[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 11]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 16249-16250]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   TRIBUTE TO HOWARD H. ``TIM'' HAYS

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. KEN CALVERT

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, October 27, 2011

  Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor Howard 
H. ``Tim'' Hays who recently passed away at the age of 94. He will be 
deeply missed.
  Mr. Hays spent 51 years at the Riverside Press Enterprise, the sixth 
largest newspaper in the state of California. Before coming to the 
newspaper, Mr. Hays was an FBI Special Agent during World War II. In 
1946, he joined the paper as an Assistant Editor and also passed the 
California bar exam. The Riverside Press Enterprise wrote an article 
detailing the many accomplishments of Mr. Hays and the incredible 
contributions he made to the newspaper, the community and the country.

                            [Oct. 14, 2011]

             Former P-E Publisher and Editor Tim Hays Dies

       Howard H. ``Tim'' Hays, Jr., the Harvard-educated lawyer 
     who chose a newspaperman's life and led what became The 
     Press-Enterprise into national prominence as a Pulitzer 
     Prize-winning advocate of open government and defender of the 
     First Amendment, died Friday in St. Louis. He was 94.
       Mr. Hays had been struggling with Alzheimer's disease, his 
     son Tom Hays said Friday. He said his father died in the 
     afternoon at Barnes-Jewish Hospital following a brief acute 
     illness.
       Mr. Hays spent 51 years at The Press-Enterprise. He was an 
     FBI special agent during World War II and joined the 
     newspaper as assistant editor in 1946. He passed the bar the 
     same year but never practiced law.
       His subsequent roles included editor, co-publisher, 
     publisher and chairman. He continued as chairman until 1997, 
     when The Press-Enterprise was sold to the A.H. Belo Co., 
     ending 67 years of family ownership of the Riverside-based 
     newspaper.
       The news organization's five-story office on Fourteenth 
     Street was named in 2006 as the Howard H. ``Tim'' Hays Media 
     Center.
       ``Tim was a rarity, a man whose moral compass was set on 
     true,'' said Mel Opotowsky, the former managing editor of The 
     Press-Enterprise. ``That is especially important as a 
     newspaper owner because of the obligation as a public trust. 
     There are many instances of Tim's beneficence, not only to 
     his employees, but to his readers and to principles of 
     quality journalism.''
       Mr. Hays once joked that his choice of journalism over law 
     and his ``semi-meteoric rise'' at the newspaper were due to 
     ``diligence, and the fact that my father was co-owner.''
       Courtly, soft-voiced and with a penchant for remembering 
     anyone's name, from civic leaders to cleaning crews in the 
     hallways of his newspaper, Mr. Hays' personality contrasted 
     sharply with flamboyant news-executive contemporaries. His 
     memos were to his ``Fellow Employees.''
       But his reserved manner was matched with a steely resolve.
       He stood up to pressure and confrontation to lead his 
     newspaper to a Pulitzer Prize. He took two open-government 
     cases to the U.S. Supreme Court, winning both.
       Media attorneys use shorthand to refer to two landmark 
     cases won by the newspaper, Press-Enterprise One and Two.
       In January 1984, the newspaper won a case establishing the 
     public's right to attend jury selection in criminal trial 
     proceedings. In a 1986 case, the court asserted the right of 
     the public to attend pre-trial hearings in criminal cases 
     with few exceptions.
       Mr. Hays oversaw publication of a series of articles in 
     1967 that exposed malpractice in the conservatorship program 
     for Agua Caliente Indians in Palm Springs. Editorials 
     combined with more than 100 stories, mostly written by 
     reporter George Ringwald, earned the newspaper the Pulitzer 
     Prize for meritorious public service in 1968. (Ringwald died 
     in 2005.)
       During the newspaper's reporting of that issue, a judge who 
     was under investigation became infuriated by a Press-
     Enterprise editorial and ordered Mr. Hays arrested.
       The publisher stood his ground and was not jailed.
       Mr. Hays also stood by his reporters, even as advertisers 
     took their business away in protest over investigative 
     pieces.
       Despite national recognition, Mr. Hays kept his community 
     at the foreground of his work. He was among the civic leaders 
     who worked to get a University of California campus 
     established here. UC Riverside opened in 1954.
       ``Tim had a very active mind that saw beyond the ordinary 
     but was able to bring it down to earth,'' said his former 
     executive secretary, Jean Wingard. ``He was an excellent 
     newsman, and had the respect of those who worked with him and 
     for him.''
       Mr. Hays established the Hays Press-Enterprise Lecture in 
     1966, which was underwritten in 1998 by a $100,000 endowment 
     after the newspaper was sold.
