Alexis ‘Fly’ Jones has her sights set on ever greater heights
When Alexis “Fly” Jones put on her vision board that she wanted to be a TV producer, she wasn’t sure how it would actually happen.
She had no experience in TV, but she was resourceful.
At the time, she worked as a vice president with Medley Inc., a Houston-based boutique public relations agency, and she had developed a reputation for getting things done. Her biggest account was the Houston International Festival, or iFest. So when Deborah Duncan, the host of KHOU’s “Great Day Houston,” was looking for a producer, Jones was at the top of her list.
It’s been seven years since Jones joined the TV show.
Now she has a new goal.
“My dream is to go national and come from behind the camera to in front of it,” the 35-year-old said. “I want to use my voice as a TV personality.”
The Houston native had a talent for painting growing up.
She graduated from Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and was the only freshman visual-art student selected for the school’s cultural exchange program in China. She went on to study communications at Clark Atlanta University, deciding early on that she didn’t want to be a “starving artist.”
She spent afternoons watching “The Oprah Winfrey
Show,” as well as Duncan’s, admiring the hosts’ ability to engage people. TV was always on her mind.
During a summer home from college in 2004, Jones worked at Music World Entertainment, the Houston-based company founded by Mathew Knowles, who managed Destiny’s Child and Beyoncé. She helped coordinate Knowles’ Project Popstar, a musicaltalent-search competition.
“At the time, I really thought music was going to be my route. I wanted to help manage people’s dreams,” Jones said.
But when she graduated from college in 2007, there were no jobs available at Music World. Jones took a temp position as an administrative assistant with an oil and gas company. That was short lived and unsatisfying, she said.
At a family event, she met Ashley Small, owner of Medley Inc., who was looking to expand. Jones worked as a publicist with the company for three years before moving to “Great Day Houston.”
Her TV skills fueled her latest project, “Dear BLK Son,” a short film she calls a love letter to her 5-year-old son, Jett. It aired in August on “Great Day Houston” on the anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington. Jones recruited 20 women from her Delta Sigma Theta sorority to appear in the film.
“It was after the killing of Ahmaud Arbery while jogging, and I wanted to do something,” Jones said. “I began to ask myself, ‘When will I have to have the conversation with my son about how the world will perceive him?’ I already told him he wasn’t allowed to wear hoodies. I did this film because I want the world to love my son for who he is, not hate him because of the color of his skin.”
Jones plans to start a nonprofit organization to create more stories about the Black experience.
When it comes to fashion, Jones continues to live up to her college nickname, “Fly.”
“I attended an HBCU (historically Black college), so it was a fashion show every day on the promenade. I’d ruin my stilettos walking on the brick, but I was always dressed. We all were,” she said.