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Today's Featured Biography
William (Bill) Jones
After graduating from Oak Park in 1969, I entered Oklahoma Baptist Univ. (Shawnee) and graduated in 1973 with a B.Mus.Ed. degree. However, I decided teaching wasn't for me, and I tried other things, even attending the Univ. Of Oklahoma School of Law for three semesters (1975-1977) before deciding I wasn't cut out for the law and withdrawing.
In 1976, I married Joanna Wong, whom I had started dating my senior year at OBU in January 1973. Our daughter, Alison, was born in December 1981, and our son, Travis, in November 1985.
I spent 9 years (1978-1987) with Mountain Bell Telephone in Denver, CO, and was promoted to management in October 1981. In August 1987, we moved to the Dallas, TX, area, with Joanna's job. She was a financial analyst with Mobil Oil, which moved their accounting office from Denver to Dallas that summer.
At almost the same time Mobil announced its move, Mountain Bell - still struggling after divestiture from AT&T - offered young management like me what came to be known as the "Baby Boomer Buyout." In exchange for leaving the payroll by April 1, 1987, I received a full year's pay.
In addition, Mountain Bell offered help with a new career. I wanted to write, so I had a contractor build floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in our new home in Plano, TX, and sent the bill to Mountain Bell. I also bought a new printer for my computer (a PC Jr.), as well as two big metal file cabinets for the closet in my study, and sent the bill for all of these to Mountain Bell.
In 1990, I began what turned out to be a 20-year career as a technical writer in the corporate world.
In 2011, I embarked on a new - though short-lived - career as a Baptist (in the progressive Baptist strain, not Southern Baptist) denominational leader as executive director of a nonprofit, Texas Baptists Committed. The following year, the T. B. Maston Christian Ethics Foundation - on whose board I had served since 2008 - elected me as chair. i served two 2-year terms as chair from 2012-2016.
In 2017, the board and I decided to cease operations at Texas Baptists Committed for lack of funds. The following year, the board joined with my home church, Wilshire Baptist in Dallas, to give me a wonderful retirement dinner, at which several nationally known progressive Baptist leaders - all friends and colleagues of mine - spoke and paid tribute to me.
In February 2021, the love of my life, Joanna, passed away after an 11-year battle with kidney disease. She went in for a kidney transplant, which we hoped would give her a new lease on life. Instead, her body had grown so weak and frail that the surgery sent it into a two-week spiral. She never got out of the hospital, passing away in the wee hours of February 14, 2021. We were married for 44-1/2 years, and those were the best years of my life by far. I have continued to keep her memory alive for family and friends, as best I can.
Though retired, I still have one paying gig. I provide content for the Curated page of the website of Baptist News Global, a progressive religious news service.
My son, Travis, lives with me. He suffered a stroke in 2013 and has been unable to find work. However, for all he has been through (he has never regained the use of his right hand; his right foot "turns in," making it difficult to walk; his mental processing is slower than before, so he sometimes has trouble finding words; and he has a seizure disorder for which he takes several meds each day), he does remarkably well. He drives, he cooks, he works out regularly at the gym.
Alison, her husband Adam, and their three kids live just 15 minutes away from us. Alison has taught 1st grade since graduating from the Univ. of North Texas in 2004. Their oldest, Avery, is a senior and will enter the Univ. of Arkansas in the fall of 2026.
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