CHARLES “BONES” JONES, JR.

JOSEPH R. HOLLAND LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

POSTUMOUSLY

The name Charles “Bones” Jones, Jr. is synonymous with Special Olympics in Rockland County. He initiated a
program at his place of employment, Letchworth Village Developmental Center in Thiells, in the mid-1970s, holding competitions on the grounds and in the gym at Kirkbride Hall for several hundred clients who lived at Letchworth. He expanded the program a few years later to other agencies that served people with intellectual disabilities, including St. Agatha’s, St. Dominic’s, Greer Woodycrest, Tanglewood Acres, ARC, Venture, and the Jesse J. Kaplan School
at BOCES.

Bones became the Area 4 (Rockland County) coordinator for Special Olympics around 1977 and held that position until Special Olympics NY regionalized in 2005. At that time, Rockland County Special Olympics became part of the Hudson Valley Region. Even though regional staff members assumed supervision for part of the Special Olympics program, Bones continued to run the day-to-day competitions and training programs for the Rockland athletes until his passing in 2021. He championed the cause of Special Olympians for four and a half decades and never wavered in his volunteer commitment to this program and its participants.

“Bones brought Special Olympics to Rockland County at a time when there were no opportunities for people with
disabilities,” says Nancy Logan, who worked with Bones in Rockland Special Olympics starting in 1983 and continues to co-administer the program. “He was a pioneer who saw ability in all of the athletes he came across.”

Deep Roots in the Community

Bones started leagues for team sports in the early 1980s that have run continuously since then. It is the only Special Olympics program in the state that coordinates leagues for team sports, including soccer, basketball, floorball, a type of floor hockey using plastic sticks and ball, and a recent addition, bowling. Logan oversees the programs along with Sue Jones, Bones’ wife. “It takes two people to do what [Bones] did,” says Sue, adding that her husband also launched a popular golf program for Area 4 participants. Today, Rockland County has more than 250 athletes who participate in eight individual and team sports. The program offers year-round play as well as local, regional and statewide competitions. Several athletes from Rockland have even qualified for National and World Games competitions.

Perhaps equally important was Bones’ ability to integrate the Special Olympics mission into the fabric of the community. For decades, he organized competitions at local high schools and coordinated all of the volunteers needed. “By having competition in the schools,” Logan says, “and exposing students, staff and the community to people with disabilities, we added many volunteers and athletes to our program.”

State and National Impact

The influence that Charlie “Bones” Jones, Jr. had on Special Olympics extended beyond the boundaries of Rockland County. He was the State sports director for Special Olympics basketball for almost 20 years, and after introducing golf to the Rockland Special Olympics menu in 1995, became the State sports director for Special Olympics golf in 1998 and continued in that position until his passing. At the New York State Level Spring Games, which Rockland hosted for two years, Bones worked with the state to coordinate all of the volunteers and schedules for 700 athletes for basketball and track & field in the Clarkstown schools.

Bones was a member of the State Level Area Coordinator Committee for 27 years, and was also a member of the state-level Games and Training Committee for more than 25 years. Both roles required travel to meetings across the state several times a year.

On the national level, Bones coordinated a golf tournament for Special Olympics participants in Port St. Lucie, FL, in conjunction with the Professional Golfers Association (PGA). Among the multitude of awards he received for his lengthy service to Special Olympics was a lifetime achievement award named in memory of Dorothy Buehring Phillips, the founder of the New York State Special Olympics. Not that you would ever hear about that from Charlie. “He was very humble and very passionate,” Sue says. “He just went out and did things. He said, ‘Let’s do it.’”

Hoops Hero, Golf Guru

Bones was a basketball and golf star at Peekskill High School, graduating in 1966. He earned an academic scholarship to SUNY Oneonta, where he played on the only undefeated men’s basketball team in school history, the freshman squad from the 1966-67 season, which went 16-0. He was also second or third man off the bench for the varsity team. “We would play in the freshman game, shower, then go and play in the varsity game,” says Bryan Hassett, Bones’ teammate with the Red Dragons and his first varsity sub off the bench. Bones stood a wiry 6-foot-2 and had “razor elbows,” Hassett says, “and he used them.” The freshman team often played to sell-out crowds at home and received blanket coverage in the school newspaper by student staff writer Marty Appel of Spring Valley, later the public relations chief for the New York Yankees.

Bones began working at Letchworth Village in 1972 as senior recreation therapist in the children’s unit. His future wife, Sue, a Long Island native, was hired by Bones later that year as a recreation therapist under his supervision. They married in 1980 and had two children: Kyla, now Kyla Basso, 42, a former Nanuet High School golf and volleyball standout and school Hall of Fame inductee; and Charles Jones III, known as CJ, 40, who also was a champion golfer.

Carrying On a Legacy Through the Foundation

Sue and her children formed the Bones Jones Foundation after Bones died of cancer in 2021 at age 72. The foundation continues to operate the Bones Jones Golf Classic, which Bones established some 40 years ago as a fund-raiser for Area 4 Special Olympics. The tournament, held at the Rotella golf course in Haverstraw and Patriot Hills course in Stony Point, still raises money for that cause as well as for the five-county Hudson Valley regional chapter. Bones’ passion for golf also manifested itself in the league he founded in 1991 while at Letchworth and which continues to thrive today, long after the closing of Letchworth in 1996.

Besides participating regularly in the league he founded, Bones enjoyed coaching golf as much as playing. He coached the Nanuet High School golf team for 17-plus years and was still active in that role at the time of his passing. A longtime Nanuet resident, Bones worked at Letchworth Village for 49 years.

Nancy Logan summed up the driving spirit behind Charles “Bones” Jones, Jrs.’ life as an advocate for the Special
Olympics movement. “At the heart of Bones’ dedication to Special Olympics was his boundless belief in the value of sports training and athletic competition and the positive effect it can have for those among us who may be differently abled. He was a gentleman who dedicated his entire adult life to improving the quality of life for people with intellectual disabilities and to bringing greater acceptance for them in our society.”

For his legacy of steadfast volunteerism, Charles “Bones” Jones, Jr. is a worthy recipient of the Joseph R. Holland
Lifetime Achievement Award.