Thu, Mar 17, 2022 - Throw Back Thursday - PART 6 - BILL HAYES SAD SAGA Plus Class News
The Congressional - PART 6
Bright Beginning, Sad Ending.
When Bill Hayes served as president of Little Rock’s Hall High School in 1963-64, most former class members will agree that there was little if any illegal substance activity at the school. Within the next five years, depending on where they attended college, most if not all of these students had either sampled such substance or knew of someone who had.
Depending on many factors, profits from such substance sales ranged from substantial to astronomical. Dealers came from all walks of life, emerging from much wider demographics than the stereotypical urban street gang background.
Enjoying the prosperity and possibly the adventure of this “new profession” which promised to bring financial rewards similar to practicing medicine without the delays of attending med school, were college-educated young people - some of whom had grown up in wealthy families from across America. They had the resources to locate and buy the goods; and they had the contacts and demeanor to infiltrate the college campus drug market. Instead of studying anatomy, they learned how guns worked; instead of memorizing geography, some visited drug sources in remote jungles of Mexico or mysterious narrow alley ways in the middle east. It was profitable and it was an adventure...till they got caught.
Bill Hayes got caught for the first time, in Ithaca, New York, home of Cornell University, in the fall of 1970 and was charged with armed kidnapping. The Ithaca Journal wrote lengthy articles about Hayes’ arrest, which the newspapers portrayed as retribution for non-payment of his cocaine sale to a Cornell graduate. After escaping, the victim identified Hayes as his kidnapper, and Hayes was found by police with a loaded revolver, a hyperdermic needle and bottles of demerol. Also arrested was George W. Fisher Jr., son of a wealthy contractor from Oklahoma City who had met Bill Hayes while working in the U.S. Capitol building while Bill was a page there 7 years before. Fisher was a young administrator at Cornell at the time of his arrest. The pair had flown in Bill’s plane to South America and the middle east that summer, transporting a large quantity of cocaine to the United States, according to the Ithaca Journal. After a period of incarceration, Hayes, Fisher and several other young men involved, all highly educated and of substantial means, were released on bond. Bill returned to Arkansas where preparations for trial began. Letters supporting Hayes were sent to the Court by his high school principal, Arkansas Senator William Fulbright, Congressman Wilbur Mills and other well-known figures. Just before the trial was to begin a year after arrest, the prosecutor suddenly dropped charges without comment.
Bill remained in Arkansas. His family gathered around him. Old friends from Bill’s early years at Forest Park Elementary School were called by Mrs. Hayes to visit her son at her Heights home. He met and married Vikki Adams, a graduate of Central High School, moved to a home in the Heights and earned a real estate license. His weekend job was an adventurous one, crop dusting on rural Arkansas farms. Bill’s father, Dr. Harry Hayes Sr. had passed away and with support of her sons, daughter and Bill’s old friends she trusted, his mother, Violet Hayes, hoped this chapter of her youngest son’s life was over.
It wasn’t. The marriage ended in divorce in about a year, and Bill was arrested at the Memphis airport in 1974, this time with heroin. His plane, described as a twin-engined Mooney craft, was confiscated by federal authorities.
While fighting in court to regain possession of his plane, it appears that Bill became a federal government informant. These things are impossible to confirm but he did escape incarceration on the heroin charge and later publicity was widespread about his role providing information to the government.
Bill’s final arrest was in January of 1976, at a landing strip in Stuttgart, Arkansas. He had just returned from a trip to remote forested mountains of Vera Cruz, Mexico in a rented plane. His companion for the flight, a charismatic young Little Rock women with whom he shared a townhouse, had been asked to accompany him and pose as his “newly-wed bride, headed for a Mexican honeymoon” - in case anybody asked.
