Risé Jones remembered as Elgin’s ‘renaissance woman’
Risé Dawn Jones wore many hats: entrepreneur and consultant, civic and community leader, a tireless advocate for children in underserved communities, a fighter for racial and social justice, and a singer with a powerful, operatic voice.
“She was truly a renaissance woman,” said Carol Gieske, director of the Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce. “She had a multitude of experience and always shared her passion, her laughter, her generosity. If you look at the definition of ‘community leader,’ that’s her.”
Jones, 58, died peacefully at home on Dec. 7 of a pulmonary embolism. Her death stunned the Elgin community, where the city council is set to declare Jan. 4 as Risé Jones Day.
A celebration of her life is scheduled for 11 a.m. Jan. 4 at the Blizzard Theater, 1700 Spartan Drive on the Elgin Community College campus.
A lifelong Elgin resident, Jones was the only child of the late Drs. Charles and Ann Jones. Charles was a psychologist at Elgin State Hospital. Ann taught fourth grade at Grant Elementary School and later became principal at Garfield Elementary School.
Risé Jones was single. She had no children, but an enormous number of friends in the community.
“(She was) a beloved family member, friend, colleague, mentor, and advocate for young people in the arts,” reads a post on the website of Hamilton Wings, a group Jones started with her mother in 1996 to honor her father, whose middle name was Hamilton. “Dr. Jones touched countless lives with her infectious joy, unwavering dedication, and her remarkable ability to foster collaboration and creativity within our community.”
Hamilton Wings provided numerous after-school programs for socially and economically underserved children, mostly in the Hispanic community.
The group is perhaps best known for creating SCORE!, an acronym for Students Creating Opera to Reinforce Education. Students, ages 10 to 13, learn to write and stage their own operas, which are performed annually at Elgin Community College.
After earning her PhD in public policy analysis in 1995, Jones started a consulting business, Evaluation Solutions, which focused on areas she considered important, such as violence prevention, public health and school policy.
Her civic contributions were numerous. She served as a board member for six years with the Elgin YWCA, developed the Y Walk fundraiser, and was involved with youth and women’s leadership programs. In 2013, she was given the Margaret Hillis award, named after the legendary founder of the Chicago Symphony Chorus and director of the Elgin Symphony Orchestra.
Jones taught music at Elgin Community College and served on its board from 2012-13 but played an active role in the ECC community from high school until her death.
Most recently, Jones was active in the Elgin chamber, serving on its board of directors since 2022. She was planning to run for another three-year term. This past March, she was named the chamber’s volunteer of the year and cited particularly for chairing a new committee assembled to bridge the gap among local businesses run by people of color, area entrepreneurs, and resources.
At Larkin High School, Jones sang in the chorus but took no solos. In graduate school, she took her first voice lesson. Her professor listened and said, “You have a big voice, a very big voice. It has been there all your life, whether you knew it or not. Now is the time to let your big voice emerge and blossom,” longtime friend and accompanist Margaret Brady recalls Jones telling her.
Gifted with an incredibly rich operatic voice, Jones sang extensively for local service groups, charitable organizations, and nonprofits, often for little or no pay. She put together programs with themes of inclusion and social and racial justice, and covered a range of songs, from Broadway show tunes to traditional African American art songs.
Despite the myriad civic and community groups Jones was part of and the numerous awards she won, Jones will be remembered for her lasting impact on the community.
Deanna Cates, a longtime friend and Hamilton Wings’ director of operations and programs, put it aptly in the application for the Margaret Hillis award:
“The greatest achievements from Risé's life work have resulted in increased Elgin civic pride, the regional and international connections among artists that Risé brings together, individual students' improved self-confidence, success, and subsequent honor course and college enrollment, and the life lessons that Risé selflessly shares with all of us.”