THIS ARTICLE IS COMMENTARY AND PUBLISHED IN OUR EDITORIAL SECTION.
Looking back at the life of TV star and local businessman Ben Jones
PUBLISHER’s NOTE: Since this community news website serving the Page Valley launched nearly seven years ago, PVN has tended to shy away from publishing memorial pieces for a few simple reasons. One being the tough decision of determining who deserves a memorial and who doesn’t. Everyone is special to someone and everyone has a story to tell, so picking and choosing would often create adverse feelings. In addition, we fully believe that obituaries should tell life stories (thus serving as a stand-in for traditional memorial pieces). It’s the final words written about someone (generally) and it should encapsulate more than just where they worshipped and who they were related to…it should tell us who they were, what they were like, and the highlights of the journey they went through in this life. PVN encourages obituaries that tell life stories. The author pens this memorial today because Mr. Jones was truly one of the only nationally (and internationally) known figures in the area, he and his wife Alma were longtime supporters of this reporter and this website, and the writer shared a number of personal moments with “Cooter” that he will cherish until his own demise.
By Randy Arrington
LURAY, Aug. 10 — When I was still in single digits, and maybe up through my pre-teen years, I wanted to be Cooter Davenport. Although I had no inclination toward fixing cars, I was a bit of a class clown (voted “Wittiest” my senior year) and I loved saying, “I might be crazy, but I ain’t dumb” — Cooter’s catch phrase. I wasn’t pretty enough to pretend to be Bo or Luke when my cousins and I played “Dukes of Hazzard” together on Sunday afternoons at granny and grandpa’s farm. I was left to be the funny guy, the comic relief, the good buddy…just like Cooter…and I loved it.
About 15 years after CBS halted my weekly addiction to that Friday night television classic, I would meet “Cooter” again, only this time, he would be right in front of me, a real person. As I got to know Ben Jones through various encounters over the next 25 years, I would nurture a new respect for this Virginia native who made it big in Hollywood. I followed him through store openings and closings in Rappahannock County, a second Congressional bid, huge festivals in Rappahannock and Page counties, and finally his relocation of “Cooter’s in the Valley” to Luray. It was during this quarter century that I realized…I didn’t want to be like Cooter, I wanted to live my life like Ben Jones.
On Sunday, Aug. 9, Ben Jones left this world three weeks shy of his 85th birthday after suffering a massive heart attack. His health had been declining in recent years, and he even stopped appearing with the Cooter’s Garage Band on Saturday afternoons at his store on Route 211 in the last year or so. His wife, also known as “Miss Alma”, said Ben died at home in his favorite chair waiting on a Braves’ baseball game.
Although he was born Aug. 31, 1941 in the eastern North Carolina town of Tarboro, Ben spent his formative years growing up in a dingy railroad shack with no electricity or indoor plumbing in Portsmouth, Va. According to his biography, Redneck Boy in the Promised Land, Ben grew up “an unabashed Southern redneck from a ‘likker drinkin’, hell-raisin’ family” in the depressed railroad docks outside of Portsmouth. He was forthcoming and transparent about his own alcoholism in his early years. He also often shared his story of how he picked himself up out of a ditch, found his Faith, and promised God to leave liquor behind. He would later counsel a number of actors, musicians, writers and friends who were struggling with their own addiction, including the son of Waylon Jennings — the Hazzard balladeer.
Not long after Ben made his promise to God, the role that would define his professional life for the next six decades came knocking. After graduating from the University of North Carolina, where the acting bug took holt in the theater department, Ben landed his first major role as Cooter Davenport, the Hazzard mechanic and good friend to the Duke family. From 1979 to 1985, the CBS hit “The Dukes of Hazzard” and its 141 episodes was among the top shows on television. Merchandising went through the roof — much of the memorabilia can be seen at the Dukes of Hazzard Museum just west of Luray, as well as stores in Nashville and Pigeon Forge. The show would eventually be aired in more than 50 countries during syndication and translated into 26 different languages.
However, one of Ben’s first roles came on the big screen in a movie that lead to the creation of “The Dukes of Hazzard.” In 1975, Ben appeared as a federal agent in Moonrunners. A film about folks running moonshine and running from the law…sound familiar? While the character of Cooter Davenport would stick with Jones his entire life, he also appeared as a truck driver alongside Burt Reynolds and Sally Fields in the 1977 film Smokey and the Bandit, and as political media advisor alongside John Travolta in the 1998 film Primary Colors. In total, Jones appeared in more than two dozen film and television productions.
Four years after CBS ended his hit series, Ben went into politics and won the 4th Congressional District seat representing the state of Georgia in the U.S. House of Representatives. Although “Hazzard” wasn’t a real town, the show was set in and initially filmed in Georgia, before moving out to California. Georgia voters seemed to resonate with the “redneck boy” that grew up in Virginia, and sent him to Washington, D.C. for two consecutive terms from 1989-1993. In an attempt at a third term, the Democrat would lose his seat to future Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who became the first Republican to hold the position in 40 years.
Since his time in Washington, Jones has supported and promoted Democratic candidates. He often joked that he hoped to “die in Chicago so I can stay active in the party.” He wasn’t necessarily “woke”, but he cared deeply about all people. He was sometimes labeled a “Hollywood liberal”, and yet he held many conservative views. He denounced racism and defended the Confederate flag. He spoke often about family values, and even handed out postcards at his huge festivals reminding visitors of Uncle Jessie’s Rules of the House. Those rules not only help keep festival-goers in line, but they said a lot about how Ben Jones lived his life.
Uncle Jessie’s Rules of the House are as follows:
- No alcoholic beverages. This is a family event.
- No cussin’ or fightin’
- No tobacco spittin’ indoors
- No burnin’ rubber
- No breakin’ in line
- Keep an eye on your younguns and dogs
- Look out for one another.
- Praise the Good Lord and have a great time!
That’s the Ben Jones I knew — the same Ben Jones that in many ways mirrored Cooter Davenport (hard to tell where one ended and the other began sometimes…although Ben was a little more serious and a lot smarter than Cooter). It’s the same Ben Jones that is portrayed throughout Redneck Boy in the Promised Land, at nearly every stage of his life. It’s the same Ben Jones that I stood and talked to on a back porch in Rappahannock County when he was challenging future House Majority Leader Eric Cantor for his seat in 2002. He didn’t try to sell me anything…we just talked about life and the world around us. He asked about my family.
It was the same Ben Jones that spoke with my father, who almost never encountered a “famous person.” He was down to earth; he was genuine; he was real. Right in front of me, a real person.
He once invited me to a private “Christmas dinner” at his first shop in Sperryville — an invitation I have since regretted turning down. However, every time I brought it up, he would tell me I made the right decision to spend the moment with my own family.
Initially, Ben Jones was simply a TV character of the ’80s that I wanted to be like. In the years since I first spotted him sitting on the hood of a 1969 orange Dodge Charger at the eastern foot of the Blue Ridge mountains back in 2000, I grew to know the real person, the one right in front of me. I met my hero.
And as they say, reality was much better than fiction.
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