J.E. Jones was all about doing what was best for children.
This is the thing that I will probably remember most about the man, who was the longest serving board member in the history of the Whitley County Board of Education.
First elected in 1985, J.E. was the third longest serving school board member in the state and he was slated to be recognized next month by the Kentucky School Board Association for his 40 years of service.
Over the course of several decades covering Whitley County Board of Education meetings, I was fortunate to get the opportunity to know J.E.
We often spoke about golf, which is a sport we both played for several years. J.E. wasn’t known to hit the ball far, but he was known to hit it very accurately.
Throughout the course of his service to the board of education, the district constructed numerous new buildings and schools.
One board meeting probably 20 years or more ago happened to be one of those nights where the board was talking about building projects, and J.E. said something to me that has always stuck in the back of my mind.
During a break in that meeting, we were looking at artists renderings of a planned building and J.E. and Delmar Mahan, who also served for many years on the board, both told me that they would never EVER put another flat roof on a building again.
A few years later I was serving on the Whitley County Public Library Board and we were thinking about constructing a new library building. I remembered J.E. and Delmar’s advice. I passed it along to our architect telling him no flat roof.
Unfortunately, things didn’t materialize so that we could build a new library.
In addition to serving on the school board, J.E. also owned and ran Jones Market in the southern end of Whitley County for numerous years.
When I think about J.E., one of the things that come to mind is his ability to talk. He could do it quite well and it saved his life once.
J.E. got taken hostage in July 2001 and was nearly killed by a severely mentally ill man, who was armed with a gun and threatening to kill J.E.
J.E. had known the man all of his life and he had been a customer at the store “forever,” as J.E. put it. In the past the man had gotten real depressed and would go to J.E. and his wife and talk to them, and they would calm him down. That night fateful night just after closing time at the store the man shot out the glass doors of the store in order to gain entry in addition to firing other shots.
After four hours, the situation reached the point where the Kentucky State Police special response team was on the verge of ending the situation with what most likely would have been deadly force.
Throughout the ordeal though, J.E. kept talking to the man calming him down.
Eventually, then Sheriff Ancil Carter and J.E. were able to get the man to give Carter his gun and surrender peacefully.
I interviewed J.E. about the experience a few days later and he admitted that he was surprised he was able to stay as calm as he did.
“I feel sorry that anybody gets themselves in that shape, but what he did to my family — you can imagine what my wife, and kids, and grand kids went through in that four hours — I just never want to see him again,” Jones said.
After the ordeal, one store employee noted that he thought J.E. saved the man’s life. I am pretty sure that he did.
Another store employee echoed a similar sentiment.
“If anybody could have talked their self out of it, it was J.E.,” she said. “There are not many people that can talk, but J.E. is one that can. You have to have the knack to do it, and J.E. is good at it. There is no doubt that he is good at it.”
J.E. will be missed.
Although he is gone, he will never be forgotten.
My condolences go out to his family.
