Judy Jones was an organizer, the type of person who, no matter what activity she tried, she gave it direction and energy and polish. She did it in business, in public service, at her church and, late in life, in assisting at a retirement center and a hospice.
Jones made her most widely noticed mark in state government. Her first job with the state was as director of the Senate pages at the Georgia Capitol. It was no easy job, said her daughter-in-law, Gail Jones of Stone Mountain, because of the competition among well-connected parents eager to have their sons and daughters get a taste of the process of governance.
That was just the half of it, according to former Gov. Zell Miller of Young Harris. “Judy had to put these young people at ease and instruct them quickly on the ways of the Senate so they did their one-day duty correctly.”
Miller admired Jones’ organizational skill at that job, and when he became governor he named her his front-office manager, “the first person visitors saw when they came to see me and the last person when they left, and,” Miller said, “she made a good impression both ways.” Later, he noted, Jones excelled at public relations work for the HOPE scholarship program.
“Judy was a lovely person in every way,” Miller concluded. “I owe a lot to her for the more than 10 years she helped me in my campaigns and in governing.”
Judy Holt Jones, 81, died following a stroke Monday at her Atlanta home. Her memorial service is 2 p.m. Sunday, June 29, at Peachtree Christian Church. Wages & Sons Funeral Home, Stone Mountain Chapel, is in charge of arrangements.
Jones was born and reared in Sturgis, Ky. She wed her high school sweetheart, George Randall Jones, and accompanied him to Atlanta, where he earned his medical degree at Emory University. She later gained business experience working for 18 years as manager of Montreal Medical Center and as a co-owner with her husband. She also was active in the Georgia Medical Society Auxiliary, serving as its president one year.
In 1985 Jones won a U.S. Health and Human Services Department award for organizing a puppet show in cooperation with the DeKalb County Schools that toured throughout Georgia delivering the message that “it was O.K. to report child abuse.”
After she and her husband were divorced in the mid-1980s, she decided that in addition to helping others go to college as HOPE scholars, she should obtain a degree of her own. In 1989, at age 56, she earned her A.B. in journalism at Georgia State University.
A longtime member of Peachtree Christian Church, Jones was “as totally involved in the church as anyone could be without being paid,” said the Rev. Bob Tyler, its minister for pastoral care. “Judy especially enjoyed serving on our wedding guild and working to make these ceremonies a precious memory for brides and grooms.”
Tyler said Jones also was a dedicated volunteer for 10 years at the Peachtree Christian Hospice in Duluth.
Jones served for eight years on the board of the Kings Bridge Retirement Center near Toco Hill. Its executive director, Jim Waldrop of Decatur, described her as effervescent and a positive force on the board, able to identify silver linings in dark clouds.
She is survived by her daughter, Rebecca Ruth Jones of Marietta; her son, George Randall “Randy” Jones of Stone Mountain; three sisters, Betty Dorley [cq] of Phoenix, Ariz., Dot Omer of Lexington, Ky., and Nancy Luckett of Baton Rouge, La.; one grandson and one great-grandson.
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