       The free lectures, open to the public, featured leaders in 
     news media, including retired Washington Post Executive 
     Editor Ben Bradlee; Gene Roberts, former managing editor of 
     the New York Times; and W. Thomas Johnson, who was then 
     president of Cable News Network.
       Mr. Hays also undertook the cause of preserving the Mission 
     Inn.
       He and other civic leaders maintained their effort during a 
     seven-year stretch in which the state and national historic 
     landmark in downtown Riverside was closed--at one time 
     surrounded by a chain-link fence.
       Several attempts to reopen the Inn failed. Some suggested 
     the land was a prime spot for a parking lot. In 1992, Duane 
     Roberts bought the hotel and invested millions of dollars in 
     renovations.
       The Press-Enterprise under Mr. Hays also quietly helped to 
     underwrite local cultural and arts organizations.
       ``I'm not married to any cause,'' Mr. Hays once said. ``I 
     believe in generosity to the community in which you live. I 
     think you can contribute more with time and energy than with 
     dollars. But I guess the money can be pretty dandy, too.''
       Retired appellate court Justice John Gabbert said Mr. Hays, 
     similar to his brothers, developed his sense of community 
     engagement early in life.
       ``He was motivated by the very strong civic background that 
     he probably inherited from his father,'' Gabbert said Friday. 
     ``They were all there, out in the community, making it 
     better.''
       Contemporaries of Mr. Hays said he was less likely to 
     deliver a fiery speech, and more likely to argue his points 
     over lunch or in a casual conversation. Former state Sen. 
     Robert Presley said each time he would meet Mr. Hays at the 
     same downtown Riverside restaurant, the publisher would prod 
     him for support of downtown Riverside projects.
       ``He didn't seem to have a lot of ego, although he could be 
     vigorous and persuasive in his arguments,'' Presley said 
     Friday from Sacramento.
       ``He was a very special person,'' said Marcia McQuern who 
     worked for Hays at The Press-Enterprise and eventually became 
     the paper's publisher. ``He had a true journalist's heart. He 
     always tried to live up to his standards and ideals.''
       McQuern remembered Hays being well tied into the community. 
     So much so that he often knew what was going on before his 
     reporters did.
       ``I would come to him with a story and he'd say, `You 
     finally found that out,''' she said. ``But he never would 
     kill anything.''
       Even when it may have been unpopular among the community 
     leaders he mingled with.
       ``He took a lot of heat. He really stuck by the newsroom. 
     That's where his heart was,'' she said.
       McQuern remembered one instance where the paper wanted the 
     name behind a large anonymous donation to UC Riverside.
       ``We fought for access,'' she said. ``He let us go fight 
     for the information. We were about to file suit and he 
     finally admitted it was him.''
       Howard H. ``Tim'' Hays, Jr. was born in Chicago on June 2, 
     1917, the son of Howard H. Hays, Sr. and Margaret Mauger 
     Hays. He came to Riverside with his parents in 1924.
       A graduate of Riverside Polytechnic High School, he was 
     editor of the school newspaper, Poly Spotlight, during his 
     senior year.
       Mr. Hays earned a bachelor's degree in social sciences at 
     Stanford University, graduating in 1939.
       In 1942, he received a law degree from Harvard Law School. 
     After his service with the FBI, he briefly served as a 
     reporter at the San Bernardino Sun before joining the family 
     newspaper and beginning his leadership role in American 
     journalism.
       Mr. Hays moved to St. Louis part time in 1989, and began 
     living there full time after his retirement from The Press-
     Enterprise, his son Tom said.
       In a message read at the 2007 dedication of the news 
     building named after him, Mr. Hays noted that he still read 
     every day the newspaper that he had led for so long.

[[Page 16250]]

       Survivors include wife Susie Hays of St. Louis, sons Bill 
     Hays of Corona Del Mar and Tom Hays of New York City, and 
     brother Dan Hays of Riverside. His brother, William H. Hays, 
     died earlier this year. Mr. Hays' first wife, Helen Hays 
     Yeager, died two years earlier, to the day, of Mr. Hays' 
     death.
       Said Tom Hays, ``He lived a very long and productive and 
     fortunate life, and he died very peacefully, so we are 
     thankful for that.''
       Mr. Hays will always be remembered for his incredible work 
     ethic, generosity, love of family, and the numerous 
     contributions he made to the newspaper industry. His 
     dedication to the integrity of the newspaper, the protection 
     of the First Amendment and to the community as a whole are a 
     testament to a life lived well and a legacy that will 
     continue. I extend my condolences to Mr. Hays' family and 
     friends. Although Mr. Hays may be gone, the light and 
     goodness he brought to the world remain and will never be 
     forgotten.

                          ____________________