Tue, Feb 09 2010
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Published November 14, 2009 02:28 pm - James R. Jones delivers RSU Meyers Lectures. An anonymous donor gave $25,000 to honor Jones as part of RSU's endowment. Former ambassador congressman visits Claremore Joy Hampton Claremore Daily Progress Nov. 14, 2009 — James R. Jones was born and raised in Muskogee. As a youngster aged 5, he started his own neighborhood newspaper, he recalls, laughing now.
“I could barely write,” he said. By age 14 he was working for a Muskogee newspaper writing sports. That paper was competition for the Muskogee Phoenix and it went out of business, so he went to work for the Phoenix. He also did some stints as a disc jockey at the local radio station. There, one of his mentors gave him advice he would treasure his entire life. “Absorb everything you can,” said Jones. “You never know when opportunity will hit.” Like so many bright young people growing up in the Sooner state, Jones attended the University of Oklahoma where he got his BA in 1961. During his senior year at O.U., opportunity came knocking. Jones was ready. U.S. Rep. Ed Edmondson was a fellow native of Muskogee. He had a position in his office and suggested Jones come to work for him full-time and attend law school at Georgetown at night. Jones went. He graduated from Georgetown with a law degree in 1964. At age 28, Jones was appointed by Pres. Lyndon Johnson to the position of Appointment Secretary, or what is now known as Chief of Staff. He was the youngest person in history to ever have held that position. Asked how he came to achieve that appointment, Jones said fortune and Ladybird Johnson smiled on him. “Like so many things it was a of luck,” said Jones. In the 1964 presidential campaign, Jones was assigned to escort Ladybird through the south on a train trip. Because of controversy surrounding civil rights, it was decided she would be received by the south with less hostility than Johnson would. “It was an old-fashioned whistle-stop trip,” said Jones. Afterward, when the President was looking to fill positions, Ladybird told him, “there’s this young man.” Because of his Washington experience working for Edmondson, fate and the President smiled on Jones. He got the job. 
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