Our dad, Christopher (Kit) Rogers Jones, was born September 9, 1950 and passed away May 30, 2025 after being diagnosed with metastatic cancer just two weeks prior. The second of three sons born to Denby and Laurie Jones, he was raised primarily in the Sunnyside area of Fresno, California, and attended Lone Star Elementary and Sanger High School. Dad was a gifted writer, and was the editor of the high school and college newspapers. He married Judy in 1973, and began his stellar career at the IRS shortly after. Daughter Vanessa arrived in 1974, and son Devon arrived in 1980. "The thing about having kids," Dad said in a letter to us, "is that it teaches you to love ten times more than you did before."

Throughout his years at the Fresno IRS office, Dad worked his way up from a seasonal swing shift position to Adjustments Branch Chief, heading a team of over 100 and caring deeply about process improvement. His leadership, intelligence and wit are remembered by his co-workers 30 years later. In 1991, Dad took a position at the national office in Washington D.C. and thrived there before retiring in 2001. After retirement, he began a successful contracting career focusing on the modernization of IRS customer service. Throughout his careers, he identified problem areas and developed many systems and program improvement changes.

After he and our mom split, Dad married Linda Dillon in 1994. They lived in the Maryland area for 31 years, going on numerous cruises and traveling the world together. After retiring fully from consulting, he took his new role as Chief Pool Officer at their Ovations community pool arguably as seriously as he took his executive role at the IRS.

But all of that just tells you what our dad did - it doesn't tell you who he was. Our dad lit up any room he was in with his megawatt smile and enthusiasm. He was quick to laugh, fast to poke fun at himself, and first to lighten the mood with a witty remark. He was generous to a fault, the first to pitch in whenever anyone - loved one, friend, stranger - needed help. (When working in D.C., he would often make a special trip to the ATM just to grab cash to take back to a homeless person he passed earlier.) Dad abhorred bullies and was a fierce defender of the little guys, the underdogs, they picked on. He had a lifelong aversion to following the norm and a distaste for anything traditional, stuffy or pretentious. "Don't take things so seriously" is advice he often gave us, and he said that as quite a serious person. He was passionate about justice, doing the right thing, and raised us to hold tight to our ideals. He had the biggest heart. He truly cared about everyone and wanted everyone to be comfortable, healthy and happy.

He also really loved to play. Tennis, racquetball, volleyball, badminton, ping pong, frisbee, nerf guns, horseshoes - you name it, he was excited to play it. And while he was humorously competitive, he was also staunchly against keeping score and preferred to play for the fun of it. (This didn't stop him from spiking the ball or trying to take your head off in games, mind you. All in the name of fun, of course.)  And his love for play wasn't limited to sports. As children, we always tried to finish the word jumble in the newspaper first or tried to beat him at Scrabble. (Yes, it was a real competition with his children, and no, he didn't give us any breaks.)

He was brilliant - in fact, the number one description we have heard from people since his passing is how smart he was. He was a voracious reader, never going anywhere without at least two books and a couple magazines. He was obsessed with quantum physics and always sent his favorite books or articles on the subject to us. Whenever he emailed us articles (which was much more frequently than you're probably guessing), he would always highlight the important parts by increasing the font size and changing the font color to red, just in case we were skimming. (Then he started adding a very large print, bold summary to each email so that there could be no excuses for missing his point.)

He loved holding babies, and he was so good at it. If a baby was crying at a nearby table in a restaurant, he would volunteer to pick the baby up and would usually have the baby rocked asleep within minutes.

Dad loved exercise. He loved to climb stairs, hike steep hills, or workout on his treadmill at max incline. He would even put phonebooks underneath to increase the incline. And it's a good thing, because he was also obsessed - and we do mean obsessed - with Breyer's Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream.

But perhaps most of all, our dad really noticed and loved the beauty in this world. He taught us to notice things like the simple beauty of white puffy clouds against a blue sky, the shades of pink and orange at sunset, the rustling of tree leaves in the wind, or the sparkle of the sun hitting the ocean. We used to lay in the grass and watch airplanes fly overhead, or sit out in the dark to watch the stars twinkle. He loved telling us how big the universe was and how impossibly tiny we were. Even though we are just tiny specks in the universe, though, our dad's best trait was that he always made sure we knew how important to and loved by him we were. He would tell us we were made of "star stuff."

Our dad was preceded in death by his parents, Denby and Laurie Jones, his younger brother, Kenneth Jones, and his half brother, Denby Jones Jr. He is survived by his wife, Linda Dillon Jones, his daughter and son-in-law, Vanessa and John McCracken, son and daughter-in-law, Devon and Lailanni Jones, granddaughters Kali and Bree Jones, brother Derek Jones, and  former wife and friend, Judy Jones. In lieu of flowers, the family asks for donations to be made to the Vineyards Cognitive Care Center in Fresno, California, and thanks the team there for the care and concern they showed for our dad during his last two weeks of life. A celebration of life filled with play and ice cream will be held on September 6, 2025. Details to come.

We close with our dad's favorite quote: "He was governed by the laws of physics, as are all living things. It is a scientific fact that hearts and clocks slow down as they approach the speed of light: the point at which matter is converted into energy. …[Kit's] heart approached that speed on Friday evening at [10:21] according to the coroner, converting his matter into energy, into pure white light. Though he is no longer with us, he is all around us."

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Vanessa McCracken