Jim Hayes taught me journalism at Cal Poly and was on the copy desk when I was a Tribune reporter.  He is now in hospice care with a brain tumor,and his Facebook page has exploded–page after page after page–with tributes from former students.  Here are some of mine.

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This is Missie Pires, at the “Mustang Daily” in the early 1970s. I was 21, and Jim made me

her writing coach. She would go into broadcast journalism, anchor at KSBY, and NOT because of me, but because she was bright, hard-working, and so incredibly positive; she actually could light up a room—newsroom or otherwise. I was heartbroken when she died so young, but our time together so many years before was the first hint I’d ever had that I loved teaching and that I might have a gift for it.

Jim knew that before I did.

Years later, my first student teaching assignment was at Morro Bay High, and I met another student I grew to love as I’d loved Missie. It was Josh, Jim’s son.

There are Roman Catholics and then there is the denomination I belong to—Lousy Catholics—but I fundamentally believe that God lights our way with people like Jim and Missie, and, through them, She takes enormously good care of people like me, well-intentioned and good-hearted characters, but with a wee tendency to run off the tracks if we’re not watched carefully.

I’m on a fine road nowadays–after 29 years in the classroom, I still look up at them when they’re taking a test or writing an essay, and they are so beautiful, so full of promise, that my eyes fill with tears. Thanks, Jim.

 

January 2014.  Jim died in June.

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