Inducted in 1976 … Nyack H.S., Class of 1942 … national swimming champion … arguably the greatest female athlete in Rockland County history … was selected to the 1940 U.S. Olympic team, but the Games were canceled because of World War II … she would have been one of the favorites for a gold medal in the backstroke…won the National Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) championship in the 100-yard backstroke three straight years…she ended her career with the third of those three wins, in Neenah, Wis., in August 1942, just after graduating from Nyack…her first national championship came as a 14-year-old in 1938 when she won the U.S. long-distance title over a three-mile course at Clementon, N.J….in 1939 she began to specialize in the backstroke…Jones (she married Herbert Jones in 1944) won 50 major championships in the U.S. and Canada between 1938 and 1942, and at one time held the American record in 35 events … Jones set 13 of those records in 1942, including an amazing six in one day in March in a meet at the Madison Square Boys Club … she was named The Associated Press national female athlete of the year in 1942 … at age 11 she was sent to the Women’s Swimming Association of New York City to develop her competitive ability … at age 12 she finished second in the 800-meter and mile freestyle at the senior national championships in San Francisco…a native of Freeport, L.I., she came to Nyack in 1932.she quit swimming when she entered Barnard College, from which she graduated in 1946…later moved to Charleston, W.Va.