She described a trip which resembled an adventure of Indiana Jones. “Bill was an excellent pilot. His knowledge of mapping, weather, and the technical aspects of flying was remarkable.” She added aspects of the journey which transforms Hayes into an action figure played by Tom Cruise on the silver screen. She described nights in Monterey and Vera Cruz, flying to a remote landing strip in the mountains, covering the plane with tree branches, being met by a large truck and driven deeper in the mountains by armed men and women. Earlier in the flight, curious about a footlocker in the rear of the plane, she tipped the lid open and discovered it filled with guns. She found the locker empty on the trip back home, assuming the guns were left as payment for the cargo. “We flew so low over the Rio Grande I could have dipped my foot in the water,” she recalled. She added recollections of a personal nature about Bill Hayes, describing their relationship simply as sharing a home for economic reasons, praising her room mate as a “perfect gentleman - quiet, courteous, funny and a pleasure to be around.” - the same popular, handsome young man in the white sport coat and pink carnation from the Country Club dances.
After crossing the border, Bill dropped off his room mate at the Benton Airport and flew to Stuttgart where, reportedly, he was to meet his old buddy from his time at the nation’s Capitol, George Fisher Jr. Instead, he was met by federal agents, his plane packed with illegal substances.
Within a month, Bill was assassinated. It was a gruesome high-velocity gunshot scene in a Minute Man parking lot at 5300 South University Avenue in Little Rock where the car crashed after the shot hit Hayes. The top of his orange Fiat convertible had to be cut open to remove him for an ambulance ride to St. Vincent Infirmary, where he died 3 hours later. Headlines described him as a “federal narcotics informant.” A young man and woman were arrested soon after the shooting, and a third suspect was located in Benton after a manhunt involving 180 law enforcement officers. The trio claimed they wanted to “scare” Hayes for abusing a young woman they knew. There were other theories - some say it was related to his cooperation with federal officials, and others painted a portrait of rivalries in the drug world. A plea-bargain occurred and the two men were sentenced to prison for 3 years and 12 years, without trial.
Wrap-up to follow.
“Wiliam Graham Hayes - Fallen ... So Fast, So Far”
1956 CLASS NEWS
LITTLE ROCK AREA CLASSMATES: Sara Wafer and her daughter, Kathy, are in town for just a couple of days.
We are meeting for dinner TONIGHT, THURSDAY, MARCH 17, at BOSSA NOVA in Hillcrest, at 5:00p. Can you come? If YES, call, text or email me so I will know how many seats to hold. Sara now lives with her daughter in Texas since Martha has Alzheimer's and lives in a memory unit near her daughter in Edmond, OK. I believe this may be the first time in their lives that they haven't lived together. I know she would love to see all of you!!!!
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JANIS McATEE. Here's a picture of Janis along with our "East Coast Lunch Bunch" taken back in 2013. I go back to DC twice a year and we all try to get together for lunch.
L to R: Carol Lee Tucker (Bethesda, MD), Betty Lou "Betsy" Wright (Annapolis, MD), ML, Jo Lynn Hill (Vienna, VA), Ann Ellis (PA), John VanWert (Jo Lynn's husband) and Janis (Portland, Oregon now). We're hoping Warwick "Wickie" Brown will join us this summer.
And HAPPY BIRTHDAY TODAY TO JOEL HICKS AND MARCELLA ROWLAND!!!!!
Everytime I see or even think of Marcella, I remember the Reunion when I first started working on the Class Directory. She came over, got me in a corner and was practically whispering saying "I hate to tell you this, but think you should know that you left me out of this Directory. I'm not mad or anything," Holding a Directory in my hand I turned to the "R's" and there was Marcella Rowland!!! She started laughing. She said she was looking for Marcella Grimmett, her married name! Unfortunately remembering all the married names for the girls is close to impossible so we'll keep using maiden names! LOL!
Other March Birthdays:
4 Nancy Deese
9 Bill Wagner
10 Harry Jones (Is he STILL alive? REALLY? LOL!)
12 Catsy Collard
13 Dave Duggan
14 Syd Orton
15 Jimmy Perry
20 O. J. Fuller (Come to the concert O.J. and we'll sing Happy Birthday to you!)
ML