People

: Hugh R. Jones; He was born to William William Jones and Jannie E. (Sluder) Jones in Bucklin, Kansas. His father was a farmer and Welsh immigrant. His mother was a homemaker born in Missouri. He attended the Eagle School in Bucklin from grades 1 to 8. He later received his GED in Sterling, Colorado. Because of the Dust Bowl, he moved to the Roan Creek area in August 1938, when he was about 21 years old. The 1940 US Census shows him living in Garfield, County. There he met his future wife, Virginia R. Mahaney of Denver. They married on June 22, 1941. He worked as a ranch hand near De Beque until 1942, then briefly relocated to Grand Junction before moving to Richmond, California to work as a machinist in the shipyards during World War II. He returned to Western Colorado in 1945 and resumed ranching, this time in Grand Valley (now called Parachute). In 1947, he began working for the Colorado Department of Wildlife as an irrigator. He started in Meeker at the Little Hills Experiment Station and was quickly promoted. He stayed with the Colorado Department of Wildlife for 25 years, working as a Field Assistant, Custodian, and lastly as a Wildlife Conservation Officer (game warden).