School’s out

Trusted adviser.

A good man.

Genuine to the core.

Coach.

A blessing.

Consummate gentleman.

Source of wisdom.

The finest educator I’ve every known.

That’s what people in Springdale have to say about Hartzell Jones.

“He’s humble and kind,” said his son, Trent Jones. “He’s a gentle person. Very loving. I’m blessed.”

Jones retires June 28 as deputy superintendent for personnel after 44 years in Springdale Public Schools system - 47 as an educator in Arkansas.

“He’s one of the finest educators I’ve ever known,”said Jim Rollins, Springdale schools superintendent. “I’ve worked with him for 30-plus years. We’ve worked hand in hand in leading the district.”

“We know him as a source of tremendous wisdom,” said Marsha Jones, Springdale’s associate superintendent for curriculum, instruction, accountability and education innovation - and his wife. “We take to him, refer to him, anything that needs an opinion on law. We check everything with Mr. Jones.

“His work I have come to depend on,” she continued. “He is a resource for the entire district. We check with him daily for opinions and decisions about kids.”

“I’ve always just wanted to help people,” Jones said.

He sits only a phone call away when principals have questions about student discipline, hiring, teachers, legalities and so much more. He estimates he takes about three or four calls from principals each day.

“He is a trusted adviser,” said Kim Simco, principal of Smith Elementary School. “As a principal, I trust his opinion 100 percent. He would walk you through things. He listens, then offers his best advice.”

“Then principals depend on him in dealing with gray areas,” Rollins said. “Things are not always black and white. There is not always a best fit. He evaluates something on all variables. And as a result, has the confidence of the entire team.”

“Now, he’ll tell you when you’ve messed up,” Simco continued. “But in the next breath, he’ll say, ‘How can I help you?’”

“I’m going to miss that man,” she said.

VARIED CAREER

Jones was born at home, in the Crumptown community near Waldron. He attended first grade in Waldron and started second grade in Mena. But because the family was poor, and employment was scarce in the area, the family soon went to live with his great-uncle in Susanville, Calif.

“I changed my name when I was 12,” Jones shared. “I was called Junior, but I didn’t like it. And I don’t know why they called me Junior. But my mom let me change my name.

“There was a businessman in town named Hartzell. It was an unusual name, and I had a common last name. It cost me $1 to change it on my birth certificate - and being born at home, I don’t know if it was certified or not.”

He graduated from Mena High School in 1962 and went to what was then the College of the Ozarks in Clarksville.

“I had not planned to go to college,” Jones related. “But my best friend’s dad was a doctor, and every time his mom would buy him something for college - like dorm stuff - she would buy two.”

She also took him on college visits.

“College of the Ozarks was a good fit for me,” Jones said. “I was poor, and they let kids work their way through college. I worked as a janitor for 50 cents an hour. And I graduated with no college debt.”

During the three summers of his college career, Jones worked for a funeral home.

“In those days, the funeral home ran theambulance service,” he explained. “And they were on call 24/7. It took real maturity for that job, but it was a good experience for me as well. I helped the chief embalmer, and that’s something most people haven’t done.”

Colleagues and others started telling Jones he “should be a teacher or a preacher,” he said. “I was shocked, but that got me thinking. If they have the confidence in me

” …

Jones got his first job as a basketball coach and math teacher in Gentry in 1966.

Brice Wagner, current principal of Southwest Junior High, attended one of his math classes.

“Gentry didn’t have much of a (basketball) program,” Jones said. “They hadn’t won a conference championship in 22 years. So I was growing the program.”

The team went 24-4 in Jones’ third year.

They won the conference and advanced tothe state tournament, he reported with a touch of pride in his voice.

In 1973, Coach Jarrell Williams brought both Jones, the coach at Southwest Junior High, and Charlie Smith, the coach at Central Junior High, to Springdale High School as assistant football coaches.

“There were two teaching positions,” Jones recalled. “One in PE, and the other in drivers’ education. I had seniority, so I taught drivers’ education for five years at Springdale High School.

“Drivers’ education was something new and different,” Jones explained when asked why that was his choice. “I knew I’d be certified with six hours of training. I was intrigued by the whole aspect.”

Jones said drivers’ education was much in demand because students could receive school credit and insurance companies had just begun to offer discounts to drivers who completed the training. “I think the mayor was one of my former students,” Jones said.

Jones recalled teaching driving one summer to a bunch of nurses from Springdale Memorial Hospital. “They came here from the Philippines because of a nursing shortage,” he said. “But they didn’t know how to drive because women didn’t drive in the Philippines.”

Jones recalled another student, Rick Roblee, today an orthodontist.

Roblee represented Springdale in a driving contest, both written and driving. “So he and I went to Little Rock, and he won,” Jones said. “He was the state drivers’ education student of the year. We got to go to nationals.

“But the night before we left, he was working at Harps (Food Store), and he cut his hand. He did well, but his hand hurt him a little bit, I think.”

In February 1978, Roger Haney - Washington County treasurer - turned to politics as a career. He had served as the assistant principal at the high school, to be replaced in April.

“On Friday, I was a high school teacher,” Jones said. “On Monday, I was the assistant principal at Southwest.”

Simco walked the halls of that school as a student.

