Remember
When
BY TERI R. WILLIAMS PHOTOS BY DAPHNE WALKER
It was the first home game of the 2019 Toombs County High School football
season. The new aluminum stadium seats in Booster Stadium were packed with
both regular fans and those who had come to see the field’s new renovations. No
one asked if Coach Jacky Jones would be there. It was a given. In fact, not a day had
passed since renovations began following
the 2018 graduation that he had not been
to the field to observe the daily progress.
That night, as the Toombs County
Bulldogs took the field, his wife Ms. Betty
was at their home a few blocks away
listening to every play on the radio. The
names of players and cheerleaders would
be heard by both with past generations
in mind: the grandchild of someone she
taught English or some relation to a player
he once coached.
Coach Jones retired in 1990 after 30
years of coaching football, baseball, and
girls’ basketball. Ms. Betty retired in 1998
after 34 years of teaching Language Arts.
They weren’t certain what to make of my
interest. Both insisted their story was
nothing extraordinary. But I persisted.
I wanted them to know: What they
remembered about our past mattered. And
what they gave to the youth as teachers in our
community was valued.
REMEMBERING...
C oach Jones and his wife Ms. Betty
live on the corner of Louella Street,
named for Ms. Betty’s mother.
Coach Jones’s younger brother Barry and
Betty’s younger brother Glynn were good
friends and played together often. From
time to time Jacky would see Betty when he was sent to get his brother and bring him
home.
Betty went to school all twelve years in Lyons. Her father, Robert Page, was a
farmer. In fact, the Jones’s house sits on what was once his eighty-five-acre farm. “My
first-grade teacher was Ms. House,” said Ms. Betty. “She must have taught everyone
in this county, and I loved her dearly.” It was a simple statement but spoke of the
profound impact Ms. House had on her. I wondered how many children like Ms. Betty
chose to become teachers because of the joy Ms. House demonstrated as an educator.
Jacky went to Toombs Central School for first and second grade. He started third
grade and finished the rest of his school years in Lyons when his family moved to town
HOMETOWN LIVING AT I TS BEST 13
LEFT Jacky and Betty
Jones at the recently
renovated Booster
Stadium where they
once played, cheered
and coached.
ABOVE On the same
field in 1955, Betty was
a Homecoming sponsor
and Jacky was the
football captain.