Family, Community & Justice for All

BY TERI R. WILLIAMS PHOTOS BY DAPHNE WALKER

The day after Christmas 2012, John Jones entered the Lyons courthouse as the new County Manager. He was only the second person to serve in this position. That same day, the Judge rendered his decision in a lawsuit concerning Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) between the city and the county. John was not a politician. He was a businessman. He did not grow up in Toombs but in Cook County. Furthermore, local politics being what they are in small towns, John didn’t think too much about it when his brotherin-law, Lyons Police Chief Wesley Walker, encouraged him to apply for the position. Even so, he agreed to meet with Senator Blake Tillery, then Chairman-Elect of the Toombs County Commission, just to satisfy his brother-in-law. And one conversation was all it took.

“I knew this was where we were to be,” said John. “I called my wife, and I told her to get ready. We're fixing to move to Toombs County.”

Like many families in Toombs County, John grew up on a farm. “We lived between Tifton and Valdosta. My grandfather started the farm,” said John. And like many farming families in our area, his grandfather started out as a sharecropper. Over time, he purchased the place he farmed from the landowner, who was a doctor in Florida. When John’s father came home from WWII, he attended college on the G.I. Bill. Even so, he returned home to take over the family farm from his father-in-law and expanded it over time. In post-WWII America, agricultural policymaking abounded, and marketing quotas were put in place by USDA commodity programs. Without irrigation systems like today, a successful year entirely depended on the weather. “This was back when they had ‘allotments,’” said John. “Peanuts and tobacco were the big crops for us. The ‘big event’ of the year was the tobacco sale, which started in June. Everybody came to the tobacco warehouse in town. That was where you would make most of your money for the year.”

John’s parents made it clear that he and his two brothers would attend college when they finished high school. But, then, working in tobacco made college sound like a pretty good plan to the boys. “When we were teenagers, me and my brothers made a pact. We said, ‘If we ever get out of this tobacco field, they won’t catch us back in it again.’ And we’ve been true to our word,” he smiled.

John graduated from Valdosta State University in 1980 with a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting. His first job out of college was with C&S Bank, where he met his wife. After a few years, he took a position with First National Bank. “Within eighteen months, the bank was sold four times. At that point, I decided I needed to do something else,” and he went to work with an agricultural research and development company called Landis International.

“The company had only just gotten its start,” said John. “I'd been married a few years, and we had our first child. We were really taking a chance with them, but it worked out. I learned so much from Dr. Landis. He came from the pharmaceutical company Merck, considered the best managed international company in the world at that time. He taught me how to manage people, processes, and procedures.” John eventually became part-owner of the company and served as Director of Accounting & Finance and Quality Assurance.

When Landis International was sold to a publicly traded company, John went to work as a controller (leader of the accounting team) with Bearden Oil Company in Eastman. “We had twentyeight convenience store chains. It was the largest distributor of Race gas throughout the southeast at that time.” After twentysomething years with the oil company, John said, “As he was reaching retirement age, the owner began to downsize and get the business down to something more manageable.” And at that same time, the position of Toombs County Manager became available.

As John thought back, he said, “The year before we moved had been extremely difficult for me and my family.” Eleven months earlier, he had lost his oldest son, Zach, in a car accident. “By the time we moved to Lyons, I was not the same person that I was a year earlier. I see people differently.” John paused. The small room seemed to expand. All the busyness and cares of the day drifted behind a tangible awareness of eternity. “I see everything differently. I will tell you that the pain we felt was something I would not wish on my worst enemy. But I do not call it a tragedy. Zach was saved. It would only be a tragedy if he had not known Jesus. God has cared for me and my family and shown us things we would never have seen or understood before.”

To honor their son, John and his family started the Zach C. Jones Foundation. “We give scholarships to students at the high school where Zach graduated,” he said, “and send support to the elementary school in Clyattville, Georgia, where our son had been working. He always wanted to make a change in the world. Just because he wouldn’t be here didn’t mean he could not still make that change.” The peace and confidence with which he spoke were undeniable.

On December 26, 2012, when John walked through the doors of the courthouse, he passed by the historical marker listing the names of the first to serve Toombs County in 1905. The last entry on that marker reads, “F.A. Thompson, Treas.” F. A. Thompson (b.1857-d.1920) is buried in the Lyons City Cemetery. Today, over a century later, the new County Manager’s job is likely similar in some ways to that of the first treasurer. As the board of commissioners present projects to the county manager, he puts together a budget and determines precisely how the project might be funded.

John’s first course of action as the new County Manager was getting an evaluation of all of the buildings. “We realized we had two immediate issues,” he said. “One was the detention center. The other was that the air conditioning system for 80% of the original 1964 courthouse was on its last leg.”

The very first courthouse was built in Lyons in 1905 in a neoclassical style by architect George C. Thomason with J. W. Golucke. When it burned down in 1917, a second courthouse was built by Macon architect Alexander Blair III and completed in 1919. The current courthouse was built in 1964 in a modern style. The architect was W. P. Thompson, Jr., Contractor Scott Robinson Co., and the 1975 addition was added by architect Fred Curran.

“The air conditioning system was part of the original 1964 courthouse,” said John. “We got prices from different folks, and the cost to replace it was from half to three-quarters of a million dollars. The 123-bed detention center was built in the early 1990s and stayed at capacity. So, we knew we also had an issue with space there.” (Note: The air conditioning finally quit about a year short of the completion of the new courthouse. A mobile unit

ABOVE Part of the judicial complex construction includes expansion of the current Toombs County Detention Center adding more beds for inmates and a larger booking area. BELOW The renovations also include a tunnel, dubbed “the long mile,” which connects the detention center directly to the courthouse.