Emeritus Trustee Ann McArron Jones, who died Jan. 31 in Albany, Texas, was the type of person who threw herself into the causes she loved. And TCU was high on the list, said Jon Rex Jones, her husband of 63 years.

Besides serving on the Board of Trustees’ student relations committee, she was the only woman on the board’s athletic committee for several years.

“She wasn’t intimidated at all,” Jon Rex said. “She had always been interested in football. She grew up in Breckenridge [Texas], which won two state championships, and her brother played football. … She understood the sport, to say the least.”

Her role on the board — on which she served from 1988 until becoming emeritus trustee in 2011 — combined her passion for athletics with that for education. It was another legacy of her youth: Her father led the Breckenridge school board. Likewise, she became school board president in nearby Albany, where she and Jon Rex raised their four children.

An ardent Disciples of Christ member, she began college at TCU because of her faith and because “she didn’t want to be involved in the frat system,” Jon Rex said. But the Greek organizations came to campus, and she joined Kappa Kappa Gamma and became the sweetheart of Lambda Chi Alpha.

Then Jon Rex stole her away to the University of Oklahoma, his alma mater. Still, “her first love was always TCU,” he said. In time, her brother-in-law, Chancellor William Tucker ’56, appointed her a trustee. She and Jon Rex became honorary graduates, and her name graces the endowed chair of special education in the College of Education.

Despite the honors, she remained down-to-earth with “a ready smile,” Jon Rex said. “When someone in the community had a health problem or lost a loved one, she’d take them one of her chicken and rice casseroles. … She knew everyone, and everyone knew her.”

— Linda Stallard Johnson