By Mark Wineka
mwineka@salisburypost.com
H.F. Jones Jr., who served as police chief of Landis for 25 years, died unexpectedly Thursday at Carolinas Medical Center-NorthEast in Concord.
He was 60 and had been retired from the Landis chief’s job since May 2001.
Doctors think Jones died of a heart attack, according to a family friend.
Since retirement, Jones had worked security jobs for Lowe’s Motor Speedway and Dale Earnhardt Inc.
“I knew H.F. as a great public servant when he was chief and I was mayor of Landis,” said state Rep. Fred Steen, R-Rowan. “He was a great person (who) enforced the law fairly and with respect to the citizens of Landis.
“He was also a loving husband, father and grandfather. He will be missed by many of us.”
Citizens of Landis attended a Municipal Building reception in Jones’ honor on a Sunday afternoon in June 2001 just after he retired.
He had actually been a Landis police officer five years before becoming police chief in 1976, giving him 30 years with the department.
Surveys of citizens toward the end of Jones’ service as chief found 96 percent of the residents satisfied with their Police Department ó the highest satisfaction rate that the director of the Urban Land Institute in Charlotte had ever encountered.
Only one municipality in a 16-county region had fewer crimes.
A Rowan County native, Jones graduated from South Rowan High School in 1966.
He served two tours of duty in Vietnam and was a helicopter mechanic for the U.S. Army.
Jones is survived by is wife, Susan, two grown children and two grandchildren.
His funeral will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday at Linn-Honeycutt Funeral Home of China Grove.