Inductees

Vern Jones wrestled at Proviso High School in Maywood, Illinois, and then at Woodruff High School in Peoria where he won a State Championship at 115 pounds in his junior year. His senior season was lost to illness. Following military service and discharge from the Navy, Jones enrolled at Stanford University in 1946 where he won all of his dual matches over four years, with a record of 47-0. Vern won three Pacific Coast Conference Championships in 1946, 1948 and 1949. He also served as a student coach during those years. After working as a roughneck on a drilling operation, Vern went to work for a mud logging company in California. One year later in 1952, he formed his own logging company, Exploration Logging, which he directed for decades. In 1972, he merged with Baker Oil Tools but stayed on as president of Exlog until 1980, later serving on the Board of Directors for Baker until 1985. During this period and currently, Vern has been active in philanthropic endeavors. These have included Stanford Wrestling, Stanford Medicine & Clinic Heritage Foundation, Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, Cato, Hoover Foundation, Pacific Legal Foundation, Salvation Army, Boy Scouts, and many other organizations. In the late 1970’s, Title IX put the “minor sports” at Stanford under a very difficult financial situation. Many of the sports did not survive; Stanford dropped boxing and fencing, for example. Wrestling became a club sport for about three years, but after donations were received, wrestling was reinstated as a Division I sport. National Wrestling Hall of Farne inductee Chris Horpel led the effort to reinstate wrestling at Stanford, but it was Jones who helped financially by contributing funds personally and by guaranteeing $50,000 per year for wrestling to Stanford’s athletic department over many years. He contributed over $600,000 to Stanford wrestling, and the Vern Jones Wrestling Endowment currently has about $350,000. In 1999, Vern was inducted into Stanford’s Athletic Hall of Fame as a wrestler, and he is still the only wrestler to be included. Jones hopes that additional wrestlers will be inducted into Stanford’s Athletic Hall of Fame in the future. Jones went on to form lnternational Logging, Inc., Vern Jones Oil & Gas Corporation, Energy Operations Management, Inc., and several pipeline companies.