Donna Belle Nigh Jones

Donna Belle Nigh Jones, a resident of Coppell, TX, departed this life, on Monday, January 11, 2016, peacefully in her sleep. She was 79. Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma on November 18, 1936, she was the third of five children to Samuel Melvin Nigh and Minnie Mavis Young Nigh.

Donna was raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma where her father worked for Sun Oil Company as foreman for many years. She attended Daniel Webster High School, where she made many friends with whom she stayed in touch to this day.

Her college years were spent at Oklahoma Baptist University (OBU) in Shawnee, Oklahoma where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Education. OBU’s Bison Hill is where she flourished and developed many relationships she treasured throughout her life. At OBU she was a charter member of the Bisonettes, the woman’s chorus founded by Warren Angell in 1954 as partner to the men’s Bison Glee Club. For many years she enjoyed the fellowship with the group which travelled and performed at churches in the area. She also participated in theater, field hockey and was an avid follower of the men’s athletics such as track and basketball. She shared many great experiences and shenanigans with her classmates during those years with memories to last a lifetime.

After college she moved to New Orleans where she worked in church administration at the First Baptist Church of New Orleans. While there, she met and married Arthur R. Jones, Jr. They went on to live in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he completed his Ph.D. in Sociology, and they gave birth to a baby girl, Joanna Patricia Jones.

Life then took them to Bowie, Maryland, where Dr. Jones taught in the Sociology Department at University of Maryland. It was not long after that their son, Samuel Rutledge Jones, was born.

The family then moved to Starkville, Mississippi where Donna completed a second Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Mississippi State University. This was during the strife of the 60’s civil-rights movement, where she proudly supported equal rights for all races.

In the years following Donna lived in Orlando, Florida, where Arthur taught at Rollins College. Eventually she moved to Houston to be close to her family and raise her children. She and the children participated in all sports at Inwood Dads Club, where Donna coached the children’s soccer team and was an exuberant parent for all seasons: football, soccer and baseball/softball.

During these years, she worked at oil companies during the wildcatter days of the 70s and 80s. Houston was a boom town, and Donna was in the center of the action. She served as a Land Secretary keeping track of all the oil leases of the company and ensuring all leases and payments were kept up to date. She told great stories of the parties held by these companies in the heyday and met many lifelong friends. One of her most proud occasions during this era was when she was named National Employee of the Year for Manpower Company, which included a ceremonial dinner in her honor. All the while she continued to be a fervent supporter of her children’s activities at Eisenhower High School including football and drill team and became lifelong friends with many of their friends.

In later years, she picked up the cause to rally her class to attend a yearly reunion on Bison Hill to relive their college days. She became the matriarch of the Class of ’58 and was said to be the glue that held the class together. Some 50 years ago, she began the yearly pilgrimage to Bison Hill and faithfully returned every year to check on proceedings and reconnect with her fellow Bisons and the “Class of ’58”, as they were known. Ka-Rip!

Donna always loved her politics. In the late 80s, she spent time working in the Texas State Capital building in Austin as an administrator for now-Mayor of Houston, Sylvester Turner. She loved the vibrancy and fast pace of the state congress, but California called her name.

Almost on a whim, she packed her bags and headed west, accepting the generosity of the college classmate, Norma Simpson, to help her get settled. Donna then spent almost 20 years working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as an administrator on many exciting projects such as the Mars Rover and the Drop Physics Module for a later Space Shuttle mission. She really enjoyed the science and the wonder of space, even printing home-made business cards where, in jest, she used the title of “Rocket Scientist and Poet”.

And, she was quite a poet. There are volumes of magnificent poems from her hand which rival the work of many published poets. She had always hoped to publish her works, but her family and friends relished the art and looked forward each year to the annual installment of the Thanksgiving and Christmas poems. These poems often pointed to an aspect of the holiday for which humanity needed a reminder or showcased her family of which she was so proud.

Donna loved her sports. Each Saturday in the fall she would don her OU t-shirt and cheer on her favorite team. You could hear her “cheering” from miles away. She loved sharing the wins with her favorite OBU friends and lamented the losses. She was an ardent supporter to the very end.

She will be missed immensely and is survived by her two children: daughter, Joanna and her partner, John Gors, and son, Sam and his wife Elizabeth Winston Jones and Donna’s beautiful grandchild, Jackson Winston Blackshear Jones, as well as her sister Anna Ruth Nigh Holland and many nieces and nephews who adored her. She is preceded in death by her parents, Samuel and Minnie Nigh, her sisters Mary Beth Nigh, Velma Lou Nigh West and her brother, Jack Fowler Nigh.

A memorial service will be held Saturday, January 16, 2016, at Rolling Oaks Funeral Home in Coppell from 3:00-4:00PM with a reception in the hall immediately following. The service will be officiated by her longtime friend and college classmate, Robert E. Maples, retired US Army and US Navy Chaplain, with music by her sister’s family -- Paul West, Paula Whitman, Sam West, Kelly West and Rebecca Shackleford.

In lieu of flowers, the family encourages donations to the Revive the Roof campaign (http://www.okbu.edu/giving/campaigns/revive-the-roof) to replace the roof on the Raley Chapel at her beloved Oklahoma Baptist University. Alternatively, the family requests donations to the American Diabetes Association (http://www.diabetes.org/donate/) to help find a cure for the disease she held hands with for the last 20 years, or to the charity of your personal choice.