Hi! I'm Janette!
Janette originates from North Carolina where at an early age she attended and completed grade and high schools in Goldsboro. She and Jerry, her husband of fifty years are the proud parents of two adult sons, a daughter and three grandchildren. The Jones’ have traveled extensively as a prior military family and now resides in Bellevue, Nebraska.
Over the course of thirty years or so, Janette has taught church school classes from primary to adult, as well as having held the position of Church School Superintendent numerous times. Then in 2016 Janette was ordained an elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church upon the completion of five years of study under the tutelage of the Board of Examiners [BOE]. To which she now serves as an associate pastor at Allen Chapel African Methodist Episcopal [AME] Church located in South Omaha, Nebraska.
The church afforded Janette the opportunity to apply God-given creative, artistic skills, and talents of administration, service, counseling, and encouragement. During her employment with the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Janette’s office chair was often filled with co-workers or students in need of a listening ear.
This native North Carolinian began writing at an early age and has written many poems, essays, and short plays throughout the years. Janette wrote and adapted the ‘Passion’ play performed by her Church School students and has since adapted the 12 Steps to the Cross in the form of mime added to her already established repertoire. The production is often performed during the Easter Season.
In her early years, while residing in North Carolina, Janette was enrolled in a correspondence art course with the Famous Artist School in New York City, which boasts of such alumni as Norman Rockwell. The ongoing pandemic has allowed Janette to greatly enhance her sketching ability while ‘sheltering in place’ to rise to the fore front once again. All to which, family members, as well as notable personalities have fallen prey to Janette’s readily available H2 pencils.
As an accomplished playwright, she wrote, produced, and directed her first stage production in 2002 titled Sistah’ Girl. Then again in 2005 as a reprised version, Sistah Girl Revisited once again receiving rave reviews. Still, as a tribute to a beloved deceased cast member Sistah Girl Now & Again was presented in 2008.
In line with her writing ability, Janette’s latest literary project, Cloudy Witness/Blessedly Assured was self-published in September 2012. Hebrews 12:1 Therefore, we are encompassed about by such a great cloud of witnesses” served as the basis of this project. This work of inspirational fiction is a derivative of her stage productions as well as a night vision she once received of angelic beings surrounding a cloudlike being occupying a heavenly throne in the sky.
Finding a Happy Medium/Let the Redeemed Say So written in 2018 is the long-awaited sequel to Cloudy Witness. Predictable curiosities, plus additional biblical characters are skillfully woven and ideally satisfied in this awe-inspiring work of fiction.
Janette was a featured personality in Omawale Akintunde’s Emmy Award winning documentary, ‘An Inaugural Ride to Freedom: The Legacy of a People. The film depicted the time and travel of some thirty college students and members of the Omaha community to the inauguration in Washington D.C., of then President Barak Obama in 2009.
Janette was later cast in Omawale’s film ‘Wigger,’ a dramatic depiction of a white youth’s assimilation into the black culture in 2010. She worked alongside such acting greats as the late Meshach Taylor (Designing Women), and Anna Maria Horsford (Amen and Reed Between the Lines).
Make My Day Floral Creations is a home based business Janette started over twenty years ago. It consists of floral designing and wedding/event planning. She was instrumental in coordinating formal banquets and fashion show productions featuring some of the nation’s well-known personalities. Janette’s floral designs have been commissioned from clients as far away as Chicago, Arizona, Texas, California, as well as Georgia.
Even though Janette has since retired she has found renewed purpose as a part-time banquet staff at a local event center that allow all her acquired skills to continually be sharpened, thereby making a many bride’s day.
