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Darrington mayor takes ‘sentimental journey’
Once again we’re grateful to one of our longtime readers for assistance with a story.
This week it was retired teacher Ron Waldrop who shared the news that the top elected officer of Darrington, Wash., is an Addie native.
We caught up with Mayor Joyce Jones by telephone Tuesday night at her home in the Pacific Northwest’s Cascade Mountains to find out what she had thought of Jackson County during a recent visit.
“It’s nice country,” she said. “It’s beautiful, with lots of greenery. And the countryside is gorgeous in the spring.”
 Jones left Addie’s North Fork almost seven decades ago, when she was only 3 years old. Jobs were scarce here, and her father – like so many from this area – moved his family to the state of Washington. The big timber was mostly gone from our area, but there was plenty of work in the Washington woods.
“Friends and relatives had told (my parents) about the timber out there,” Jones said. The mayor remembers that as recently as 25 years ago some 60 percent of Darrington’s population was from Jackson County.
Located north and east of Seattle, Darrington is about an hour’s drive from Sedro Woolley, another popular destination for Jackson County folks. It’s located in Snohomish County, but it’s not the county seat. That honor goes to Everett, home of a big Boeing plant.
A novice politician, Jones won the mayor’s job some 18 months ago. She ran because she wanted people to have a choice, and she garnered some 60 percent of the votes despite being a write-in candidate in Darrington’s non-partisan town election.
A former Forest Service business manager, Jones said limits on logging have almost turned Darrington into a ghost town.
“We started losing timber jobs during the 1980s,” she said. “It’s sort of a statewide problem, and it’s going to take awhile to recover.”
While in Jackson County, Jones met briefly with longtime Sylva Mayor Brenda Oliver.
“I was pleased to meet with your mayor,” Jones said. “We spoke for just a few minutes of the problems small towns face.”
Though she had never held office before being elected mayor, Jones said the job is about what she expected.
“I had been active in business administration – I had an idea how things should run,” she said. “It was just a matter of getting people working together.”
Jones described her visit here as a “sentimental journey,” and said it was one she undertook so she could get in touch with relatives who are still here.
“I felt I’d lost my heritage,” she said.
Jones especially wanted to get reacquainted with octogenarian Myrtle Jones of Sylva, her aunt by marriage.
“It was wonderful to see her again,” Jones said.
An only child when her parents, the late Alvin and Frances Jones moved her to Darrington, Jones has two sisters who were born out west. Her parents moved to Darrington and felt at home there, she said.
“The community out here was very welcoming and people went out of their way to help newcomers from North Carolina,” Jones said.
While Jones was here in May, her extended family arranged a reception for her at the Dillardtown home of Shirley and Jimmy Beasley.
According to Jones, her trip to reclaim her Addie roots was a success.
“It was a great trip,” she said. “Everybody was so nice; southern hospitality is alive and well. It was an opportunity to go back and hear North Carolina accents again.”
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