Allan Jones
Cleveland businessman and philanthropist Allan Jones, who recently launched an initiative to improve the Cleveland Schools, announced that he is running for the Fifth District seat on the Cleveland City Board of Education.
Mr. Jones, who graduated from Cleveland High School in 1972 and has lived in the city his entire life, said, "I am perplexed that the current city school board – made up mostly of teachers – refuses to accept test scores as a yardstick, since this is the yardstick I was evaluated by. I am also perplexed at the board’s opposition to having accomplished alumni of Cleveland schools sit on the board that represents the schools the alumni attended."
Mr. Jones said his interest in the school board began about 10 years ago when he researched Cleveland High School’s ACT scores and found that Walker Valley’s scores were higher than Cleveland’s – which he said shocked him. Mr. Jones said he "knew that historically, city schools perform better than county schools." He said he did additional research, gathering all the statistics he could find. He researched all of the available ranking systems for high schools and focused on schooldigger.com, which uses only standardized test scores – including the ACT but not the SAT.
Mr. Jones said he saw "that other sites – like the liberal U.S. News and World Report – were completely subjective to their liberal causes and had results that supported their causes. Only School Digger, he realized, used raw test scores."
He said he found that Cleveland High ranked 214th out of 344 Tennessee high schools (in the lower 38th percent). He said, "The Cleveland City School System as a whole was even worse – it ranked 106th out of 140 school districts in Tennessee (in the lower 24 percent). That’s when started the “Allan Jones for Better Schools” initiative aimed at making the city school system the best in Tennessee.
The Jones announcement says, "In 2011, Mr. Jones and Tennessee businessman (now president of University of Tennessee) Randy Boyd made history by starting the Tennessee Achieves scholarship program, also called the “College of Knowledge,” that provided full scholarships for every graduating senior from Cleveland High, Bradley Central High School and Walker Valley High. (Boyd took Knox County and Jones took Bradley County.)
"The program ended in 2015 after Jones and Boyd convinced Governor Bill Haslam to adopt the program statewide. It was then renamed “Tennessee Promise” and Tennessee became the first state in the country to offer free community college education. Today, millions of students across Tennessee will benefit from the program that was started right here in Cleveland.
"Mr. Jones also established the Bill Jones Scholarship (named after his father, W.A. “Bill” Jones) at Cleveland State in 1990 and it is still available today. Jones has donated over a million dollars in scholarships through Cleveland State, which were matched to other scholarships and became the equivalent of about five million dollars.
"Mr. Jones invites anyone in Cleveland who graduated through one of his scholarships to vote for him."
Mr. Jones said, "In 2006 I was tasked with rebuilding the Cleveland High wrestling team at the request of the city schools. I hired the famous recruiting firm Double Pump International and paid them $50,000 to find the best wrestling coaches on the city school system’s behalf. Today, the Cleveland High team is ranked number one in the state and has become an elite powerhouse. This year they became the winningest team in Tennessee history by winning five state championships in a row and eight in the last 10 years. However, the Cleveland City School system is ranked in the lower 24th percentile of school systems in the State and only outperforms Meigs County. This is outrageous. The future of Cleveland depends on the success of our teachers and our students.”
He said he has committed more than $50,000 to plant trees on area school campuses and city streets, including all the trees on Ocoee Street. More than 300 trees have been planted at local schools. He said Cleveland Mayor Tom Rowland once praised him for helping Cleveland become a Tree City USA, as well as for helping to create a City Tree Board Ordinance, which oversees Cleveland’s tree-lined streets and supports a full-time Urban Forester on the city staff. Cleveland’s tree board was ranked Number One in the state in 2011.
Mr. Jones was president of the Cleveland Downtown Alliance (1987-1988). He then founded MainStreet Cleveland, which was later designated as the state’s top MainStreet program in 2011. He served as the organization’s first president and received the honorary title of “Mayor of MainStreet” in 1997. He created the Halloween Block Party and in 2005 – to celebrate its 25th anniversary - he hired Beaver Cleaver, Eddie Haskell, and Wally Cleaver – as well as legendary performer Little Richard – to entertain over 25,000 people. It was called the “largest celebration in Halloween history” and it was the largest crowd ever gathered for an event in Cleveland.
Mr. Jones is the largest individual supporter of high school wrestling in the United States. He funded the Jones Wrestling Center at Cleveland High School and the wrestling building at Bradley Central. He also funds both the Cleveland kids club (Higher Calling, which has never been beaten) and Bradley Pride, the Bradley kids club. In 2016, he was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Jones is the largest donor to the Cleveland city schools with more than $1.75 million given.
“To me, wrestling is not just a sport,” Mr. Jones said. “Unlike football, basketball and baseball, wrestling is an individual achievement sport. Two wrestlers take to the mat and only one walks off the victor. It takes determination, discipline and character to come out ahead in wrestling. I have seen it firsthand as a driving force in building character and discipline in my former classmates who are doctors, entrepreneurs and government leaders today.”
Mr. Jones is a lifelong fan of the Tennessee Volunteers and was the sole funder of the Allan Jones Aquatic Center on the University of Tennessee at Knoxville campus. In 2013, Jones provided funding locally for Pangle Hall, a state-of-the-art music center at Lee University.
In 2003 he was honored by the Cleveland/Bradley Chamber of Commerce with the organization’s highest honor – the M.C. Headrick Free Enterprise Award. He was inducted into the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame in 2003 and was Inducted into the Greater Chattanooga Sports Hall of Fame in 2012
Mr. Jones is a native of Cleveland. He left college at age 20 to help his father stabilize the family’s small business, the Credit Bureau of Cleveland. He purchased the business from his father in 1977 and developed it to become the largest credit bureau database in the state. Mr. Jones sold the credit reporting side of the business to Equifax (EFX) in 1988, although he retained the name and the company’s collection agency division. The sale to Equifax set a record for the highest multiple paid for a credit reporting business, he said. Mr. Jones then built the collection agency to be the largest in Tennessee with offices from Memphis to Atlanta. He sold the company in 1998, which remains a tenant at the Village Green shopping center and employs about 100 people, locally.
