Johnny Jones is very happy to be back at Italy High School. He taught history and AP government from the fall of 1997 to the summer of 2005 at IHS. He was also the softball coach. Under his leadership, the IHS softball team went 4 rounds into the playoffs twice in Class 2A.

“I was proud of what we accomplished when I was here before,” Jones said. “It was not the coaches, it was the players. They learned their craft and did it well. We beat teams like Waxahachie during that time.”

Italy ISD rehired Jones this year as an aide. He has two classes of dual credit English and assists Tina Richards with Content Mastery. He also has two athletic classes for conditioning, Junior High athletes and High School volleyball players.

“In addition to teaching classes, in the spring I will be helping Coach Rowe in softball. He has assigned me to work with the pitchers and catchers. I am looking forward to working with Jac Lewis. She is a very good pitcher and one of the most focused kids I have ever been around.”

Johnny was born in Kansas and lived there until he moved to Texas in the 7th grade. He knows he did everything the hard way because he quit high school and went into the Navy. He served in Viet Nam on Helicopter AS 6, a search and rescue team.

He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in History from Midwestern State University. He loves teaching because of the kids.

“If you have fun and they have fun, they learn,” he explained. “You don’t always know what kind of day a kid is having. A teacher may be the only positive word a student hears. I try to be one of those kind of teachers.”

Jones enjoys fishing and reading. He also loves softball and spending time with his daughter and son-in-law, JoAnn and Deke Miller and his six year old grandson, J.D.

“J.D. is such an amazing kid. He reads at a 9th grade level and is studying Mandarin Chinese in addition to his regular classes. He is very creative and we have a lot of fun when he is around.”

Jones is proud to have been JoAnn’s coach as well as her dad. She graduated from Italy High School in 2003, where she was awarded the Willis Cup. She was also on the All State softball team three years as an outfielder.

“I am happy to be back at Italy. The best things here are the kids. IHS is a good place to work. Mr. Joffre instills very good things for the school like good discipline. I prefer small town kids to big town kids. I like how they see life. I am glad there was a place for me here in Italy again."