Ron Jones

Author and Lecturer

Fall 1958 Graduate

        For all of his myriad accomplishments, Ron is a most unassuming individual. After graduating from Lincoln, Ron attended San Francisco State University receiving his BA in International Relations in 1963. After State, Ron attended Stanford University, being awarded a Masters degree in Education in 1966. Devoted to teaching, Ron became a teacher at the Recreation Center for the Handicapped in 1978 where he has remained since then. Among his exploits at the Center is coaching the basketball team that has never lost a game. He claims a record of 135 wins, no losses, 1 tie, 3 arrests and only 2 convictions. Behind this self-effacing persona, however, lies a committed individual, dedicated to improving the skills of individuals with disabilities. He is also dedicated to fighting all forms of prejudice, and he wields a most powerful weapon in that fight - the pen.

        Ron has written 30 books. Three of them have been made into award winning television dramas: The "Acorn People", "The Wave and B-Ball". His advocacy about the need for us to fight prejudice and racism wherever it occurs is a common theme in his writing. The Wave is a short story about fascism, which is required reading in German schools. More recently he has written "Her Name was Eva Moses" about a survivor of Joseph Mengeie's brutal experiments in Auschwitz on twins. A frequently requested lecturer on the dangers of prejudice, Ron was asked by the German government to recite a monologue from "Her Name was Eva Moses" in a chamber where Adolf Hitler held many of his infamous rallies. Ron believes that the German government felt that the reading exercised the evil from that site.

        But if you ask Ron about himself, he rarely mentions the books, the television dramas or his numerous lectures and speaking engagements. He speaks mostly of his family, his wife Deanna (also a Lincoln graduate) who has a poetry business, and the garden in his home where he shares afternoon tea with is granddaughter. Of all the accolades, the one he cherishes most is Pa-Pay, his granddaughter's name for him.

        In recognition of his many accomplishments, Ron was inducted into the Abraham Lincoln High School Wall of Fame in May 1995.