Jim Scovel is the oldest of six children brought up mostly in pre-World War II China, where his father and mother, doctor and registered nurse, operated and trained the Chinese staff of a hospital in Shandong Province, long before the Peace Corps. He attended Oberlin and Harvard colleges, spent three years in the Army, and spent his professional life in the newspaper business, principally with the Long Island Newsday. He is a great-grandfather, divorced and with two daughters, one deceased.