JoAnne McFarland McLeod, 82, died Sunday, May 29, 2022 at Select Hospital in Baptist Hospital in Jackson. A funeral service celebrating her life will be at noon on Saturday, June 4, at Lakewood Funeral Home at 6011 Clinton Blvd. in Jackson. Visitation will be at 10 a.m. before the service. JoAnne's first cousin Rev. Percy McFarland Burns of Charlotte, N.C., will lead this celebration.

JoAnne was born on Nov. 21, 1939 in Bay Springs and graduated with honors from Bay Springs High School in 1957. She was selected as Ms. Bay Springs High School. In 1959, she was elected as Miss Jasper County and was a close runner-up to Lynda Lee Mead, who went on to become Miss America that year. JoAnne surpassed all the contestants by winning the talent contest with a dramatic reading from John 14: “In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.”

She was a 1961 graduate of the University of Mississippi, where she was a Kappa Kappa Gamma. She married James Norman McLeod III after graduation. While raising a family, she went to Jackson Law School (now Mississippi College Law School) at night and graduated in 1975. At age 45, she became a widow and returned to the work force as a special assistant attorney general for the Mississippi Attorney General's Office in the Habeas Corpus Division.

She was preceded by her beloved husband Dr. James Norman McLeod III (1939-1985); her father Judge Joe Alexander McFarland (1913-1970); and her mother Doris Parker McFarland Smith (1920-2007).

She is survived by her adult children Robert Steele McLeod and Loren McLeod Gineris (David); three grandsons, James McLeod Gineris (24), Justin David Gineris (21) and William Jackson Gineris (17), all of St. Charles, Ill.,; and brother Robert Parker McFarland Sr. (Becky) of Cumming, Ga.

JoAnne was an avid duplicate bridge player and achieved the rank of Diamond Life Master. She has many friends at Jackson Bridge Club who dearly loved her. She was a member of St. Columb's Episcopal Church. 

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorial donations be made to Sunnybrook Children's Home, 222 Sunnybrook Road, Ridgeland, MS 39157.

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