AU Entomology Alum Gives So Others Can Go

By: Jamie Creamer

This summer, seven entomology faculty members and four graduate students from Auburn University's Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology will travel to Brisbane, Australia, to participate in the prestigious 22nd International Congress of Entomology.

The congress, held once every four years, is the world's premier entomological meeting. In addition to the opportunity to interact with colleagues from around the world, the event will give the Auburn delegates an international venue in which to showcase AU research.

Participants' travel costs to the congress will be funded in large part by grants from the Calvin M. and Helen E. Jones Endowment for Program Enhancement in Entomology at Auburn University.

Calvin Jones lives a few miles south of Fort Payne, A la., high atop Lookout Mountain, in an unassuming frame house that's comfortably cluttered, both outside and in. A widower since 1997, it's basically just Jones and his three loyal-to-the-death border collies, Pete, Bo and Jake.

His 80 acres of land, which he bought in 1960, are just a stone's throw from Sand Rock and the DeKalb County farm where Jones and his four siblings grew up, the children of strict but loving parents who instilled in their offspring the values of honesty, discipline and hard work.

But while Jones was born on Lookout Mountain, and while he intends–some day, but not anytime soon, thank you–to die on Lookout Mountain, his years in between were marked by a brilliant career as a research entomologist during which Jones, among his myriad achievements, played an integral role in USDA's successful effort to wipe out the screwworm fly, a serious and costly livestock pest, from North America.

Without question, the most influential person in Jones' life was his father, Edward Albert, whom Jones says was the epitome of a progressive farmer.

"He was ahead of his time in a lot of ways, because he was always willing to try new ideas," Jones says. "When some new farm implement would come along, he'd get it; he was the first in the county to own a registered bull; and when the Extension agent recommended something that was a better or more efficient way of farming, he'd study up on it and be the first to try it."

("He had the first patch of kudzu in the county, too," Jones says with a wink, "but he probably wouldn't be too proud of me telling that one on him.")

During the Depression, the elder Jones' reputation as a successful and forward-thinking farmer led to his appointment as an area supervisor in a federal rural rehabilitation program Congress established to help the most destitute farm families.

It was a "survival program," Jones says, in which homeless families were given, not money, but shelter, a steer and farm implements, including a hoe for every member of the family, so that they could start rebuilding their lives. Watching his father work with and encourage those families to make a go of it made a lasting impression on a teen-aged Jones.

Long before he finished high school, Jones set his sights on going to college and studying agriculture. His parents encouraged him in that dream.

"It was the Depression, and times were hard, but Daddy told me, 'Son, if you go to college, I'll help you all I can,'" Jones recalls. And so it was, in 1939, that Jones entered Alabama Polytechnic Institute (API)–now Auburn University–with nothing but $100 in his pocket and a strong determination to walk out of API four years later, agricultural sciences degree in hand.

Just as he was wrapping up his sophomore year at API, though, Jones' military draft notice arrived, and he spent the next four and a half years serving Uncle Sam stateside. When that stint was completed, he headed back to Auburn and picked up where he'd left off in his studies.

That's when his future truly began to take shape. Jones, who was working his way through college, got a job assisting F.S. Arant, an esteemed API entomology professor.

"I started out there mostly just cleaning his lab and things like that, but then I started helping him in some of his research, and I saw that entomology was absolutely fascinating," Jones says.

So much so that when he earned his bachelor's degree in agricultural sciences in 1947, he turned right around and started working on a master's in entomology, which he received in 1949.

He probably would have remained at Auburn and gone after a doctorate degree in entomology, had he not been offered a job as a research entomologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine. The promise of making $3,600 a year was an offer he couldn't refuse.

That job with USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) took Jones briefly to Georgia and then to Gainesville, Fla., where he was a one-man lab focused on the biology and control of horse flies and other biting flies that affect both livestock and humans.

It was also in Gainesville that Jones met and married Helen Martin. Shortly thereafter, Jones was transferred to Kerrville, Texas, where he worked alongside world-renowned entomologists Edward Knipling and others on a monumental project to control screwworms, a plague that was decimating the cattle industry.

The eradication effort involved sterilizing male screwworm flies with radiation, then releasing the sterilized males to mate–unsuccessfully, of course–with fertile female flies, which mate only once in their lifetime.

Jones had been told when he moved to Kerrville that "I'd be there until I retired," but in 1956, he was sent to ARS research facilities in Lincoln, Neb., where he spent 16 years working primarily on biological control of livestock insect pests.

In 1972, Jones was transferred back to Kerrville to assist in the screwworm eradication effort again, specifically in connection with the screwworm trapping program.

"Before you release sterile males in an area, you have to survey the population density of the female flies to know how many males to release," Jones says. "When I got back to Kerrville, Knipling says, 'Jones, what we've got to have is something that will attract only screwworm flies (to the traps),' and then he turned me loose."

Prior to that, the baits used in the traps were attracting other fly species in addition to the screwworm flies, making scouting extremely difficult.

For Jones, the next two years were the pinnacle of his career as an entomologist. After testing almost 300 different chemicals and natural oils–"there wasn't anything high-falutin' about it," he says of his method, "just trial and error and a process of elimination"–he achieved recognition for developing a highly effective formula made up of seven screwworm fly–luring chemicals that is still used in traps today.

In 1974, Jones retired from USDA, and he and the missus moved back to Alabama and Jones' old stomping grounds on Lookout Mountain.

As a federal research entomologist, Jones had welcomed every challenge that came his way, tackling it head on and working until he found solutions. But throughout a large part of his career, the biggest challenge he faced was on the personal front. Shortly before his move from Kerrville to Lincoln, Mrs. Jones was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, a tragic mental disorder in which patients lose touch with reality and become extremely suspicious and distrustful of people.

Countless treatment approaches proved unsuccessful over the long term, and Mrs. Jones' condition grew progressively worse. Gradually through the years, her physical health began a slow steady decline as well. She died in 1997. The couple had no children.

Several years before Mrs. Jones' death, Jones decided to honor her in a most meaningful and beneficial way. In 1992, with a gift of $25,000, he established the Calvin M. and Helen E. Jones Endowment for Program Enhancement in Entomology at Auburn University, earnings from which were to be used primarily to cover travel costs for entomology faculty and graduate students to attend national and international professional development conferences and meetings.

Jones says his years with USDA showed him how crucial such meetings of the minds are to research. Some of the most significant advances made in livestock insect pest control in the 1950s, '60s and '70s came about, he says, as the direct result of researchers from across the country and around the world convening to work together on solutions.

In the years since establishing the endowment, Jones has continued to make contributions to it. It now stands at $89,450.

But Jones' remarkable generosity to his alma mater doesn't end there. Jones has now willed the vast majority of his entire estate, including proceeds from the sale of his land, to the Auburn University entomology program. The overall gift is expected to total $1 million.

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