Longtime Hollister resident Marvin Jones, as outspoken in the local political scene as he is open about his worldly views as a regular picketer on the corner of Fourth Street downtown, is planning a move to Arizona in about a week.
The former chairman of the local Republican Party, Jones, 78, plans to move near Phoenix with his daughter Rebecca Jones, who accepted a job as the director of an emergency room there while departing a similar role at Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital in Hollister.
Jones, formerly an avid fitness fanatic, affably described how his daughter got a job in Maricopa County in Arizona at a hospital with more than 500 beds. In comparison, Hazel Hawkins has 62 beds.
Marvin Jones’ longtime wife Reba died in 2011, so following his daughter was a logical decision.
“She was concerned about pulling me away from here,” Jones said of his daughter. “I’ve had a good time.”
Twenty years after he came here with his family, Jones is at peace with the move. But he also reflected on his time as a rabble rouser of sorts, as an outspoken conservative in a county with a big Democratic majority. He was chairman of the local Republican Party chapter on and off from 2002 to 2012 and shared his views at public meetings and elsewhere on everything from local taxation to federal regulations. The staunch conservative, a retired rocket scientist with a Southern accent, openly shared his views but did so without haste, according to one close friend.
“He’s always done it with respect,” said longtime friend Marty Richman, who used to commute to Silicon Valley with Jones. Richman, another regular speaker at local government meetings, noted how Jones has always felt strongly about individual liberties and public participation.
Jones, a Kentucky native, mostly became so involved locally after his professional career, one that took him and his family all across the country to states like Tennessee, Alabama, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland.
He became involved in politics because his late wife was so active in the Republican women’s organization locally, Jones said. That group’s members enticed him to run for local GOP chairman.
“I certainly have enjoyed this chapter of my life in Hollister,” he said.
