Ronald Jones:
CLASS OF 1967
San Fernando High SchoolClass of 1967
San fernando, CA
San Fernando Junior High SchoolClass of 1964
San fernando, CA
Guardian Angel SchoolClass of 1963
Pacoima, CA
Mary Immaculate SchoolClass of 1962
Pacoima, CA
Vaughn Street SchoolClass of 1961
Pacoima, CA
Ronald's Story
10/05/2021
Do you remember graduation?
I don’t know if I’ve ever shared this story about graduation. Some of you may remember that I played the tuba in the school band. During the graduation rehearsal, that we had in the gymnasium, the class practiced marching in, sitting down and then being called up to the stage in alphabetical order. Sam Shaw and myself, being in the band, would be the last two seniors called up. I asked Principle Falxa if I could be called last. He said sure.
Then I put my plan into action. I would go around telling everyone that when my name was called the entire gymnasium would explode in applause. Come grad night, we played “Pomp and Circumstance” for what seemed like forever. Remember, we had the largest graduating class to attend San Fernando at the time. Before calling the names, everyone in attendance was reminded to hold their applause until the end. That’s when I reminded everyone in the orchestra that when my name was called this entire gym would irrupt in applause. They all said, the principle just told everyone not to applause while the names were being called. I just replied, you watch, you watch and see. Remember, no one knew I was going up last.
The roll call started; Aespero, Agniel, Albert… then finally, Zarate, Zubia, Zulegar, Shaw and Ronald Jones!!! The gym exploded in applause and it didn’t hurt any that I stood there gesturing for more noise.
Grad nite was a great night!
…and I have great story about Grad Nite at Disneyland.
2019
I retired from AT&T. I started at AT&T as a Paystation Collector. We collected the money in pay phones all over LA/Orange County. I was right out of high school. PacBell was having problems with robberies in the black communities, Watts, Compton, South Central LA etc. I guess they figured that if they put black collectors in those communities, they wouldn’t get beat-up or robbed. This was shortly after the Watts Riots. Well, I never did get beat-up, but I did get robbed once.
PlayStation Collectors and Messengers were probationary positions. You did them for six months. If you worked out you’d move up in the company, if you didn’t, yo...Expand for more
u were released. While in Coin I excelled as a collector. I had the highest daily collections, I received special training on cleaning vault issues with the pay phone, I reorganized how the phones were collected throughout the county, I trained every collector who came in after me, and I improved the daily revenue in that department by a substantial amount. I was only 19 years old. I went from Coin Collector, to Prewire, to Installation, to Commtech, to Network Engineer. I was involved with the Internet when it was in its infancy. Digital communications, digital memory, digital TV, vacuum tubes to transistors, to solid state, to fiber optics and more. I was a member of the Emerging Technology Committee (ETC) and even influenced how those technologies should be maintained and tested. Oh... and between 1967 and 2019, I spent 12 years in the Navy, trained as a Nuclear Engineer and served onboard three Nuclear Powered Submarines. And, I may have been the inspiration for a character named Ronald Jones, in the movie, The Hunt for Red October. You know... there weren’t that many blacks on submarines when I was in the Navy, and I was the only black engineer on all the subs I served on.
When I came out of the service, I went back to AT&T. I worked on many special projects and I worked with NBC as an ATT representative on every Olympics’ Broadcast (summer & winter) from 1984 until 2018. I retired in 2019. 52 years of a solid work history from the time I graduated until now. I was never out of work, I was never fired from a job, I’ve had a blessed life.
I got my work ethic from my mother and I got my educational foundation from San Fernando High School.
GO TIGERS!
2016
I recently celebrated my 66th birthday by riding my bicycle from Chicago to Los Angeles along Route 66. I made a short video of my trip and posted it on YouTube. Just search for “youtube/5oZZGaV9t1w” to view the video. I had never done anything like that before. It was a year of planning. We took over a thousand pictures and over three hours of video and that all went into a short 5 minute YouTube video… but the journey was a lot of fun!
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