Jones was born in Shreveport[4] but reared in Bossier City. He graduated in 1967 from Bossier High School in Bossier City[5] and is a 2012 inductee of the Bossier High School Hall of Fame.[6] In 1971, he received a Bachelor of Science degree in business management from Louisiana Tech University in Ruston.[7] He was affiliated with Tau Kappa Epsilonfraternity.[4] Thereafter, he joined the family-owned Jones Brothers Company, Inc., a general contractor based in Bossier City. He rose to the rank of vice-president of the company[8] and then the president.[9] He and his brother, Bill J. Jones (born 1953), remain the principals of the company, begun in 1953 by their father, William D. Jones (born 1925), and their uncle, Fred S. Jones (1913-1988), a former Bossier City public works commissioner under the former city commission government. The company originally installed underground storage tanks and piping and is certified by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality.[10] Jones Brothers also installs fueling systems in four states in such businesses as bulk plants, convenience stores, and aviation facilities.[11]
Jones Brothers also has offices in Scott near Lafayette and Farmerville near Monroe.[12] Since 1987, Jones has been vice president and secretary of Jones Environmental, Inc., based in a restored historic building at 708 Milam Street in Shreveport, with offices in Scott, Farmerville, and Van Buren, Arkansas. This company specializes in mold and asbestos abatement.[13] Since 1991, he has been the treasurer of Environmental Gulf States Laboratory, Inc., also based in Bossier City.[7] He is also an owner of Navarre Services Group, Inc.[3]
Jones is a member of the Baptist denomination;[4] his maternal grandfather, Joseph E. Hinkie (1889-1977), was a Baptist pastor from Sabine Parish in western Louisiana.[14] Jones is married to the former Gay Lynn Marchand (born September 1949), the daughter of the late Alexander Joseph Marchand, Jr., and the former Hallette Harlan (1919-2014), a Roman Catholic couple from Alexandria, Louisiana. Don and Gay Jones have two sons, Thomas Edward Jones (born November 1975) and Jacob Marchand Jones (born December 1978).[15]
Political life
Jones's involvement in politics began when he was a delegate to a Democratic State Convention in Louisiana.[16] In his first race for office in 1984, Jones won a hotly contested special election to fill the months remaining in the second term of Mayor Marvin Anding, a former commander of Barksdale Air Force Base, who had died in office in September 1983. Patricia Janelle Ball Anding (1935-2012), the widow of Mayor Anding, was Jones's opponent. The interim mayor, Democrat Frank Blackburn, had won a special election on March 15, 1980, over the Republican David Harold Broussard (1947-1998) to fill the at-large seat on the city council created by the election of Robert Adley to the Louisiana House of Representatives.[17]
On March 28, 1984, a mayoral debate appearance at a Bossier City hotel led thereafter to the filing of a defamation suit between two partisans of Anding and Jones. Bobby Garrett (born 1943), a Jones campaigner and the director of a local Community Action program, sued Anding backer Roger Kneass (born 1938) regarding remarks made during and after the debate. Kneass asked Jones about reports that he intended to select Garrett for various municipal offices. Garrett was outraged over the implications of Kneass's questioning. After the debate, with the reporters having exited the meeting and the crowd having mostly dissipated, Garrett walked up to Kneass and made remarks that became the subject of dispute. Kneass interpreted Garrett's comments as a threat to Kneass's family; others at the scene said that they heard no such implication. Garrett sued Kneass for having allegedly called Garrett "a thug". Kneass sent a letter to Jones, the United States Attorney GeneralEd Meese, and the FBI to complain of threats to Kneass's family. Reports of the threats against Keneass were repeated by Mrs. Anding to the since defunct Shreveport Journal, Shreveport Times, and KSLA-TV. Garrett sued and sought damages of $150,000 for humiliation, embarrassment, and loss of future income. The court held in Garrett's favor but awarded him only $2,500 based on mitigating factors as to whether the word "thug" alone is defamation. Jones also said that he would not hire Garrett in any "directory level" position.[18]
