James Don Edwards, a former president of the American Accounting Association, as well as an emeritus professor of accounting at the University of Georgia and a member of the Accounting Hall of Fame, died Nov. 21 in Athens, Georgia, at the age of 94.
After serving in the Marines during World War II, Edwards began teaching accounting in 1953 at Michigan State University and worked there until 1971. After teaching for a year at the University of Minnesota, he joined the faculty at the University of Georgia in 1972. In 1976, he became the J.M. Tull Professor of Accounting, the first endowed professorship at the university’s College of Business Administration. He retired from the University of Georgia in 1998, and was awarded emeritus status in 1999.
He was the 69th member — and one of the few academics — to be elected to the Accounting Hall of Fame in 2001. He served for a decade on the Public Review Board of Arthur Andersen, reviewing audit quality in 40 countries, and on the CPA Board of Examiners. He was a founding trustee of the Financial Accounting Foundation, the overseer of the Financial Accounting Standards Board.
As president of the American Accounting Association from 1970-71, he encouraged the formation of the AAA’s Commission to Establish Accounting Principles, ahead of the creation of the Financial Accounting Standards Board. He pushed for the establishment of the AAA Doctoral Consortium and was an early advocate of publication outlets for research on accounting education. He attended 60 consecutive annual meetings of the AAA.
Edwards served on the board of the American Institute of CPAs and its original Committee on the Standards of Professional Conduct, as well as chairman of the Georgia State Board of Accountancy and was a national vice president of the Institute of Management Accounting. He also served as an officer and trustee of the Academy of Accounting Historians.
Edwards authored or co-authored over a dozen textbooks and approximately 100 research articles on accounting, financial management and accounting history. His first book, History of Public Accounting in the United States, was an important account of the development of the accounting profession. He lectured across the U.S. and overseas and was a visiting scholar at Oxford University’s Nuffield College.
Accounting Today named him one of the “100 Most Influential People in Accounting.” He was the first accounting professor to receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Paris, and was the first recipient of the Outstanding Accountant Award from the National Council of Beta Alpha Psi. He received the Gold Medal Award from the AICPA, and the Academy of Accounting Historians selected him to receive the Hourglass Award for his contributions to accounting history.
He is survived by his son Jim and Shelley Edwards of Athens; four granddaughters, Chelsea Palmer (Will), Hannah Hamilton (Madison), Kate Cape (Matt) and Ashley Weinberg (Sandler); and great-grandchildren Ben Palmer, Merritt Cape, Hawkins Cape and Wyatt Hamilton. His wife of 66 years, Clara Maestri Edwards, preceded him in death, as did his brothers Thomas Edwards and Mike Edwards and sister Irene Edwards Landry.
