JEANETTE (JONES) RUSSELL
I
have debated about the contents and
written, and rewritten my autobiography for you to read. Here’s yet
another attempt.
This
morning when I drove onto I-10 and saw the Texas wildflowers in their radiant
beauty, I decided to start my autobiography with where I live now. Twenty-one
years ago, my husband S. A. Russell, Jr., our two young children, and I moved
to the Boerne area from Clear Lake City. When we looked at houses, we had one
requirement that ranked over the rest: our home must have a view. We worked out
the particulars and met that prerequisite in a location that eventually
incorporated and became the City of Fair Oaks Ranch. Within four days after
moving in, we purchased two lambs for Four-H projects and eventually acquired
chickens, turkeys, and goats. We rapidly plunged into a totally different way
of life. Today SA and I have no
animals, but we kept an amazing view of the Texas Hill Country complete with
leaping deer and other kinds of wildlife. We never take the beauty of the
location for granted, and we specialize in vivid sunsets and in wide open views
of the sky. I-10 is in the far distance, and we are about ten minutes from
Boerne and exactly twenty-three miles from North Star Mall in San Antonio.
Today
SA offices out of our home while I teach in Boerne. I am completing my
twentieth year in education this year and will retire this summer. When we were
living in Clear Lake City, I received a specialization in reading, and today I
spend part of my day teaching struggling first graders in a program called
Reading Recovery. During the rest of the day, I administer the dyslexia program
at my school, test for the problem, and teach a single sixth grade class of
dyslexic students.
Like
my husband, our older son Seth is a graduate of the University of Texas College
of Engineering. He followed that with a jaunt on a cattle ranch in Salida,
Colorado, and then with a law degree from the University of Houston. Seth and
his wife Elizabeth, who is with the Harris County DA’s office, live and work in
Houston.
Our
son Paul received an English degree from the University of Texas. During Paul’s
college career, he produced a Christian CD for which he wrote and arranged the
songs, sang, and orchestrated the production from soup to nuts. Then he had one
song by the name of Bullriders: Chasing the Dream on a CD. Today Paul has left
his professional musical career behind and works for an internet software
company in Austin. His wife Melissa returned to graduate school this year, and
she and Paul live near the UT campus.
Those
of you who remember that I graduated from the University of Arkansas in
Fayetteville must wonder how I fit into a UT household. It has been simple: I
have become a UT fan.
Many
of you know my sister Suellen and her husband Chuck Kirby, both of the Jones
class of 1963. For three years they have lived in downtown Antwerp, Belgium,
where Chuck is employed by Total Fina. I visited them a couple of summers ago
and loved it. Suellen and Chuck have made some great trips and great friends in
Antwerp, but they miss their children and grandchildren. However, they are able
to come home about three or four times a year.
Along
the way since high school, I have taken great joy in the relationships that I
have maintained from that period. One of my treasures is a photograph of seven
Jones graduates taken at the wedding of my son Seth. There we are thirty seven
years later, and some of the people honestly haven’t changed that much since
high school.
I
appreciate the work that Betty and Rob do to help us keep up with each other,
and I have had some pleasant email exchanges with some of you that I had lost
touch with. So here’s to you, here’s to us, and I’ll see you Friday night at
the reunion.