Thelma Jones, pictured at right, was born in Loachapoka on Sept. 19, 1919, and has been a lifelong resident. She is the mother of two children and has more than 50 grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Her words of advice are, “Be thankful for all the storms in your life that have blown out, blown over, or passed you by and never touched you. Tomorrow will not fail you unless you choose to throw it away.” She also stated, “Make your suffering a passage, not a dead end — find a need to fill, find a hurt and heal it, find a problem and solve it.”
