A liberal Catholic Yankee city boy living in an ultraconservative back-country Georgia Baptist fundamentalist environment, Jim Hite could have been a disgruntled curmudgeon. He was not. There was never an optimist who had the outlook he had. And he shared it with everyone he came in contact with. In his multicareer life, he touched people from many backgrounds different from his own. His time in the mega high school (Central Catholic in Toledo), his seminary life in Cincinnati, and his