Jennifer Tolon has made a lot of memories in the Crawford Gymnasium. As a teenager, she would come to the gym to practice with the West Lowndes High basketball team.
But on Saturday morning, the gym looked different than Tolon remembered it. Besides being remodeled since the last time she saw it, it was also arranged and decorated for her promotion ceremony from major to lieutenant colonel in the United States Army National Guard.
“It’s just really a full circle moment,” Tolon told The Dispatch before the ceremony began.
Tolon was born and raised in Crawford, attending West Lowndes schools and playing on the basketball team from her sophomore to senior years.
She never imagined she would join the military, even though her father, Fred Tolon, was in the Army Reserve when she was growing up.
“He was in Desert Storm and the Iraqi War,” Tolon said. “Actually, when I graduated from high school in (2005), he was deployed to Iraq. And so, he did about 23 years in the Army Reserve.”
After graduation, Tolon attended the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, earning a criminal justice degree. There, she met her now-husband, Leonardo English, who was also in the Army at the time. While in school, Crawford joined the National Guard, to help offset the cost of her student loans.
Joining the military, she said, felt like a very natural transition, as it felt like an extension of what she had already learned at home.
“(My dad) used to take me running with him when he was in,” Tolon said. “He was training me. He used to have me shine his boots.”
Tolon graduated as a commissioned officer by 2009 and then moved to Houston, Texas, where she earned her master’s degree and worked as a parole officer for about nine years.
But in 2015, her unit deployed, and she had the chance to work for the National Guard every day, which she called a “completely different atmosphere” from working as a parole officer.
That deployment was enough to convince her to no longer be an M-Day soldier, staying on the reserves and holding a civilian job. Three years later, she was on active duty and getting ready to move to Virginia to work full-time at the National Guard Bureau.
She currently works as the executive officer to Brigadier General Lavetta Bennett. Bennett is the assistant director of personnel and talent for the National Guard, and Tolon helps her to organize anything pertaining to personnel for 54 states and territories.
Bennett was present at Saturday’s ceremony and gave remarks on Tolon’s service.
Bennett called Tolon “well deserving” of the promotion, which indicates her future potential in serving in the rank of lieutenant colonel.
“Major Tolon has shown the potential … and the leadership attributes to succeed at the next level and beyond that,” she said.
Bennett presented her general’s coin to Tolon’s parents, representing her appreciation for Tolon’s family in instilling strong values in their daughter at an early age. She also expressed her gratitude for Tolon’s service as her executive officer.
“I want Crawford, Mississippi, to know that she is the shining star, the hidden gem that is here in the city,” Bennett said.
Throughout her 18 years in the National Guard, Tolon has risen through the ranks several times. While family members have previously traveled to the Pentagon to be a part of her promotions, she said she wanted to hold Saturday’s ceremony at the Crawford Gymnasium so her 88-year-old grandmother, Lizzie Stallings, could attend.
Other members of Tolon’s family also participated in her promotion. Her 10-year-old daughter, Jade English, and her husband both spoke in the ceremony, while her parents and sister helped with switching out elements of her uniform.
Her cousin, Navy Captain Eric Lockett, swore Tolon into her new office.
“It means the world,” Tolon said. “If I had it in Virginia, I know 80% of the people probably wouldn’t be able to come. … I definitely wanted to bring it back home.”
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You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 38 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
