page_title: Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones
section_title: Death and legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones / Death and legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: I took photo with Canon camera.
context_page_description: Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones, Sr., also known as Ralph W. E. Jones or Prez Jones, was from 1936 until his retirement in 1977 the second president of historically black Grambling State University in Grambling in Lincoln Parish in north Louisiana.
context_section_description: Jones died at the age of 76 in Ruston's Lincoln General Hospital of complications from gallbladder surgery. He was a deacon at the New Rocky Valley Baptist Church in Grambling. Jones was survived by two sons, Ralph Jones, Jr., and John Arthur Jones, both of Baltimore, Maryland, three grandsons, Ralph Eldridge Jones, Ellison Emerson Jones, and Warren Waldo Jones, and five sisters. He was preceded in death by his wife, Mildred Shay Jones, who died in 1953. He was interred at Grambling Memorial Gardens.
  In 2006, Frances Swayzer Conley of Shreveport, an English professor at Bossier Parish Community College, published the illustrated book Prez Lives! Remembering Grambling's Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones. Jones developed the slogan: "Grambling: Where Everybody is Somebody."
  Black author James O. McHenry refers to Jones, accordingly:
  
  Prez was one of the greatest men that I have ever met because he was right down here with you. He was a country boy himself, and he taught you everything. ... Prez knew where you came from and what you hadn't been exposed to ... He didn't impose upon you to do anything because he taught you what you were supposed to know. ... He would call us into meetings and talk to us like we were his children. He knew what his black people needed. ... He believed in taking you from where he found you and progressing from there. He would say "Don't tell me what you don't know. Just tell me that you want to learn." That's the kind of man Prez was. . ...
  In May 2011, the Grambling baseball stadium was named in Jones' honor. On July 3, 2011, Jones was posthumously inducted into the National College Baseball Hall of Fame in Lubbock, Texas.
  In addition to the baseball stadium, R.W.E. Jones Drive in Grambling is named in the former president's honor. Prez as he was referred to was a member of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity.
caption: RWE Jones Drive, named for former Grambling State University President Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones, is one of the main thoroughfares in Grambling.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot SD780 IS", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2010:05:20 14:58:43", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "240", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5108", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3567", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/800", "EXIF FNumber": "29/5", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2010:05:20 14:58:43", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2010:05:20 14:58:43", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "309/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "81/16", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "81/16", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "179/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4000", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3000", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "4000", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "3000", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "3252", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "4901961/244", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "20090", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "125/102", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}