Dewitt R. Jones

Dr. Dewitt Jones was born in Des Moines, Iowa and his family moved to the Chicago suburb of Northbrook when he was five years old. Not particularly liking school, he was more interested in girls, music and athletics. It wasn’t until Mary Agnus Barber dragged him by the ear out of the hall starting in his junior year at Glenbrook North High School, that under her scrutiny, he pulled his grades up to a 2.05GPA. His father was an alcoholic enabled by his mother, so Ms. Barber’s influence was paramount in his turnaround. Being a good musician and track star got him into a small college in Iowa during the Vietnam war era. Keeping a draft deferment at that time in college required a CGPA of a 2.00 which Dewitt had no problem maintaining.

During his college career, he met and married the love of his life, Joanna. Together they both ventured out into the workplace as music educators. Dewitt received his masters and doctorate in education administration, during which time his two sons were born. Using his skills as a school administrator, Dewitt became a middle school principal for seven years, a high school principal for ten years, and a superintendent of schools for eighteen years in two different states. During these years, he spoke at numerous state and national conventions and received state awards for his contributions to the arts and communication skills. Loving the field of education administration also meant playing it forward.

After retiring from his last superintendency in the urban district of Waterloo, Iowa, he went to work full time for the University of Northern Iowa retiring as the coordinator of their superintendent preparation program in 2014. In retirement, he still adjuncts for UNI. Mercy College of Health Sciences in Des Moines needed an interim VP of Academic Affairs/ Provost which he accepted for 16 months.

Dewitt and Joanna now live in Waukee, Iowa. They have five grandchildren, travel frequently, and Dewitt has finished his first fiction project and has started his second project. His reviewers that have read Peace Be with You have encouraged him to actively seek a publisher. In the summer of 2016, anchored in the backwaters of the Mississippi River on his cabin cruiser Murphy’s Law, he put the finishing touches on his first fiction project, Peace Be with You, which is now available on Kindle. In his first principalship assignment, a reading teacher came into his office and said, “I am going to retire in a few years, and if I had it to do over, I would write down short notes about things that I have experienced that were funny, sad, and unusual. I just can’t remember everything now and if I could, it would be a great book!” Dewitt collected over 400 entries over the next 32 years and in 2005 self-published 40 of these stories in his first book, Inside the Not So Hallowed Halls. Over 3,000 hardbound copies were regionally sold.