Jim Sprankle grew up in Lafayette, Indiana and learned woodworking from his German grandfather who was a cabinet maker in Indiana. Jim would not have dreamed that one day he would be carving birds out of wood for a living. At 18 years of age Jim was drafted by the Brooklyn Dodgers and signed a $25,000 professional contract which would last for eleven years. After leaving baseball, Jim worked in the banking industry in public relations and then started a commercial refrigeration business which grew to be quite successful. It was in 1976, after a cancer scare, Jim realized that his real dream was to have a full-time career that was truly a passion and made him excited to go to work every day.
In 1978, Jim began carving hunting decoys and teaching carving. He began to win local competitions and his talent became noticed. Fast forward to 1994 when Jim and his family moved to Sanibel from the eastern shore of Maryland. Upon arriving on Sanibel his art became increasingly oriented towards those birds found in local refuges. Jim credits Ding Darling Wildlife Society with opening many opportunities for him. One such opportunity was carving a life sized American bald eagle for the President of the United States. Jim is very generous to the island community and one such example of this is on March 22, 2011 Jim donated his complete collection of 43 hand-carved and painted decoys to the J.N. Ding Darling Education Center on Sanibel. This represented one bird for each year of his carving career. The permanent exhibit is entitled “Folk Art to Fine Art.” Jim plans to add one bird a year to the collection for as long as he is able.