Captain James W (Ret)

Captain James William Jones, USN (Ret.), 73, died Thursday, March 10, 2016, at his beloved home on Snow Creek Road in Santa Fe. A Celebration of Life will be conducted Sunday at 1:00 P.M. at First Presbyterian Church with Reverend Joe Evans officiating. Inurnment will follow at Santa Fe Cemetery. Visitation will be held at First Presbyterian Church Saturday from 4:00 - 6:00 P.M. Oakes & Nichols Funeral Directors are assisting the family with arrangements. The family suggests memorials to Columbia Central High School Navy Jr. ROTC, 921 Lion Parkway, Columbia, TN 38401 or First Presbyterian Church, 801 South High Street, Columbia, TN 38401. Condolences may be extended online at www.oakesandnichols.com. Jim is a descendent of John A. & Piney Jones, whose family settled in the Snow Creek area in 1812. He is the 5th generation to live on the family farm in Santa Fe where he was born and raised. He attended Santa Fe School and was a graduate of the outstanding class of 1960 Columbia Central High School, where he played football and baseball. Jim graduated from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in 1965. After graduation, he was commissioned thru Aviation Officer Candidate School in Pensacola, FL. He held two Master's Degree: one in Management and one in Strategic Studies from the Naval War College.Jim served 30 years in the US Navy as a naval aviator, first flying E-2 Hawkeye's and then the S-3 Viking, anti-submarine warfare planes. He has served in combat operations during four different periods, has sixteen years sea duty with over nine years of actual sea time, including one deployment to Southeast Asia, six to the Mediterranean, three to the North Atlantic. He was Commanding officer of VS-22 in Jacksonville, FL. He headed the office of Naval Aviation & Budgeting in the Pentagon and from 1989 to 1991 he served as Commodore of the Training Air Wing in Pensacola, Florida where his command trained 650 aviators annually, and hosted 54 tenant commands and 14,000 civilian and military personnel. He concluded his career as Commanding Officer of the NROTC unit at Penn State. After retiring from the Navy in 1995 Jim moved back to Snow Creek Valley to renovate the family farm house. Jim was active on several boards, including Rippavilla Plantation, Maury County Water System, and was an elder at First Presbyterian Church.Jim's love of the land, his country, and his family knew no bounds.Survivors include his son, James Michael (Jamie) Jones; grandsons, Luke Michael Jones and Jacob Anthony Jones; wife, Lee Russell Brown; her children, Elizabeth (Paul) Fuller, Dr. J. Preston (Allyson) Brown, Russell (Grayson) Brown and her eight grandchildren.He is preceded in death by his parents, Eleanor Wade Jones and William Justis Jones; and sister, Olivia Jones O'Donoughue.