Home

10%

From chaos, a path to another life

Dylan Jones wins top CSU award after overcoming turbulent childhood

By California State University, Bakersfield

September 12^th, 2022

To keep the lights on and food in the refrigerator, Dylan Jones worked nonstop from the moment he was old enough, navigating school and his parents’ addictions. The first day of his freshman year at Liberty High, the hot water had been turned off at the trailer he shared with his mom and brother, so he showed up “without a shower or clean clothes or anything.”

After high school, he continued to work a series of jobs, from fast food to farm work to daycare provider, following a nine-year start-and-stop schedule of community college when his finances would allow. And then, while on a long-haul trucking job back East with only his favorite history podcasts for company, he realized the road ahead would not take him where he wanted to go.

“I’m driving along, and my head would be in the history and not at all in the trucking aspect,” said Jones, 31. “I felt like I was wasting my life sitting behind a wheel for 10 hours at a time, going straight.”

And so he took a detour that would change the course of his life: He finished up at Bakersfield College and transferred to California State University, Bakersfield, where he is studying to become a historian.

“He is a remarkable young man who has faced adversity with a tremendous determination to succeed,” said Dr. Mustafah Dhada, professor of history at CSUB and Jones’ mentor. “I’ve been teaching for over 40 years. My sixth sense tells me that he may well succeed.”

The California State University agrees with Dr. Dhada’s assessment, awarding Jones the 2022 CSU Trustees’ Award for Outstanding Achievement. Of the 500,000 students enrolled in the largest, most diverse system of public higher education in this country, Jones is one of only 23 throughout the CSU to receive the honor.

All 23 students will be honored for their talent, diligence and hard work during a ceremony as part of the CSU Board of Trustees meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 13, in Long Beach. As the William Randolph Hearst scholar, Jones will receive a $7,000 scholarship.

“Dylan exemplifies the Roadrunner spirit of hard work and determination and the belief that the only way to move forward is by putting one foot in front of the other, day after day,” said CSUB President Lynnette Zelezny. “With this award, Dylan is recognized as one of the most accomplished college students in our state and nation. We are so incredibly proud of him.”

Jones said he would not be where he is today without the help of his greatest role model.

“That’s my brother, without a second thought. Just for always supporting me. He will be at the scholarship ceremony with me, giving up a day of work and class for me,” he said.

Growing up, as their parents struggled with addiction, Lance Jones worked day and night to help support his younger brother — a work ethic that pushed him to open his own pool business as a young man.

Inspired by his brother, he’s studying philosophy at BC and is in the process of applying to CSUB for transfer.

“We lived in trailer parks, but we were in some good school districts,” said Lance Jones, 33. “We both were fortunate enough to be put in college prep so we were around peers who had families who encouraged their kids go to school and were always encouraging of us. You don’t want to be embarrassed by doing worse than your friends.”

A childhood of work and chaos

Dylan Jones was born in Oildale to young parents who battled poverty and addiction as far back and he can remember. His mom and dad divorced when he was about 10, and the chaos of poverty and instability forced Dylan and his brother to grow up fast.

They remember sitting in the car for hours as their dad would go inside a house and use drugs.

“I’ve been clean for 20 years, but they’re old enough to remember me doing it,” said Kevin Jones, the brothers’ father. “Every addict finds their bottom, and I found mine. I was a highly functioning addict, but I wasn’t there enough for them.”

Yet the Jones brothers are proud of their dad’s sobriety and credit him for their exceptional work ethic.

“When you’re young, you don’t realize how chaotic everything is when it shouldn’t have to be that way,” Lance Jones said. “I would say yes to any and all opportunities and was working fast-food jobs at an early age. In my junior year of high school, I was in the school band and was playing for graduation. I was sweating bullets because my boss wanted me to come in and I was just hoping my band director would let me go so that I could get to my job.”

In spite of the constant pressure to provide for themselves, both brothers excelled in school beyond the classroom. They played trombone in the Liberty High marching band, and Dylan worked on the yearbook staff and participated in forensics and video production.