In 1985, Mayor Jones moved to demote Bossier City Police Chief Bobby Ray Gauthier (1944-1988)[19] to the rank of patrolman because of actions taken more than two years earlier during the Anding administration. Gauthier was accused of having conspired in 1983 to influence the physical examination of B. W. Spencer to prevent Spencer's promotion to the rank of police lieutenant. Gauthier sued for reinstatement as chief, but the court ruled in favor of the city. Judge Graydon K. Kitchens, Jr., said that Jones acted in "good faith" when he removed Gauthier from the post.[20]
In 1987, Mayor Jones ran unsuccessfully for the District 9 seat in the Louisiana House of Representatives. With 49.96 percent of the votes cast, he came within six ballots of winning the position outright.[21] However, he was placed into a runoff election with his fellow Democrat, Billy Montgomery, a teacher and coach from Bossier Parish, who later switched to Republican affiliation. In the showdown, Montgomery polled 4,998 votes (53.5 percent); Jones, 4,343 (46.5 percent).[22]
Mayor Jones sought to expand business development and investment into the Shreveport-Bossier City area, particularly after job reductions were announced in 1987 by AT&T. Prior to the downsizing by AT&T, Jones said that area officials had "thought of ourselves as a sleepy southern town with cheap labor to offer corporations from the North, but we realized that we couldn't keep competing in the global economy on that basis any longer. We'd never be able to match the wage levels of Third-World nations, so it was time to see if there was any other way for this area to survive."[23] Jones did not seek a second full term as mayor in 1989 and was succeeded by the Democrat George Dement.[24]
Like most area political figures, Jones, even as a former mayor, is a long-term supporter of Barksdale Air Force Base. The Bossier City base is seeking to attract the "Common Battlefield Airmen Training" program to prepare troops for ready fighting on the ground. Jones said that for Barksdale to attract a program of this scope would have a decisive "economic impact throughout the entire community."[25] A member of the civic group Barksdale Forward and the 8th Air Force Consultation Committee, Jones pushed in 2009 for development of the Air Force Cyber Command at Barksdale.[26] However, the selection went to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.
Jaycees national president
Prior to his tenure as mayor, Jones was from 1979 to 1980 the Louisiana state vice president for membership and from 1980 to 1981 the state president of the Junior Chamber International, popularly known as the Jaycees. In June 1982, he was chosen at the national convention in Phoenix, Arizona, as the national Junior Chamber president.[4] His selection came on the 42nd ballot after 40 hours of politicking.[16][27][28] For this assignment as national Jaycee president, Jones, his wife, who was active in the Jaycee Jaynes, and their sons spent the year 1982 to 1983 in Tulsa, Oklahoma.[8] They were the last family to live in the former Jaycee "White House" in south Tulsa and the first in the "Founders Home," having moved early in 1983 to the residence a block from War Memorial Headquarters. This property remains the home for the Jaycee president and his family during the one-year presidential term.[29]
As the Jaycee president, Jones traveled through twenty-four states in a bus labeled "U. S. Jaycees Touring America", which received considerable media coverage. Though the Jaycees lost 4,300 members during Jones's tenure as president, the year ended with six consecutive months of growth. As Jones stepped down, the organization had nearly 272,000 members in about 7,000 chapters. During this time the Jaycees continued to exclude women from membership,[29] a policy changed a year later in 1984 with relatively little opposition in the wake of an opinion by the United States Supreme Court which declared the organization to be a public accommodation.[30]
Jones was thereafter the JCI national treasurer in 1984.[31] He viewed the organization as representing "improvement of the quality of life in America and the continuance of the free enterprise system. ... If we are to continue to remain a free country, it is going to take the efforts of each and every one of us as volunteers ..."[16] On November 22, 1982, Bossier City proclaimed "Don E. Jones Day" because of his leadership over the Jaycees.[8]
While he was the Jaycee president, Jones maintained an official Bossier City residence and was qualified to run for mayor. An opponent, James Quillen Wellborn (1927-2004), a native of Daingerfield, Texas, a mathematics teacher at Bossier High School and a former chairman of the Bossier Parish Republican Party,[32] failed to have Jones disqualified from the ballot on the grounds that Jones had not met the residency requirement for municipal office in Bossier City because he had spent part of the preceding year in Tulsa. Instead the Louisiana Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Shreveport upheld Jones's validation as a legal resident of Bossier City.[8]
