About Dusty Jo

 Hi there! I'm Dusty Jo Jones. I was born at a rural hospital in Texas during a snowstorm in 1980 to a waitress and a diesel mechanic, the oldest of three girls. My youngest sister came along when I was seven, and I took care of her from the day she was born. In our house, I was the kid who took care of everybody — my sisters, and plenty of days, my mother too. By nine, I was working — babysitting, waitressing, whatever brought money home.

We moved all over the Southwest when I was little. Even stopping in Marshall County in the early 1980's. My father worked at Madill Steel and Wire as a welder. Before the divorce, we were living in Armstrong, and I went to school at Caddo. I survived abuse at home that no kid should have to survive — and it came from both of my parents.

When I was ten, my parents divorced. My mom moved us to Palo Verde, Arizona. That's where our father showed up with a writ of habeas corpus — a court order — and took us. He was supposed to bring us back days later for the hearing. When that date came, my sisters and I were already in the wind. It took ten months and law enforcement to find us and get us back to our mother. We landed in Kemp. I finished grade school at Yuba, went to high school at Achille, and we lived below the poverty line the whole way.

I don't tell that story for sympathy. I tell it because Oklahoma still ranks second in the nation for women killed by men — and because the kids living through domestic violence right now deserve somebody at the Capitol who knows exactly what it's like.

In high school, before I ever moved out, I was paying the telephone bill, the cable bill, my own car insurance — and rent, to my mother. My senior year, I got my own apartment in Sherman, Texas, and worked two jobs — RPS and Barrett's Drug — while driving across the river to finish school at Achille. Minimum wage was $5.15 an hour back then. Up at 3 a.m., done around 11 at night. I missed several days of class that year. One of my teachers told me I needed to get my priorities in order. I was eighteen, living alone, working two jobs, and crossing the Red River every day just to stay in school. My priorities were rent, gas, and graduation.

In 2000, I started in automotive accounting as a title clerk. That same year, I got married — because my mother wanted me to have somebody who'd take care of me. It went the other way: in that marriage, like everywhere else in my life, if something got done, it was because I did it. Between 2009 and 2011, I put myself through cosmetology school at the Aveda Institute in Dallas. I worked full time as an Office Manager all day, then went to class from 5 to 9, Monday through Friday, until I had my license. I also freelanced each weekend as a makeup artist. Not because I planned to leave accounting — because I never wanted to depend on anyone else to keep a roof over my head. That's just how I think. Have a backup plan. Do the work.

We separated in 2011 and divorced in 2012. I went from two incomes to one overnight, and I stepped down at work — from Office Manager back to clerk, at 25% less pay — to protect the job I still had. For a while, I was homeless. Working full time, and homeless. More Oklahomans know that math than anybody wants to admit. By 2013, I had earned my way back to Office Manager.

Domestic violence followed me into my adult life, too — not in my marriage, but in a serious relationship I was in from 2011 to 2016. Nobody hit me. The abuse was verbal, it was emotional, and it was control. He had no car, so he took mine — always — and left me stranded for days at a time. He had no steady job, so he lived off my paycheck and drained it. If that sounds familiar, hear me say it plainly: that is abuse, even when nobody lays a hand on you. All told, abuse was part of my life from birth until my mid-thirties. I know every shape it takes.

Today, I'm the Controller for a Mercedes franchise, a Chevy franchise, and six collision centers — and come July, a Honda franchise and a used vehicle dealership too. I built that career myself, dollar by dollar, decision by decision — through all of it. Nobody handed me a thing.

In August 2022, I felt a sharp pain and knew it was cancer. Cancer runs deep through both sides of my family — I lost both of my parents to it, and I was my mother's primary caregiver through her last months. In high school, I took nursing at Kiamichi VoTech in Durant. I know my body. I know this disease.

I did everything right. I went to my doctor. I got referred to a specialist — the earliest new patient appointment was six months out. That specialist found nothing and referred me to another one — four more months. I had insurance this whole time. I followed every rule. I was just told to wait, in pain, for seven months.

So in March 2023, I drove myself to an emergency room, because I knew they would run a CT scan. The radiologist read it and told me there was nothing there. I went home, opened my MyChart app, and read the scan myself. There it was — nine millimeters, right where the pain had been all along. I sent my findings to my doctor. The biopsy confirmed it: endometrial adenocarcinoma — uterine cancer. I had surgery in May 2023, and I'm cancer free today — but only because I diagnosed myself.

I keep thinking about the woman who doesn't have a nursing background. Who can't read her own scan. Who trusts the system when it tells her nothing is wrong. She lives in this district too.

 Today, I'm a full-time caregiver for my youngest sister — the same sister I took care of from the day she was born. Taking care of family has been my whole life. And I know what it costs — in money, in time, in sleep — to do it in a state that doesn't make it easy

I'm not a career politician. I'm a survivor. I'm somebody who's actually punched a clock, worked for minimum wage, and knows exactly what $7.25 an hour feels like when the bills come due. And I've been in automotive accounting since 2000. I know how to read a budget and find where the money's actually going.

I know what it feels like when groceries, the doctor's office, and the insurance bill all go up at once and your paycheck doesn't. The people we keep sending to the Capitol have never sat in our waiting rooms, our classrooms, or our checkout lines. I have. That's the difference.

I'm running for House District 49 to fight for the people of Carter, Love, and Marshall counties — for schools that aren't ranked 50th in the country, for healthcare you don't have to fight for, and for wages that let a full-time worker actually live.

 I’m not asking for trust on faith. I’m offering proof. Every chapter of my life is the answer to the question every voter has a right to ask: who are you, really, and why should I believe you? We've weathered worse. Now we build better. And it's about time House District 49 had someone in that statehouse who has lived the difference.