It was also in high school where Dylan’s love for history inspired him to volunteer his time and energy to political activism. Today, he works to raise public awareness of critical issues, canvassing for candidates and initiatives, participating in direct-action strategies, and campaigning for the rights of workers, all while maintaining a 3.64 grade point average.

“My political interest started when (Barack) Obama was running for president my senior year," he said. "I would have voted for Ralph Nader, and still would. Without the option of helping Nader, I volunteered for Obama. It was fun, waving the signs and making calls on election day. It’s just so important to get people to the election booth. I see it as this being the absolute basic civic duty I have to do.”

'A nose to chase unsolved mysteries'

When Jones arrived at CSUB in the fall of 2021 with an associate’s degree in liberal arts, he was struck by the “professionalism” of his professors.

“It’s very cool in the history department,” he said. “Everyone seems to have their specialty and they seem so extremely passionate about their specialty and to keep doing it.”

In Professor Dhada’s African decolonization class, Jones found inspiration to take his education as far as possible with the hope of one day becoming a history professor himself.

“He approached me to ask if I could be his mentor,” Dr. Dhada said. “Generally speaking, students don’t ask me that. It is I who hunt them down and coax them to accept the challenge. But in this case, he asked me. I asked him to prepare his curriculum vitae and talk to me about why he thinks I should help him. What he wrote was heartachingly, searingly a narrative that reminded me of my younger days.”

With Dr. Dhada’s help, Jones is working with Dr. Jeremy Woods to apply to become a Fulbright scholar after his graduation in the spring.

But that’s just one item on a full list of things he’d like to try, including learning Portuguese in Portugal or Brazil, possibly pursuing his graduate degree in Europe, and conducting further research on the counterculture and other areas of scholarly fascination, including the influence of painter John Mulvany, an Irish immigrant whose portrait of Custer’s last stand lay the foundations of frontier art of the American West.

“I’m most interested in the counterculture and where culture and art collide,” he said.

Dr. Dhada can’t wait to see how far his protégé’s gifts and determination take him.

“He exhibits grit sufficient to pulverize adversity into a pulp to fuel self-transformation,” he wrote in his letter of recommendation for Jones. “He takes well-calibrated risks to pursue a vision towards a better future; and possesses a gargantuan appetite for consensus-driven leadership and hard work. He has an authentic soul-driven passion for history, a nose to chase unsolved mysteries that furthers our knowledge and understanding of a given field of history.”

Whatever road he takes, it will lead Jones far from the trailer behind Vi’s Cocktails on Rosedale Highway, where he grew up.

“It would be pretty normal for people to come in at all hours, banging on the door trying to get in and sometimes they would get in,” he recalled of his turbulent childhood. “Some dude came in after a bar fight and his jaw and all his teeth were broken with a pool cue. He was bleeding all over his shirt.

“I think it’s wanderlust that has kept me from trying to stay out of poverty and addiction. If you are addicted or poor, you can’t travel this world that I intend to keep exploring until I die.”

The Jones family before his parents’ divorce. From left, Lance, Kevin, Dylan and Annette Jones.

Dylan Jones in the Liberty High School band.

Lance and Dylan Jones with their mother, Annette Jones.

SUPPORT CSUB — GIVE NOW

Footnotes

Story by Jennifer Self, public information officer. Feature photo by EJ Medellin, student multimedia assistant; other photos contributed by Dylan Jones

Button Label

FootNotes

Story by Jennifer Self, public information officer. Feature photo by EJ Medellin, student multimedia assistant; other photos contributed by Dylan Jones

Migrant education champion shaped thousands of students’ futures

From chaos, a path to another life

Dylan Jones wins top CSU award after overcoming turbulent childhood

FootNotes

Janie Flores to be inducted into Alumni Hall of Fame

Awards honor CSUB alumna and beloved Bakersfield community member

Fred Plane to be inducted into Alumni Hall of Fame

David Zulfa to be inducted into Alumni Hall of Fame

Two biology, two chemistry students presented their research

Thirteen-day trip 'opened the door to more knowledge and wisdom' for students