Jo Ellen Ford, wife of the former state Sen. and Alltel CEO Joe T. Ford and a generous philanthropist to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, died Monday after suffering a pulmonary embolism. She was 86 and had been ill with dementia.
She was born to Edith Kilcrease Wilbourn and Hugh Randolph Wilbourn, Jr., a lineman for the Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, in Fort Smith on April 3, 1937, the first of four children. Her parents and a sister, Mary Nell Wilbourn Shaw, preceded her in death.
She moved to Little Rock as a child and graduated from Conway High School in 1955 alongside the man she would marry, Joe Thomas Ford. She matriculated at the University of Arkansas, where she was president of the Delta Delta Delta chapter and graduated summa cum laude, first in her college class.
Jo Ellen worked as a sounding board, campaigner and networker for her husband’s business and political work and taught women’s Bible study classes. She had two children, Alison Ford Crawford of Plano, Texas, and Westrock Coffee Chief Executive Officer and former Alltel President and CEO Scott Ford of Little Rock; both survive her, as does her husband.
Scott said his mother’s focus on religious work and philanthropy was reflective of her generation of educated women but also reflected her passions.
“She would spend several days a week getting ready to teach Bible study fellowship,” he said. Between teaching a Bible study class to 500 women during the school year and her volunteer work, “She worked a lot. She was active, but they were things that she loved to do. She loved to help my father, she loved to teach the Bible, she loved helping to build UAMS into an institution that benefited everybody who lived in her state.”
“She never was like, ‘Oh, I wish I had a career where I got paid money for what I do,’ because she liked what she did and thought it had a greater impact than most jobs that would have paid her money,” he said. “A lot of good came back out of her.”
Ford’s philanthropic work began at UAMS when her mother and mother-in-law were suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Having once considered medical school, her commitment to medical and health causes earned her the nickname “Dr. JoJo,” after the diminutive her family used.
In 1997, the Reynolds Foundation awarded UAMS a $10.5 million grant to establish the department of geriatrics and an $18.3 million grant to build the new 96,000-square-foot structure to house the geriatric education and research programs, patient services, public policy initiative, and administrative offices. Ford served on and chaired its Foundation Fund Board and focused on developing the Donald W. Reynolds Institute of Aging. An auditorium in the university’s Department of Geriatrics is named for her, as is the institute’s distinguished service award.
“When we were writing the grant for the Reynolds gift, she helped us write it,” said then-UAMS Chancellor Dr. Harry Ward in 2001. “Without her strong words of commitment we never would have gotten the grant.”
“And after the grant was awarded, we still needed to raise 20%, or $3.6 million, of the construction costs, and she helped us do that,” he said. “The Center on Aging would not exist without Jo Ellen Ford.”
Ford, who received the inaugural UAMS P.O. Hooper, M.D., Leadership Award, also helped establish the university’s Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, for which she and her husband received the Pat and Willard Walker Tribute Award. Her philanthropy also helped the UAMS College of Nursing, the Stop Alzheimer’s organization, an endowed fund in clinical affairs, programs to address covid-19, and UAMS’ Orthopaedics and Spine Hospital, to which survivors are asking memorial donations be made.
“Jo Ellen Ford was an exceptional Arkansan whose support, generosity and lifetime of service profoundly impacted UAMS and the state of health care in Arkansas,” said UAMS Chancellor Dr. Cam Patterson in a statement. “She unselfishly gave of her wisdom and her time to serve as a trusted advisor to me and other chancellors before me. I will miss her gentle guiding hand but am grateful to have known her and will always remember her as a treasured friend.”
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