Judge Johnson Jay Hayes

Year Inducted: 2018

Johnson Jay Hayes, Federal District Court Judge, was born in his parents ‘cabin, the fifth of nine children, near Purlear in Wilkes County.

In 1903, Hayes began attending Whitsett Institute at Whitsett (near Greensboro). Hayes taught school in the Mendenhall Community in Guilford County. Hayes entered Wake Forest College in 1907 and graduated from Wake Forest Law School in 1909.

Hayes established the law firm Hayes and Jones in 1910. In 1915, Hayes was elected to serve a four-year term as Solicitor for the Seventeenth North Judicial District, was reelected twice, but did not seek a fourth term. In 1927, President Calvin Coolidge appointed him as Middle District Court Judge and was the only Judge of the district for thirty years.

Hayes helped organize the Wilkes Building and Loan Association and the Kiwanis Club. Always interested in education, he was instrumental in establishing Wilkes Community College and in moving Wake Forest College from Wake County to Winston-Salem. Hayes was Trustee of Wake Forest College and of Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem.

A committed Baptist layman, Hayes was a man who took a very active interest in the church affairs of the Baptist. From 1938 to his death, he taught a Men’s Sunday School Class which was broadcast live on WKBC. In 1957, while holding court in Greensboro, Hayes suffered a heart attack, forcing him to retire. Fearing he might grow tired with nothing to do, he wrote The Land of Wilkes, a history of Wilkes County for the Wilkes Historical Society.

Even during retirement, Judge Hayes often presided in court when it was necessary to clear a backlog of cases. In fact, he presided in Wilkesboro a little more than two weeks before his death. Hayes married Willa Virginia Harless and were the parents of six children, Joseph Hadley, Johnson Jay, Jr., Hayden Burke, Willa Jean, Carol Virginia, and Sarah Rebecca.