“I loved him so much,” she said. “He was so personable. He knew his kids.

I remember his just being around in the hallways talking to his kids.”

Then, in July 1980, while Jones was on vacation, “Mr. Smith ( Thurman, school superintendent) called to say they had promoted (the SWJH principal) to Springdale High School, and I got his job.” Jones was principal at Southwest when Rollins was hired as the Springdale superintendent.

“I was principal at Southwest in November 1983, when the same thing happened,” Jones said. “I was principal on Friday, and on Monday, Dr. Rollins asked me to be assistant superintendent. I immediately said, ‘Yes.’ And I’ve been here ever since.

“He’s the first administrator I hired to join me down here,” Rollins said.

MOVING ON UP

Again, Jones was given a choice: to work with instruction or personnel.

“I loved instruction,” he said. “But personnel was a new, developing field, and I would be involved from the ground up.”

Before Jones moved downtown, the Springdale school system didn’t have a personnel department, Jones related

“The policies were not very organized,” he said.

“There was no manual.

Policies weren’t dated.

They were just placed one on top of each other in a notebook.

“A policy without a date was very old,” he said.

Jones started the work of categorizing, dating and coding policies and streamlining procedures and practices for employment.

“I remember spending holidays and so forth in the office, reading the state law books about education and taking notes for what our principals needed to know,” Jones said.

When the district was a smaller, the job was “doable,” Jones said. “But with all the growth, it’s still just Peggy Wynn-Burkes (his secretary) and I in this department,” he said with a note of pride.

When Jones began in 1962, the district had 600 kids; today it’s 20,000 students and 40,000 parents - and 248 teachers then, compared to 1,350 teachers now.

“And I’ve probably hired at least that many,” he said.

“He’s a legend,” said son Trent, also the multimediacoordinator for the school district. “Hartzell Jones - in my opinion - is the founder of the personnel department in the state of Arkansas. He’s the leading force in helping to create the absolutely most critical department in our job.

“Testing is important, and scores are important,” Trent Jones continued.

“But at the end of the day, it’s all about people and molding the community.

“He puts teachers in front of kids who end up being the people of the community.”

Many see Jones as the strong, silent type and report the demeanor stays true throughout all facets of his life.

“He’s very calm, very organized, meticulous,” Rollins said.

“He’s very thoughtful,” said his son. “He’s a good compass. He’s not like the typical human with emotions all over the place;

he’s so level.”

Even as a coach, “he was a low-key type of guy,” said Smith, longtime Springdale Bulldog basketball coach, who coached both beside and against Jones during their careers.

“Everyone has their own style (of coaching). And his was very effective for him.

“He was a lot like Jarrell Williams (longtime Bulldog football coach and athletic director),” Smith continued. “He did not have a lot to say, but when he did, it was important.”THE OTHER SIDE

Those who know him well know Hartzell Jones has another side: A sharp sense of humor and a great capacity for storytelling.

For years, Springdale administrators enjoyed a Jones story when they met for dinner at the Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators meeting in Little Rock prior to the start of each school year.

“He was so quiet, but he can tell such a funny joke or story,” Simco said.

“He can make up a song or ad lib a joke. Or he’d say a poem.”

“When it’s the right time or place, he’s a wonderful storyteller,” said his wife, Marsha Jones. “And he’s hysterically funny, not what we know at work.

There’stime to have fun, but he takes his work seriously.”

No one could relate a story the way Jones would tell it, but “capturing snakes to sell to the circus and his Boy Scout outing disasters … those are classics,” Marsha Jones said.

“His lips turn up a little, and he gives just a bit of a smile,” said Danny Dotson, a member of the Springdale School Board. “But his eyes light up. They just sparkle.”

“He’s one of the most humorous people I’ve ever met,” Rollins said.

Trent Jones said his dad has the talent to read any situation and knows when it needs humor for guidance and wisdom.

“When things are tumultuous, he has the ability of stepping back and taking a look at things, at the bigger picture,” Trent Jones said.

“I want to carry that on to my family.”

“Those very same attributes he has at home he brings to the office - he’s loving and caring,” Marsha Jones said. “I admire him both personally and professionally. He’s been a blessing to me.”

Jones still loves sports and often spends a Friday night in a gym outside his district.

“I loved coaching, but I sure didn’t miss those long rides on a yellow bus,” he said.

“And he takes great pleasure in being a grandfather,” Marsha Jones added.

Jones admitted that family takes most of his spare time.

When the Razorbacks are invited to play in bowl games, the Joneses take their families - eight or nine people, including babies - to the games. “Now we sit around and mourn,” Jones said wryly.

Jones’ philosophies are simpler than a winning season.

“I had a job mowing lawns. My mother always told me to arrive early and stay late, and do more than I was asked to do,” Jones said. “I come to work. I take care of business. I give assistance, return my calls. That’s doing my job.

Assisting people is my job, to make them look good.

It’s important to me that I do my job. I don’t have any special talents or skills.”

“I guess I’ve kind of lived the American dream - or at least what I consider to be the American dream,” he continued. “I started poor and didn’t think there was much out there for me. But things happened, and I gave it a go.

“In America, there are thousands of stories like that. I was poor. I was the only one in my family to graduate high school, and I have three college degrees.

That’s the American dream as far as I’m concerned.”