Jones is a past chairman and a current member of the board of directors of the Biomedical Research Foundation, which oversees the operation of former Louisiana State University public hospitals, the LSU Medical Center in Shreveport, renamed University Health in 2013, and the E.A. Conway Medical Center in Monroe.[34] In 2013, he was among thirteen BRF directors selected from a list of fifty nominees.[9][35]
Jones is a board member of the Community Foundation of North Louisiana,[36] which in 2011 displayed an initiative known as the "Science of Generosity" exhibit in Shreveport-Bossier City. Created in 2009 through the University of Notre Dame and the John Templeton Foundation, the initiative encourages philanthropy and demonstrates how recipients and givers both benefit. In 2011, the Community Foundation awarded more than $1 million in scholarships and grants in Bossier Parish.[37]
In 2008, Jones received from the United Way of Northwest Louisiana the Clyde E. Fant Memorial Award for Outstanding Community Service, named for the late MayorClyde Fant of Shreveport. He was cited as a "bridge builder" willing to work behind the scenes for the good of Shreveport and Bossier City.[38]
Jones was a regular contributor in her early campaigns to former U.S. SenatorMary Landrieu of Louisiana. He also financially supported former U.S. PresidentBill Clinton and former Senators John Breaux of Louisiana and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas.[39] In 2011, Jones and his son, Jacob, each gave $1,000 to the Republican Jeff R. Thompson of Bossier City in Thompson's successful campaign for the Louisiana House of Representatives. Thompson in 2015 became a judge of the 9th Judicial District Court in Benton in Bossier Parish.[40]
Bossier Parish is a parish located in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2010 census, the population was 116,979. The parish seat is Benton. The principal city is Bossier City, which is located east of the Red River and across from the larger city of Shreveport, the seat of Caddo Parish. The parish was formed in 1843 from the western portion of Claiborne Parish.
Bossier City is a city in Bossier Parish in the northwestern region of the U.S. state of Louisiana in the United States. It is the second most populous city in the Shreveport-Bossier City metropolitan statistical area. In 2019 it had a census-estimated population of 68,159, down from 68,222 in 2018. It is on the eastern bank of the Red River and closely tied economically and socially to its larger sister city Shreveport on the opposite bank. Bossier City is the largest city in Louisiana that is not the parish seat.
Shreveport is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is the most populous city in the Shreveport–Bossier City metropolitan area, and ranks third in population in Louisiana after Baton Rouge and New Orleans. The bulk of Shreveport is in Caddo Parish, of which it is the parish seat. Shreveport extends along the west bank of the Red River into neighboring Bossier Parish. The population of Shreveport was 199,311 at the 2010 U.S. census. The United States Census Bureau's 2019 estimates for the city's population decreased to 187,112.
Keith Paul Hightower is an American businessman who was from 1998 to 2006 a Democratic mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana.
Louisiana Highway 3 (LA 3) is a state highway located in Bossier Parish, Louisiana. It runs 35.71 miles (57.47 km) in a north–south direction from the junction of Interstate 20 (I-20), U.S. Highway 71 (US 71), and LA 72 in Bossier City to the Arkansas state line north of Plain Dealing.
William Thomas Hanna, Jr., was a Ford Motor Company automobile dealer who served a single term from 1978 to 1982 as the Democratic mayor of Shreveport in Caddo Parish in northwestern Louisiana.
Hazel Beard is the first woman and the first Republican to have served as mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana, since the era of Reconstruction. A fiscal conservative, Beard grappled with many economic and social problems during her single term as mayor from 1990 to 1994. Prior to her mayoral service, Beard was a small business owner and a member of the Shreveport City Council from the southwest portion of the city. She was the first woman to have been chairperson of the city council.
