Monte James Jones

Monte James Jones helped bring in the New Year as the first baby to be born in 1967 in Wray, Colorado. He was born on January 3rd to Dave and Barb (Sheridan) Jones. He was the oldest of five children. Monte went to Heaven and walked into his Heavenly Father’s arms on February 21, 2021.

Anyone that knew Monte knows he had three loves in his life. His first love was his Heavenly Father, then his country and his family. Monte was an avid believer and an example of a faithful Christian. Studying his bible was not a hobby. He was a good steward by daily studying and he was meticulous in his studies. When Monte had questions about something he had read in the bible, he would begin researching and if there was a research reference he would go to that reference, until he had exhausted all references or had researched far enough that he was convinced of the truth. Monte enjoyed teaching others about God’s Word and sharing his faith. Monte left us with numerous notebooks full of his biblical findings and lessons.

As a child, Monte was fascinated with rocks, string, and sticks. One would never know what treasure he would have stuck in his pocket. Monte and Josh would like to build forts in the trees out back of Grandpa Chick’s house and pretending to be mountain men. They would find some branches that had some spring left in them and make bows and arrows so they had something to shoot a rabbit with. Then off they would go hunting in their own little forest like real mountain men. Don’t know if they ever got a rabbit to eat but who cared. They didn’t have to worry because if they got hungry, they could just go to the house and tell Grandma Masyl and she would feed them. With full bellies, they would head out to the fort for a nap. It seemed like they were the best mountain men that ever lived. Times were filled with BB guns, playing cowboys and Indians, and riding horses. When said times graduated from the bows and arrows to those BB guns, they would set up pop cans in the trees and on the ground so they were all practiced up for the big hunt. Josh can not seem to recall, but it is possible that Monte took a BB to the arm after he shot one of Josh’s pop cans-the reason for the fuzzy memory is the ass kicking that followed said BB to the arm.

Monte liked to stay with Grandpa Chick to help with the cows. As the story goes, Monte (aka Jim to Grandpa Chick) was steering the feed pickup while Grandpa was haying cattle. Not tall enough to see much over the steering wheel, Monte steered the pickup into a gulley and when pickup came to an abrupt stop, Grandpa Chick was launched out of the back. If you know Grandpa Chick, you can finish this story. He spent a lot of his junior and senior years of high school staying at the ranch helping Grandpa Chick with the cattle during the calving season. Even though the ranch was always the first choice for Monte when it came down to a job that needed done, he also helped dad with construction through high school.

Monte attended Wray schools and graduated from Wray High School with the Class of 1985. During his school years, Monte was always fascinated with numbers and loved learning anything regarding math. He participated in basketball during his freshman and sophomore years. In High School you could always find Monte in a quiet spot

reading a Louis Lamar book. However, education was very important to him and continued into his adulthood. He attended Northeastern Junior College earning an Associate of Arts Degree in 1987 before enlisting in the Air Force.

On May 28, 1988 Monte married Carrie Timmens. To this union two children were born Rebecca and Douglas. The two Divorced in April 2017 . Monte spent time with his children fishing, hunting, and camping. Monte enjoyed teaching Rebecca about hunting. When Rebecca was five or six they were at a function and the topic about the movie Bambi came up. Rebecca proudly let them know that her dad shot Bambi’s mom. Needless to say he wasn’t very popular with the kids there. The past few years Monte was excited to take Douglas to the shooting range and took him pheasant hunting. But his greatest joy was teaching his children about the Christian walk and spending time teaching them how to study the Bible. It also was important to Monte that his children were able to decipher between realistic and unrealistic views whether from a movie, a book, or an article. Doug said sometimes a normal person would maybe only grasp a fourth of it but Monte would grasp 150 percent of it.

Monte began his military career in the United States Air Force in 1988. In 1996, he earned an additional associate degree from the Community College of the Air Force. Monte continued his education in the military and received his masters in software engineering . Monte was stationed at Malmstrom AFB in Great Falls, MT; Keesler AFB in Biloxi MS; Goodfellow AFB in San Angelo TX; Peterson AFB in Colorado Springs, CO.

