Feb 24, 2022 - THROW BACK THURSDAY COMING ON FRIDAY!!!!! - CHAPTER 4 IN THE BILL HAYES ODYSSEY plus Class News

Sorry for delay in getting this out. Little Rock was "icy" yesterday, Thursday, but OK today.

This is the fourth chapter in a story with its roots in the Little Rock Heights area. Part 4Bill Hayes - from Page to President“

We had a great time stopping by the nation’s Capitol when Bill Hayes was a U. S. Senate page” explained a longtime Little Rock friend. “Bill told us, ‘wait a minute’, and returned with a large antique key, and then with a wave and a grin, ‘Follow me.’ He slid the key into a lock in an almost hidden door, and we experienced a thrill of a lifetime with our personal tour up the narrow 365 steps to the top of the Capitol dome where a view of the Potomac awaited.” Senate pages at the time served our nation’s leaders much as the various electronic devices do today. Seated on the Senate podium steps or in an office called the “Cloak Room”, pages waited for as much as the click of fingers to carry messages, drafts of bills, or lunch invitations from one Senator to the next. One of Bill’s fellow pages who continued his duties into the fall of 1963, recalls the horror of having to deliver the message of President Kennedy’s assassination to Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, who then made the dread announcement and adjourned the Senate.Pages arose early each morning to attend their own school in classrooms in the Library of Congress and then spent a full day on and around the Senate floor.When the Senate adjourned late in the day, pages, some as young as 14, went out the door of the Capitol and were on their own. If pages had no family in the area, they had found cheap shared apartments or rooming houses near the Capitol, as did Bill. There were no rules, no security, no chaperones, no curfews.Bill Hayes was looking toward his future as he served in this prestigious body. He would return to Hall High School in Little Rock for his senior year the next fall. Hall was about five years old, built around two large grassy courtyards, low and modern and faced in orange brick in a sea of pine trees. Limited integration of the races had recently begun. Though the families of most Hall students were far from affluent, the school’s attendance zone included areas where many successful members of the community lived at the time. Such community leaders would have been aware of student leadership at Hall High - which had included future Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker and future NATO Supreme Commander Wesley Clark in its earliest years. In the final months of his Page appointment, Bill Hayes sent a letter to the principal asking to file for election to the Presidency of the Hall student body for the next year. This was a somewhat bold move, as he did not even attend the school at the time and at least three capable members of the junior class had already filed, some of whom were Bill’s best friends. Bill was elected as President of Hall without setting foot on its campus. His taped campaign speech had been dramatically broadcast to the student body from the nation’s Capitol. In mid-1963, Bill said goodbye to the President’s daughter Luci Baines Johnson and to the close friends whom he had made. The collective future biographies of that page class would show substantial accomplishment - Harvard, Yale, Princeton degrees; a U. S.Navy Admiral; the head of an international law firm... Bill Hayes would choose a dramatically different path.(Chapter five will follow - “Bill Hayes, the later years - from Marlon Brando to Clyde Barrow with a little Indiana Jones."

1956 CLASS NEWS
Calvin Hanson had a slip and ended up with a hip replacement. He'll do a little rehab and eventually get back home.Says everything is good and he's happy which means getting good care. We're all pulling for you, Calvin!Thanks for Mike Herndon, Class of '55 and "main squeeze" to Mary Jo Bryant , Bill Hill has been found!!!!
As Syd Orton said, we never give up on finding you guys. You may think you slip away and we don't notice, but nottrue!!!! Bill has joined all our other Classmates at Parkway Village. If you'd like to contact him, let Syd or I know.
Jerry Jones has officially retired as a Pediatric Doctor at Childrens and then UAMS. He has a newemail address. Let me know if you would like it. You might want it to send him CONGRATUATIONS onhis ENGAGEMENT! We'll meet her at OUR REUNION, SEPTEMBER 22, 23 AND 24.
Wonderful news from Mary Catherine Kline. Last scan showed no trace of the lung cancer!!!!!
I sent an email last weekend updating you on our postponed 65th Reunion. The new date for our 65th Reunion is THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22 - FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23 - SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2022.It will be held at the same hotel where our parties have been held for the last several years, but that Hotel has a new owner,Marriott, so instead of the CROWNE PLAZA, it is now the DELTA PLAZA Hotel. You can make reservations at any time.(501) 223-3000. Be sure and tell them you are with the LRCHS Class of 1956. There is also a link for online reservationsin my previous email. I sent you the names of all Classmates who have previously registered. Those who have previously registered don't need to do anything. You are already signed up and paid up!!!! I sent a "new, updated" Registration Formfor all of you who didn't get a chance to register before we postponed the 2021 Reunion. If you are able to print the new, updated Registration Form, GREAT! Print it, fill it out and mail it back to us with your check. If you are NOT able to print it, let me know and I will mail one to you. HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!!!!
ML