Religious Figure. A Dakota who had a long career in the ministry of the Episcopal Church, he is remembered as the first American Indian bishop of any Christian denomination. Orphaned as a toddler, he was raised by his grandparents and was a star athlete in high school. Jones attended Southern State Teachers College, earned his degree from Northern State University in 1935, then in 1938 graduated from Seabury-Western Theological Seminary of Evanston, Illinois. Ordained a deacon that same year, he was assigned to the Pine Ridge Reservation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, where he served in a number of positions until 1946. Jones was ordained a priest in 1941 and from 1947 until 1952 ministered aboard the Cheyenne River Reservation. He returned to Pine Ridge in 1953 then from 1956 thru 1968 held a variety of church and educational assignments in Minnesota and North Dakota. Transferred to Fort Defiance, Arizona, in 1968, he carried out several successful programs among the Navajo Indians and was instrumental in creating the new Episcopal Diocese of Navajoland. Recalled to South Dakota, on January 11, 1972, he was consecrated Suffragan (assistant) Bishop of South Dakota. Awarded a Doctor of Divinity degree by his alma mater in 1973, he was slowed by a stroke and retired in 1976. The bishop remained in Rapid City, South Dakota, and carried out such duties as he was able until moving to Arizona to live with his daughter in 1996. His story is told in "Dakota Cross Bearer" (2000) by Mary Cochran. Of ministering in a society of Indians and whites, Bishop Jones said on the occasion of his consecration: "It is possible that this entire nation of Indians might have been annihilated had it not been that early men of the Church brought them into reservations and ministered to them in peace. It was a redemptive love those early men of God brought to the Dakotas. And it is still the redemptive love of God, acted out through His Church, which must bring our two cultures together".