55 years at Gazette:

Jerry Jones reflects on Colfax journalist career

Jana Mathia, Editor | Apr 16, 20200

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Jerry Jones

COLFAX - In June 1965, newly-hired reporter Jerry Jones went to cover his first City Council meeting.

"Here we go again," he would think every June thereafter when he would sit down to cover yet another meeting.

Jones won't be thinking that this year as health issues have forced him to retire after 55 years covering the news, sports and crime in Colfax and Whitman County.

After graduating from Central Valley High School in 1960 in the present day city of Spokane Valley, Jones deferred being drafted by going to college at the University of Washington. He graduated from UW in 1964 and went with some friends to New York City to attend the World's Fair. While there he scouted for a job and worked for the New York Times as a copy boy.

The draft caught up with him and he moved back to Washington and joined the Coast Guard reserve. He served active duty for six months before getting back to normal life and started job hunting,

Jones landed at the Colfax Gazette, the announcement of his hiring running in the June 24, 1965, issue. He was hired by publisher Bill Wilmont. In 1976 he married a Colfax school teacher, Peggy Larson. They were married in a house on E. Wawawai Street where Jones still lives to this day. They had two sons, Pete and Hugh.

When Jones started working at the paper, he wrote his stories on a typewriter and turned it over to a typesetter who used punchtape to key the story into a linotype machine which used hot lead to make the type for the story. The linotype was used for the stories, but the headlines and ads were still set by hand. Then the paper was printed in the office.

"It took a lot of time and a lot of noise," Jones recalled.

One of the first big stories Jones worked on was about the families and orchards on the Snake River that were about to be flooded out due to the construction of Little Goose Dam.

One of the beats Jones has covered over the years has been county high school sports. Depending on how far teams made it at the regional and state levels, he would cover 100 sporting events a year, covering a lot of miles going to games of all kinds all over the county.

"It's amazing when you think back on all the schools and school teams that have consolidated," he said.

The development and advancement of girls sports was one of the big things he saw over the years.

He has seen the children and grandchildren of some of those early athletes on the sports rosters now; high school athletes have become coaches and supporters.

With all the sports he's covered, Jones is often asked if he remembers a certain game or title.

"You remember kids more, just by their character," he said. He remembers how they played and progressed more than any particular game, no matter how big.

Getting pictures at the games has been one of the big changes he has seen. At the beginning of his career he would come back to the office with 15 to 20 frames of pictures to choose from.

"Now you can't even look at them all," he said of digital photography.

Other beats Jones has consistently covered have been records and courts or crime news.

"That got kinda boring after a while," he said of the criminal cases. While there were some interesting cases, most of the time it was the same scenario repeated, just with different names.

Jones became known as "Scoop" as he covered Colfax over the decades. He saw the Gazette sold four or five times; went from typewriter to computer, lead to digital.

With the heavy use of social media, he said he is concerned for the future as people don't read the newspaper like they used to. He would have people telling him about a scoop they saw on social media and he had written about the story two weeks earlier.

Over the years Jones was also active in Rotary, Whitman County Historical Society, Colfax Arts Council and Boy Scouts. Through family health struggles, including his own stroke, and the loss of Peggy in 2019, he continued covering the news of Colfax and Whitman County for the Gazette and Colfax Daily Bulletin. While he never claimed to be an artist, he came up with Patience Palouse, the pink cow that is now a feature at the Palouse Empire Fair. He attempted to teach some journalism to the many reporters who have circulated through the office.

Jones is still also a "tremendous jazz fan."

Maintaining the Daily Bulletin kept Jones walking the streets of Colfax, making the trip from the Gazette office to the county courthouse and city hall. After a couple weeks of suffering a cough and cold which was making it hard for him to walk around town and breathe, Jones took advantage of a day off from the Bulletin to see the doctor on Presidents' Day. That doctor brought in another and the next thing he knew was he was being Life Flighted up to Deaconess Hospital in Spokane. He was released after three days, but he knew he had to call it quits at the paper as he just didn't have the energy to keep up.

Even retired, people still think of him as Scoop. When the Fonk's building was on fire, Jones went to the scene to check it out. While there, three people told him where a good place to take a picture would be. Jones chuckled and added they didn't even notice he wasn't carrying a camera.

Jones plans to move to Shelton to live closer to his sons who are both there.

"It's funny, you start out on something and don't think it will end like this," he said.

Jones was awarded the Silver Helmet Award in 2011. It was given by the Washington State Football Coaches Association for his continued, dedicated service to rural county high school football coverage.