During his time in service, Monte was deployed to Korea twice. First tour was in 1994-1995 and again at the end of 2001 thru 2002. While deployed in Korea, Monte enjoyed being around the Korean children. They always were excited to see him dressed in his cowboy hat and boots. Often they would get excited and mistake him for John Wayne or Clint Eastwood and ask for his autograph. Monte would sign their piece of paper just to bring them some joy. Because of the love Monte showed to the Korean children the parents took care of Monte and would not let him pay for any of his meals. During his first tour to Korea Monte attended a little Baptist Church, he taught them about communion. When he went returned on his second tour the little church was no longer there. One of the older ladies recognized Monte on the street. She explained that the church had moved and picked Monte up and took him to church. The little church had grown so much that they held three services on Sundays. The pastor made sure to recognize Monte as being the man that taught them about communion.

While stationed in Montana, Monte was a part of a group that started a toy drive to make sure that all the kids in the area would get toys for Christmas. Monte even dressed up as Santa to keep the experience for the kids memorable.

After retiring from the military, Monte moved back to Wray where he helped his dad in construction. A special memory is together they built a house from ground up and worked on many other construction projects. Monte got a bang out of people asking who the two old men were building the house, however, it made dad grumpy to be called an old man. Dad and Josh quickly learned that 12 o’clock was lunch time whether you had just a little bit left or a lot. Monte was a man of survival and was excited to teach his

nieces and nephews about survival skills. One night, he gave each one of them lint cloth, magnesium stick, wood, and disc and challenged them to build a fire and to see which one could make their fire last the longest. Another memory was teaching them how to build shelters outside. He broke them up into teams and the challenge was on to see which built the best shelter. Then he had Dominic Anderson, a fellow veteran, out to judge and give each team advice on what they did well and what they could have improved. He went elk hunting with Josh and O. C. Monte had stayed in camp the last morning to break down the camp site and when Josh and O.C. returned, Monte said that the look on OC’s face was worth the whole trip. He was so proud of O. C. for harvesting his first elk.

Monte’s dream was always to own his own land/ranch and in true Jones fashion, one man’s junk became another man’s treasure when he purchased 40 acres north of Wray. The land belonged to a niece’s family and Mom joked that Monte would spend the rest of his days sorting through everything that was hauled in by an old man while he worked to fulfill his dream as an old man himself. He spent hours in research about what trees to plant and was precise in his measuring on where he wanted everything on those 40 acres to be placed so that it would create a self sustainable farm. The old farm house was gutted slowly down to just the 2x4s so that he could save everything reusable and hauled out the plaster one wheel barrow load at a time. Monte was precise and meticulous down to his bundling of those savable materials-for example-each bundle has 30 pieces of lathe and the nails are jarred for the next project.

He was preceded in death by his niece Kalonnie Wiltfang, nephew Jerry Schmidt, grandparents Charlie “Chick” and Masyl Sheridan, grandparents Homer and May Jones, aunts Charlene Sheridan, Tracy Gallegos, Janet Walker, Kay Yost, Wanda Jones, uncle Galen Jones, Cousins Kim Jones-Sudbeck and Randy Newton, brother-in-law Larry Timmens, and sister-in-law Sherrie Tull.

He is survived by his son Douglas, daughter Rebbecca, granddaughter Asuka, parents Dave and Barb Jones, siblings Jody (Jason) Wiltfang, Jennie (Jason) Schmidt, Josh (Heather) Jones, Monica (Dusty) Anderson. Nephews Travis (Chasidy) Wiltfang and family, Clay (Makala) Jones and family, O. C. Jones, Allen Schmidt, Dillon Schmidt, Sawyer Anderson and Hayden Anderson. Nieces: Amanda (Larry) Koeller and family, Jordlynn Wiltfang, Darrian (Cody) Luthy, Morgan Jones, Tabatha Jones, Hailey Anderson, Sidney Anderson, and Rosie Schmidt; and numerous uncles, aunts, cousins, and friends.

A Receiving of Family & Friends was held on Thursday, February 25, 2021 from 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. at the Schmidt-Jones Funeral Home in Wray, Colorado. Funeral services were held on Friday, February 26, 2021, 10:00 a.m. at the Wray United Methodist Church in Wray, Colorado with Pastor Ben Wentworth and Elbert Turner officiating. Interment was in the Grandview Cemetery in Wray, Colorado. Memorials may be made to the Monte Jones Memorial Fund, c/o Yuma Federal Credit Union in Wray, Colorado. Schmidt-Jones Funeral Home was in charge of arrangements.