Shreveport, Louisiana, was founded in 1836 by the Shreve Town Company, a development corporation established to start a town at the meeting point of the Red River and the Texas Trail. In this period, a 180-mile (289 km) long natural logjam, the Great Raft, had obstructed passage to shipping. The Red River was cleared and made newly navigable by Captain Henry Miller Shreve of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Shreve used a specially modified riverboat, the Heliopolis, to remove the logjam. The company and the village of Shreve Town were named in Shreve's honor.
John Dunbrack Ewing, Sr., was a Louisiana journalist who served as editor and publisher of both the Shreveport Times and the Monroe News-Star-World from 1931 until his death. He was also affiliated with radio station KWKH in Shreveport, the seat of Caddo Parish in northwestern Louisiana. KWKH was founded in 1922 and named in 1925 for its founder, W. K. Henderson.
The 1978 Bossier City tornado outbreak was an outbreak of 11 tornadoes that occurred during the early morning hours of December 3, 1978, in Louisiana and Arkansas. The outbreak produced several significant (F2–F5) tornadoes, several of which were long tracked. The first and most destructive of the tornadoes was a violent F4 tornado touched down on the eastern bank of the Red River in Bossier City, Louisiana, at approximately 1:50 a.m. CST. The tornado produced a path up to .5 miles (0.8 km) wide and nearly 4 miles (6.4 km) long through the heart of Bossier City. The only two deaths to occur in Bossier City were two young girls who were killed when a car was thrown through their bedroom wall. The Bossier City tornado became the fifth tornado in American history to produce at least $100 million (non-adjusted) in damage.
The Barksdale Global Power Museum is an aviation museum run by the United States Air Force on Barksdale Air Force Base near Bossier City, Louisiana. Hosted by the 2nd Bomb Wing, it maintains a large collection of military aircraft and historical artifacts that illuminate the early days of United States military aviation, the Barksdale base, and the formations of the 2nd Bomb Wing and the 8th Air Force.
Interstate 69 (I-69) is a proposed Interstate Highway that will pass through the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Louisiana.
Bossier Parish Community College is a public community college in Bossier City, Louisiana. It was established in 1967 by the Louisiana State Legislature, initially as a pilot program to test the feasibility of commuter two-year colleges.
Frierson is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in DeSoto Parish, Louisiana, United States. It is located approximately 3 miles (5 km) north of Interstate 49 along Louisiana State Highway 175.
Louisiana Highway 72 (LA 72) is a state highway located in Bossier City, Louisiana. It runs 2.49 miles (4.01 km) in an east–west direction from the intersection of Barksdale Boulevard and Hamilton Road to a junction with the concurrent U.S. Highways 79 and 80.
George Elyott Dement, Jr., was an American innkeeper and restaurateur who served from 1989 to 2005 as the thirteenth mayor of Bossier City, Louisiana.
Timothy Lee Dement is an American former amateur boxer. He competed in the flyweight division at the 1972 Summer Olympics and lost his second bout to Calixto Pérez. He was described by Sports Illustrated as "a pale, dreamy looking boy of 17 with no indication of any strength" after causing an upset of the favored Bobby Hunter during the Olympic trials. Dement qualified for the 1971 Pan American Games, but was not selected because of his young age.
Jesse Claude Deen was an American educator and politician from Bossier Parish, Louisiana, who served as a Democrat in the Louisiana House of Representatives for primarily Bossier Parish from 1972 to 1988. At times, he also represented a small portion of neighboring Webster Parish.
James Michael Johnson is an American attorney, politician, and former talk radio host serving as the U.S. Representative for Louisiana's 4th congressional district. First elected in 2016, he is also the Vice Chairman of the House Republican Conference. He previously served as chairman of the House Republican Study Committee, the largest caucus of conservatives in Congress, and a coalition of socially- and fiscally-conservative members of the larger House Republican Conference.
Samuel Lee Jenkins Jr., known as Sam Jenkins, is a Democratic member of the Louisiana House of Representatives for District 2 in Caddo and Bossier parishes in northwestern Louisiana. Jenkins succeeded Roy A. Burrell, who was term-limited in the primary election held on October 24, 2015.
1 2 "The 1980s". U.S. Jaycee Foundation. Archived from the original on January 20, 2015. Retrieved January 19, 2015.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
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