Jimbo Jackson, who served 30 years as a teacher and principal at Fort Braden School and nearly six years as a Leon County commissioner, died Saturday morning after suffering complications from long-term COVID.
“We’re just devastated,” said Leon County Administrator Vince Long. “Jimbo really made everything and everybody better. And we’re just saddened and heartbroken — and more than anything else, we’re just devastated for his family.”
Jackson joined the staff at Fort Braden School in 1992, working a multitude of jobs there over the years, from teacher’s aide and classroom instructor to dean of students and principal. In 2016, he won a seat on the County Commission that had been held by the late Jane Sauls.
“He just had amazing empathy,” Long said. “And I think that came from his many years of experience being a principal at a Title 1 school. He saw everything first-hand, the struggles that people deal with. And he had the very unique perspective to see it play out generationally, because he taught and was principal for kids and their parents and their uncles and their aunts.”
Jackson was diagnosed with COVID-19 in the summer of 2020 and suffered long-term health complications from the disease.
Jackson brought the steady hand of an educator into his role as a county commissioner. Stoically soft-spoken, he often became the voice of reason in tense discussions and had a knack for ending them by bringing motions to the table.
He said he was guided by what he felt best for his district, a rural chunk of Southwest Leon County often overlooked in economic development and other opportunities.
Jackson was selected in 2014 as the Tallahassee Democrat’s Person of the Year because of his devotion to not only education in western Leon County, but for championing how it can lift an entire community.
“Mr. Jackson also is an example for young boys and girls who reside in this rural yet developing section of our county,” the editorial board wrote in its announcement Jackson was selected.
The board pointed to the life-long educators own words as proof.
“You need to make meaningful connections and develop relationships and nurture those relationships,” he told the Democrat in 2014. “You need to understand where people are coming from and value them and show them you value them.”
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