Clarendon 1 Superintendent Rose Wilder first met late board member James Jones when she moved to Clarendon County in 1987.
“I’ve always known him to be a fair and decent man,” she said. “Whenever he told you he would do something, he did it. He was a man of his word. I’m honored to consider myself as one of his friends.”
Clarendon County Board of Education Chairman George Wilson agreed.
“He always told you what he was going to do, and then he did it,” Wilson said.
James “Jim” Jones 76, husband of Hortense E. “Bay” Oliver Jones, died Thursday, Oct. 14, 2014, at his home on M.W. Rickenbaker Road in Manning.
Born March 23, 1938, in the Potato Creek section of Clarendon County near Summerton, he was a son of the late Walsh Jones and Sarah Mellerson Jones.
He ultimately served on the Clarendon School District 1 board for 25 years. Wilson said Jones actually resigned once to run for the office to which he’d been appointed.
“He was a complete man of character,” Wilson said. “He got re-elected after resigning. I thought that spoke very highly of him. Every time he ran, he had no serious opposition to being elected to the board. People of that school district really respected him. You can tell that.”
Manninglive.com will have more comments from those who served with and knew Jones throughout the rest of the week.