Jones sold many of his businesses in the years prior to running for the school board. He sold his pawn shop chain U.S. Money Shops to Cash America, which eventually merged with First Cash Financial Services (FSFS) and became the biggest pawn operation in the world. He also sold his debit card company based in Atlanta, FirstView LLC, to AmerisourceBergen (ABC). He recently sold his car business, Buy Here Pay Here USA, to a group in Kansas.
Mr. Jones founded Check Into Cash in 1993 and grew it to 1,325 locations nationwide. In 2014, he stepped in to save Hardwick Clothes – America’s oldest tailor made clothing manufacturer - from bankruptcy. He rescued more than 300 jobs and lead the company back to profitability before selling it in 2019. He founded the national Community Financial Services Association of America based in Washington, D.C., an organization dedicated to advancing financial empowerment for consumers through short-term, small-dollar loans. He organized the group in the Chattanooga airport with a $25 million annual budget.
In 1980, he created the Tall Betsy goblin from a story told by his grandmother that attracted over 20,000 people annually until 1998 and was witnessed by a whole generation of children. Tall Betsy drew a crowd of 25,000 to the Halloween Block Party in 1998. Tall Betsy has now been taken over by his son Bailey Jones.
Mr. Jones and his wife, Janie, have four adult children who are all alumni of Cleveland High - Courtney (1992), Abby (2003), Will (2006) and Bailey (2010). Abby is one of only two alums in Cleveland listed at Harvard where she got her MBA.
He listed these other notable achievements:
Was the first baby born at Bradley Memorial Hospital (Dec. 31, 1952) and returned to the hospital as a guest of honor to celebrate its 25th, 50th and 65th anniversaries.
Has appeared in numerous articles in recognized publications, with the most recent being the Wall Street Journal for his very large Palm Beach real-estate transaction. In addition, he has appeared on Fox News around the world many times.
Has an active relationship with the Republican Party on a national level and was Donald Trump’s largest contributor in Tennessee. Jones and his wife, Janie, reside part-time in Palm Beach and are members of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago. Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle have visited Jones’ Creekridge estate where the Jones’ raise and train world-class American saddlebreds including the 2006 World Champion.
Operates Jones Airways, LLC, and owns the largest hangar at the regional jetport. Jones’ planes have chartered two past presidents and numerous country stars and politicians. To celebrate the opening of the new jetport, Jones and his wife Janie did the first transatlantic flight in a tri-powered Falcon 900, leaving at 11:30 p.m. and landing in Dublin Ireland at 7 a.m. Ironically, Jones’ Village Green Town Center was the site of the first plane to land in Bradley County in 1911.
Purchased and renovated historic Craigmiles Hall to its original specifications in 1993. It is now the most photographed building in Tennessee and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Conceived the idea for Taylor Spring Park to honor Cleveland’s first citizen, Andrew Taylor. Jones was the primary force behind its design, construction & completion (2015-2020), which included Jones buying the property next door and donating it, making the park possible.
Has been praised for bringing the airport to Cleveland. His interest in the project began when he observed city officials trying unsuccessfully to start an airport for 30 years. When Jones finally got involved, he formed the Airport Authority and took control from the city. He recruited Jones Management Services President Lynn DeVault as chairman of the authority and then purchased the current property for $2 million out of his own pocket. When the land was appraised by the FAA for $500,000 more than Jones paid, he donated the $500,000 to farmers in the area to encourage them to sell. Today, the Cleveland Regional Jetport is ranked as the number one airport in Tennessee in a non-metropolitan area and has a 6,000 sq. ft. runway. It became international in 2016, when the U.S. Customs Department agreed to a request from Jones to begin clearing international passengers there. No other airport in Tennessee of comparable size has customs-clearing capability.
Named one of Tennessee’s Wealthiest People by TN Biz magazine (2005)
Member of the Board of Directors for publicly traded InterFed Bank (1990-1992). Pioneered the merger with First Federal, which was followed by a merger with AmSouth and finally with Regions. The mergers created substantial wealth for the shareholders.
Purchased the historic Village Shopping Center out of bankruptcy and funded a complete renovation (1998), turning the 260,000 sq. ft. mall built in 1960 to his national headquarters.
Named TSSAA Contributor of the Year (2013) by the state’s athletic directors.
In 2005, paid for the reconstruction of Cleveland’s bandstand and ensured it was replicated from the original bandstand’s 1920 blueprints on the courthouse square.
In 2015, he received the first and only honorary degree from Cleveland State Community College since 1967.
Honored in 2014 by the Museum Center at 5ive Points for his tireless work and dedication to the community. He hired the famous Village People band to perform that night for attendees.
Recognized as “Major Contributor to the Greenway” (2005)
Named “Boss of the Year” by Cleveland Credit Women (1979-1980)
Received the prestigious “Bess Neil Award” (2016)
Honored by the Bush-Cheney campaign as “Most Dedicated Republican in Bradley County” (2004)
Kiwanis Club of Cleveland Board Member (1997)
First certified TSSAA wrestling referee in Bradley County (1974)
Past member of the Tennessee Urban Forestry Council and in 1994 the organization named him “Citizen Activist of the Year” for his dedication to the advancement of urban forestry in Cleveland and in Tennessee.
Mr. Jones said he has had great success in the business world and in the wrestling arena. He said, "I make this promise to the voters of the Fifth District – If I am elected, I will fix it.”