PRITCHARD, D. JAMES (12 Apr. 1908-20 Aug. 1998) was a bank executive and public relations director who was heavily involved in promoting education in the community. He was born in Lisbon, Ohio, to Floy (McCausland) and David R. Pritchard, an accountant. He came to Cleveland as a child and lived in the Glenville area before moving to EAST CLEVELAND. He graduated from Shaw High School and studied at the College of Wooster, the Cleveland College of Western Reserve University and the Stonier Graduate School of Banking at Rutgers University.
Pritchard took his first job as a teller for Society for Savings in 1929. Within a year he was promoted to bookkeeper and in 1937, he was named the office manager of the savings department. Pritchard was given the charge to develop the marketing department for the bank in 1939. This gave him the distinction of shaping of the first marketing department of a savings association in the country. He assumed the title of assistant secretary. In 1947, he was elected vice president and was named senior vice president of Society Corp. and its Society National Bank affiliate in 1971. Pritchard was past president of the Cleveland chapter of the American Institute of Banking and of the savings division of the American Bankers Association. In 1991, he was inducted into the Cleveland Advertising Club's Hall of Fame.
Pritchard served for 18 years on the South Euclid-Lyndhurst Board of Education and for 23 years on the Cuyahoga County Library Board of Trustees. One of his most significant accomplishments was serving as the founding president of the Educational Television Association of Metropolitan Cleveland, which runs WVIZ Channel 25. He was also past chairman of the GARDEN CENTER OF GREATER CLEVELAND and among several other organizations was a trustee of the CLEVELAND METROPARKS ZOO and CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY.
He married Kathryn C. Walling in 1931 and they had two children: Philip H. and Barbara P. Merrill. Pritchard died at Akron City Hospital and his cremated remains are in Acacia Memorial Park, MAYFIELD HEIGHTS, OH.