By T. Scott Boatright
Nearly a year after last seeing or talking to him, the family of Ruston native Jon’al White is making a big push to find out what happened to him.
White’s mother last heard from him in June 2023, shortly after he took a bus ride from Ruston to Houston to relocate and search for a job.
He was last seen at the Greyhound Bus Station in Houston, and shortly later talked to his mother.
Since then, White’s family has continued their “PUSH” — “Pray Until Something Happens” — to find him.
A former star defensive lineman for the Ruston High School Bearcats, White, who was 32 last summer when he went missing, stands at around 6-foot-1-inches tall and weighs approximately 300 pounds and has brown eyes and black hair.
White’s family made a trip to Houston late last month to attend an annual event held by The Texas Center for the Missing, which is held to raise awareness about thousands of people who have been reported missing in southeast Texas.
“It’s been like a nightmare,” White’s sister Reginea Modest said during a report on that event on KHOU, Houston’s CBS television station. “That’s how you sum it all up. This is not like him at all and that’s what worries us most — not knowing because that’s not him at all to not call his family especially our mom.”
White’s family, including his mother Regina White, wore white PUSH T-shirts during their appearance on KHOU news.
“I get up each day and like the shirts say — PUSH,” Regina White said. “I’m pushing my way through.”
“Sometimes at my desk, I may break down. It’s hard. I just want to sling everything off the desk.”
Anyone in the Lincoln Parish region who has any potential information on Jon’al White’s whereabouts are asked to contact the Lincoln Parish Sheriff’s Office at 318-251-5111 and refer to case No. 2400625.
And those living in southeast Texas who might have potential information on Jon’al White’s disappearance are asked to contact the Houston Police Department at 832-394-0000 and refer to police report No. 489281-24.
Jon’al White lettered in football and track at Ruston High for three years, earning all-state and all-district honors and totaling 102 tackles and seven sacks his senior season on the gridiron.
He then played for two seasons in 2009 and 2010 Mississippi’s at Jones County Junior College before becoming a Louisiana Tech Bulldog the next two seasons, leaving Tech after chalking up 88 total tackles (41 solo, 47 assisted) on the year with seven tackles for a loss of 42 yards including nine sacks for losses of 61 yards with one forced fumble, one recovered fumble and five quarterback hurries.
Jon’al White later served as defensive line at Lusher Charter School (now known as Willow School, in New Orleans.
“We want him to come home,” Modest told KHOU. “He doesn’t even have to come home. Just call us because we miss you.”
