Longtime car dealership owner dies. He was one of Fresno’s best-known philanthropists

James Hallowell didn’t dream of financial success.

He just enjoyed the work.

For the better part of five decades, that was at Hallowell Chevrolet, the car dealership his father Dennis Hallowell opened in Clovis in 1944.

The dealership, and its iconic neon sign, became a landmark when it moved to six acres of land on the outskirts of Shaw Avenue in 1965. By the time Hallowell sold the company and retired in 2000, it could sell 2,000 cars in a good year and was generating more than $65 million in sales.

“I used to say that I would probably die here, but then I decided that probably wasn’t a very good idea,” Hallowell told The Fresno Bee at the time. “There are moments that I am elated, and there are times I am terrified. My wife keeps telling me there is life after Hallowell Chevrolet.”

And there was.

Hallowell died Jan. 31 at the age of 90.

An obligation to give

Hallowell was born in Brawley near San Diego in 1933, but moved to Clovis in the first year of his life.

The central San Joaquin Valley is where he stayed. He graduated from Clovis High School and then Fresno State, where he earned a degree in marketing before starting full-time at his father’s dealership.

In 1957, he married Coralein Smith, or Coke as she’d become known, on Valentine’s Day. The two met in elementary school and were high school sweethearts. They had two children, Joell and Elise.

They also became a force in Fresno’s social scene, known for supporting any number of philanthropic endeavors in the community. In 1995, they made a five-year pledge of $100,000 to Fresno State that included money to underwrite the University Lecture Series. Four years later, the couple put a donated conservation easement on their 700-acre cattle ranch to the San Joaquin River Parkway and Conservation Trust, a cause that Coke continues to champion.

A 112-year-old farmhouse was restored and bares her name as the Coke Hallowell Center For River Studies.

Hallowell was also a supporter of the arts in the community. He was on the board of the Fresno Philharmonic during a contentious time in the late 1990s and at the Fresno Art Museum, where he helped raised $2 million for an expansion that included the Coke and James Hallowell Sculpture Park. The expansion opened in 2000.

James Hallowell, 1995 Leon S. Peters Award Winner from Fresno State Library on Vimeo.

For Hallowell, there was duty in philanthropy.

It was something he learned from his father.

“He did not have great means, but he was always very generous in the community,” Hallowell recalled in a 1995 video interview with the Fresno Chamber of Commerce.

“He always gave. I always just grew up thinking that was an obligation. That was a commitment,” he said.

“That’s what we should do.”

And the pair were active in their giving, he said, choosing to support things while they were still around to see the benefit “rather than wait until we lay down and die.”

There was pleasure in doing thing for the community.

“It feels good,” he said.

When asked what he would want people to say about him and his family at the time of his eventual passing, Hallowell can be seen smiling largely, visibly moved by the question: “That I lived a good life. I loved my family. I loved my work and my community. What more can you ask for?”

A private memorial has been held. The family asks that donations in remembrance be sent to the San Joaquin River Parkway or the Fresno Art Museum.