Larry E. Jones was born on April 12, 1939 to O. Dale and Thora Jones in Wellman, Iowa. He grew up on a farm in Brighton, Iowa with his parents and older brother, Ronnie. Larry graduated from Iowa State University with a B.S. in Agriculture and was drafted into the U.S. Army. The Army took him to Thailand, where he fell in love with Southeast Asia. After his honorable discharge from the Army, he joined the Peace Corps as an opportunity to return to Thailand. When he returned to Iowa after serving in the Peace Corps, he was introduced to Sharen Kauffman. They met and married in a whirlwind 3-month romance and moved to Laos. Once there, Larry utilized his ability to speak Lao/Thai and began his career with the Federal Government’s Agency for International Development. They lived in Laos for 9 years and had two children, Crispin and Lara. When Southeast Asia fell in 1975, Larry and Sharen were evacuated to the Washington, D.C. area where they lived and raised their family in Virginia. Larry continued to work for the U.S. Government and retired in 2007. They moved to The Villages, Florida in 2013. He loved retirement in The Villages, where he met many new friends, took up golf, and enjoyed watching the wildlife on the pond behind their house. Larry is survived by his wife, Sharen, his son, Crispin, and wife, Meeghan, and their two children, Callum (11) and Finley (9), and his daughter, Lara, and husband, Derek, and their two children, Cameron (21) and Caden (18).
