Former Alabama pastor, prison chaplain dies at 83
John Venoy Jolley, former Alabama pastor and prison chaplain, died Feb. 3. He was 83.
A Hopewell native, Jolley earned a bachelor’s degree from Jacksonville State University and a master of divinity degree from Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary in Cordova, Tennessee. He was ordained at First Baptist Church, Boaz, serving as its minister of youth and evangelism. Jolley also witnessed to inmates at the Marshall County Jail in Guntersville as a member of the local Gideons camp.
In 1981 he became an assistant chaplain at Florida State Prison-East Unit (now called Union Correctional Institution) in Raiford. He was later named senior chaplain and commissioned by the Home Mission Board (now North American Mission Board) of the Southern Baptist Convention.
After retiring from the Florida prison system, he moved back to Alabama and served as chaplain and program coordinator for the Etowah County Detention Center in Gadsden. At the time of his death, Jolley was once again a resident of Florida and was active in jail ministry.
He is survived by his wife, Laura, and three children. (Doug Green, TAB)
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