Obit for a man of honor...

from the local newspaper:

Rohnert Park's "Officer Friendly" dies at 66

By GLENDA ANDERSON
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Lawrence “Larry” Edward Jones, a retired Rohnert Park public safety officer known to a generation of school children and their parents as “Officer Friendly,” died at home Saturday. He was 66.

He worked for the Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety for 27 years, retiring in 2003. Ever smiling, he earned the moniker “Officer Friendly” during the 18 years he served as a school resource officer.

“Larry was hands down the best school resources officer we ever had,” said retired Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety Director Robert Dennett.

Jones was strong, loving and inspirational, earning the admiration of students at the Cotati-Rohnert Park School District’s dozen-plus campuses as well as that of their parents.

“His love for the students and kids of this community was very large. He believed in kids,” said long-time friend and former co-worker on the force, Jim Herold.

And they responded to his care.

“The kids would run across the campus to talk to him,” Dennett said.

Jones abilities did not go unnoticed by the community. Parents picketed the City Council and gathered more than 1,100 signatures in 1994 when he was reassigned to patrol. Later that year, grant money was used to return Jones to schools to teach the anti-drug DARE program.

So strong was Jones’ influence, Rancho Cotate High School in May named the school’s circular driveway entrance, “Officer Friendly Way.” More than 200 people attended the the naming ceremony.

Jones went beyond what was expected of a school safety officer. He often would give his home phone number to a young person who might need advice or to offer them a hug. He counseled several suicidal teens and once rushed to a trouble’s girl’s house after her friend called Jones for help at 2 a.m., according to a 2003 Press Democrat profile. Some of the students he mentored in elementary and middle school have become Rohnert Park police officers and firefighters.

In an interview with the Press Democrat, he said, “I wanted to create a trust and a bond — be dependable.” By all accounts, he was successful.

Young’s calling may have stemmed from his own youth, his mother, Gladys Jones, mused in a 1998 Press Democrat interview. Jones, the sixth of 12 children, was born with spinal meningitis and doctors told his parents that, if he lived, he would never walk. But within a year, he was walking, proving them wrong. He continued to defy the odds later in life.

Jones was born in Houston but was raised in the tough, Hunter’s Point neighborhood in San Francisco, an experience that taught him valuable lessons and launched his career. He once said he never forgot what a neighborhood drug pusher had told him: “People don’t use drugs. Drugs use people.”

Jones also survived five gunshot wounds in an altercation at age 21, a turning point in his life. Soon after, he decided to become a police officer and began forging his way into a career in which, at the time, there were few black people.

He went to the Redwood City Police Academy and in 1965 got a job as a private investigator. He joined the Pacifica Police Department two years later and the Marin County Sheriff’s Department in 1969. He was hired by Rohnert Park in 1976 and became “Officer Friendly” three years later.

His dedication to his work has been rewarded over the years with awards that included policeman of the year, the outstanding service award from the state Juvenile Officers Association, the J.Edgar Hoover gold medal award and the city’s citizen of the year.

After he retired, Jones continued to work with children, coaching softball and football teams, as he had done for nearly three decades. Jones also served as president of the board of trustees for the Community Baptist Church in Santa Rosa and was a past member of the Sonoma County chapter of 100 Black Men.

In addition to his mother, Jones is survived by his wife, Carolyn Jones; daughters Tomeka Jones and Tracy Jackson; sons Lawrence Jones, Donald Wambold, Jonathan Wambold and Michael Wambold; sisters Joyce Emerson and Linda Mobrey; brothers Leslie Campbell, Allen Holmes, Eugene Jones, Larry Jones, Gonzales Jones III, Ray Jones and Michael Jones; and 10 grandchildren.

A “Celebration of the Life of Larry Jones” will be held from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday at the Spreckles Center for the Performing Arts.

You can read the complete version of the story here, but be forewarned: this newspaper's website it horrendously slow. And, truth be told, you've already read the majority of the article. (wink, wink, nudge, nudge...)