BEAUMONT, Texas – The Lamar University women's golf family lost one of its greatest members this weekend as Dawn Coe-Jones passed away at the age of 56.
 
Coe-Jones, who earned first-team All-America status at LU in 1983, won the Canadian Amateur that year before embarking on a successful professional career, competing in the LPGA from 1984 through 2008. The native of Campbell Rover, British Columbia, won three times on the pro tour and amassed more than $3 million in earnings.
 
Known for her ever-present smile, quick-witted zingers and giving spirit, Coe-Jones was diagnosed in mid-March with dedifferentiated chondrosarcoma, an aggressive bone cancer, that required full knee and partial tibia replacement surgery, according to the Legends Tour.
 
"I was deeply and abruptly saddened to hear the news about Dawn," LU women's golf coach Jessica Steward said. "Not because she was such a prominent alumna, but because she was a tremendous person. She seems to have touched everyone she met, and we are forever grateful for the mark she left on our women's golf program."
 
Coe Jones was inducted into the Lamar University Athletics Department Hall of Honor in 1995 and the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame in 2003.
 
Retired LPGA player Gail Graham, a fellow Canadian, first met Coe-Jones her freshman year at LU and described her close friend as a reluctant leader.
"We called her 'The Chief,'" Graham said. "She didn't want to be the spokesperson, but she let us know what she wanted to do."

Coe-Jones is survived by her husband James Edward Jones, son, Jimmy Jones, 21, who is a member of the golf team at the University of South Florida.
Memorial service and funeral arrangements are pending.