THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 7, 1996 TAG: 9606070446
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARIE JOYCE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 48 lines
From the time they started courting in medical school, doctors Howard W. Jones Jr. and Georgeanna S. Jones have lived life as partners. Partners in building a home and raising three children. Partners as they helped build one of the nation's foremost fertility clinics, enabling the birth of many other children.
Thursday night, the Joneses' partnership was honored when they became the first people to share the annual Dean's Outstanding Faculty Award, the highest faculty honor at Eastern Virginia Medical School.
The doctors, both professors of obstetrics and gynecology, were awarded the prize at a ceremony held at Norfolk's Town Point Club. The Joneses were chosen by fellow faculty members.
The award recognizes full-time faculty members whose efforts have led to significant achievement in teaching, research and institutional service.
The couple helped found EVMS' Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine, which facilitated the birth of the country's first in-vitro baby 14 years ago. Since then, doctors there have helped infertile couples conceive nearly 1,700 babies.
Jones Institute doctors also made history in 1994 with their work screening embryos for genetic defects before implantation in the uterus; the work resulted in the birth of the first baby guaranteed free of Tay-Sachs, a fatal genetic disorder.
Howard and Georgeanna Jones have become internationally renowned in their field and have received many awards and honorary degrees.
Howard Jones, 85, and Georgeanna Jones, 83, were born in Maryland and have known each other since childhood. They attended Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. They married in 1940, the day after finishing their residencies at Johns Hopkins. At that time, medical residents were not allowed to marry.
They have three children and seven grandchildren.
Three other faculty members were honored Thursday night: Dr. E. Stephen Buescher, associate professor of pediatrics, for achievement in teaching in the basic sciences; Dr. James E. Etheridge Jr., professor of neurology and former dean and provost, for achievement in institutional service; and Dr. Sture V. Sigfred Jr., assistant professor of radiology, for achievement by community faculty. ILLUSTRATION: Virginian-Pilot File
Doctors Howard W. Jones Jr. and Georgeanna S. Jones shared the
school's highest faculty honor. by CNB