LITTLE ROCK — Despite ailing health, Hot Springs precious metals and coin shop owner Ken Jones wheeled and dealed till the end.
On Wednesday, he jokingly promised one of his physicians - and customers - that he would secure him "a really good deal" on a gold piece the doctor had been eyeing, his daughter Sarah Jett said.
Jones, who hunted game in younger days and for rare coins later, died Thursday from congestive heart failure at St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center in Hot Springs.
He was 82.
Jones ran Coins and Things on Central Avenue for 36 years.
"He was in the perfect business," Jett said. "Even when he got to where he couldn't really get out, people came in. So he was still bringing the world to himself."
Hot Springs' artistic culture suited Jones, relatives added. Any place, any time, if the urge to express himself struck, he'd spontaneously scribble poetry on tablecloths, scrap paper or napkins. He tended to keep those writings private. "He really wanted people to people to think he was really tough ... a dashing, macho figure," Jett said. He filled his younger days with exploits bolstering that image, his family explained.
Born Oct. 19, 1926 in Arkansas County's Almyra, Jones, the last of three children, grew up with a singular goal - to serve his nation in war. With a special concession, at age 9 he enrolled in the Gulf Coast Military Academy in Gulfport, Miss., relatives said. He graduated at 17, and soon afterward joined the U.S. Navy, serving in the Philippines in World War II. At 6-foot-2 with a "wedge-shaped" build honed by rigorous workouts like boxing, Jones was proud of his imposing figure, Jett said.
In 1945, Jones married Mary Ingram while stationed in Jacksonville, Fla. The couple, who divorced in 1946, hadtwo children, Jones's relatives said.
He then returned to Almyra to help his father with his cotton farming and started dating Betty Hiatt, a local. Growing up, she'd rarely seen him because he was in the academy, Jett said. She added: "The first time Mother got a good look at Daddy was when he came charging up on a big John Deere tractor like a knight on a big giant steed of steel." He impressed her.
They married in 1947 and had four children.
In his more than 25 years of cotton farming, Jones developed, designed and tested bow equipment, his daughter Ginger Feland said. He designed arrow tips using Gillette razor blades and when hunting didn't settle for bagging merely rabbits and ducks, she added. "He would go down to the White River and shoot alligator gar up to 20 feet long." Or at least that'show his exaggerations put it.
Jones' interests weren't restricted to the outdoors. After helping with his sons' coin collecting projects he took on the hobby himself, Betty Jones said. "He got more and more into it until we couldn't get the closet door shut," she recalled, chuckling.
After moving to Hot Springs in 1973, Jones began attending coin conventions around the nation. On such trips - especially those to Las Vegas - Jones developed his passion for poker.
At home, he outfitted his basement with two custombuilt, casino-style poker tables and hosted Friday night poker sessions for friends, relatives said. "He wasn't a very diverse cook, but he could cook a mean pot of beans," his wife said.
Nor was he a diverse dresser, Jett noted. While favoring western wear as a young adult, Jones came to primarily wear wrinkle-free jumpsuits.
"If he could have figured out a way to wear a necktie with a jumpsuit I think he would have done it," she said, laughing.
Arkansas, Pages 20 on 08/23/2009