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Everett Earl "Zeb" Jones of Albuquerque, NM, a 33-year employee of Kerr McGee Corp. and decorated World War II Navy pilot, died August 21, 2007 at a specialty hospital in Norman, OK, of complications from congestive heart failure. He was 84. He will be laid to rest at Veteran's National Cemetery in Santa Fe, N.M., on Sept. 6. at 3 p.m. Everett Jones was born an only child to Zeb Jones and Naomi Hinson Jones in Union County, NC. After graduating high school, he studied geology at Wake Forest University before signing up to fly fighter planes in the Pacific during World War II. He served two years of active duty and later received an honorable discharge from the Naval Reserve in 1956 as a Lieutenant. During his time in the naval reserve, he earned a degree in geological engineering at North Carolina State University and began his career with the Atomic Energy Commission. In 1952, he signed up to work with Kerr McGee Corp. near the Arizona-New Mexico border, piloting planes that mapped mineral deposits in the American West. "It was fun but it was also pretty risky," long-time friend, Phil Ellsworth said of flying 100 feet above the cliffs in rickety propeller planes. "The thing that made it is better was his sense of humor." During a summer assignment in Wyoming, Jones met and married Louise Robinson, a Wyoming native, in 1953. They had three children in Wyoming before moving to New Mexico and later to Arizona to raise the kids. When the children finished high school, Jones moved to Edmond, OK, to work at Kerr McGee's headquarters. An avid golfer, Jones enjoyed every minute spent on the golf course. Upon retiring from the company in 1985, he and his wife retired to an adobe villa on the western mesa of Albuquerque, a chip shot from the fairway of Paradise Hills' golf course. For more than a decade, Jones' grandchildren, their parents in tow, converged in the summer on the Jones home to chase roadrunners across the golf course or tiptoe through the lava-rock lawn. He helped teach his only son and several grandchildren to golf. To his grandchildren, he was always "Papa Zeb." Louise "Weezie" Jones passed away in January 1998, after 45 years of marriage. Jones traveled in 2003 to South America, visiting Brazil, the Falkland Islands and the beaches of Chile. He moved back to Oklahoma in August 2005 to be closer to his eldest daughter. Aside from his wife, he was preceded in death by his parents, Zeb Jones and Naomi Hinson Jones; and a grandson, Joseph Jones. He is survived by his three children. Janis Slater, 53, of Norman has two children, Grant and Rebecca. Jo Ann Williams, 51, of Casper, WY, has seven children: Gabriel, Brian, John, Samuel, Jason, Benjamin, and Haley. His son, Robert Everett Jones, 50, lives in Casper as well.
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