "Bud" James of Palmdale, Calif.; sisters Juanita "Nita" Stewart of Los Osos, Calif., and Mary Ellen Barley of San Diego; a son, Guy McNally of Oxnard, Calif.; daughters Deserie Hernandez of the Los Angeles area and Shanilee Kline of Paulden, Ariz.; and four grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at 4 p.m. Saturday at the Federal Way Church of the Nazarene, 1525 S.W. Dash Point Road, Federal Way.

Jack Broom: 206-464-2222 or jbroom@seattletimes.com