A long-lasting legacy of a law enforcement pioneer was recently celebrated, as the town of Newton Grove mourned the passing of former Police Chief John Hayes.
A native of Wayne County who grew up in the Morehead area, Hayes eventually found his way to Sampson County, where he’d join the police department in 1974, eventually becoming chief of police. He retired as a major with the Sampson County Sheriff’s Office.
In his obituary, he was remembered as “a man of deep faith who believed that everyone should be treated fairly and his word was his bond. A devotee of justice, evident by his police career, and the extra special place he felt in his heart to protect the people in his community.”
Hayes was a loving husband of his wife of 69 years Janet Taylor, and was a proud father of three children, nine grandchildren and over a dozen great-grandchildren. It was that family who surrounded him in his final moments on Feb. 28, when at 88, he lost his battle with cancer.
Some of his family, close friends and former colleagues recently gathered to reminisce on his legacy.
Current Police Chief Greg Warren, Hayes’ grandson Matthew Bland, former Mayor Gerald Darden and lifelong Newton Grove resident Dewayne West gathered last week to share memories of their loved one.
”I remember as a little boy, one of my favorite times was looking up and seeing Mr. John coming down the road over here, at what is now West Grove Street,” Warren said. “We’d see him coming down the road, and he’d just be cruising. He’d always stop right by the mailboxes. And Mama told the story the other day online about how she’d look out the window and see his car just surrounded by little boys on bicycles. When he was, he would take his radar unit, and he would clock us, and we would see who the fastest was that day, just for little bragging rights — that’s probably my fondest memory of Mr. John.”
Warren said another fond memory was having the honor of Hayes’ presence when he was sworn in.
“While that’s probably the fondest memory of Mr. John, another was after I came back,” he said. “Mr. John was one of the first ones that I contacted and he showed up at my swearing in — that meant the world to me. He’d stop in every once in a while or would pop up. I’ve been looking for some old papers of him, and we found something interesting. Mr. Dewayne and I were talking about it, because he brought me by some papers, and it was basically the history of the department. In that we found out he had done the research for every police chief in succession that was hired at the police department up till today.”
West shared a little on that history and how the brave businessmen of that time started doing the first patrols before a police station was even built.
“Back in the late ’50s, they didn’t have a town hall and such,” he said. “So the mayor at the time told the businessmen in town, that if they would pull voluntary police watch at night, one night a month, that it save money. But, there was enough businessmen in town at that time, they took one, maybe two nights a month, and patrolled. There was about 30 of those guys in and around Newton Grove and that was the beginning stages of the police force for Newton Grove.”
Along that path, Hayes came to join the ranks after the police department was established, and would go on to be who West called the greatest police chief the town of Newton Grove has ever had.
“I can tell you, there’s been a lot of good chiefs here over the years, some better than others, but none better than John Hayes,” West said. “There was none better, none more dedicated and clocks didn’t mean anything to him. Whether it was days on or off, if he was needed that day in the middle of day, say for a funeral, or whatever the case might be, he was there.”
West continued, “The town was different back then, it ain’t like it is now, and we knew each other more. Even so, if one of the men uptown saw something going on, John took care of it, or he got somebody to take care of it.”
Even if a situation wasn’t within his line of sight, West said Hayes still had your back.
“If he’d catch a glimpse of somebody, he’d come over and ask was everything OK, and then he’d come back,” West said. “If he heard one of our calls but if he didn’t like the location or the sound of the call, he was there for us. He didn’t stay long and he didn’t hang around, but you just knew he had your back.”
When it came to members at the roundtable talk, few could vet those stories better than Bland, who witnessed it from his grandfather firsthand.
“I can remember staying at grandma and granddaddy’s house and there were times … over there, right after he worked all night, and he was supposed to technically be off the next day,” Bland said. “The phone would ring and grandma said, ‘John, you got a call,’ and he’d go to answer the phone. Next thing you know, you’d see him grab his gun and grab his WT, and he’d walk up, jump in the car, and he always said, ‘I gotta run up the street for a minute, I’ll be back.’ That meant he might be gone 30 minutes or he might be gone two hours.”
When he wasn’t dedicating time to the police force, Bland said his grandfather was quite the handyman.
“He, on his days off, I know he used to work on clients’ appliances at his house,” Bland said. “I mean, refrigerators, TVs, he worked on a little bit of everything, he was just a jack of trades. That old shop of his was full of refrigerators and freezers, and different things he would take on to fix for people. Then he had his wood shop to the side where he took us and taught us how to cut out just simple shelves and how to put shelving together. He was just one of those people who was good with their hands and we made a bunch of different things out there.”
While Hayes was touted multiples times as a gentle giant during their trip down memory lane Darden said, while true, when it came time to get serious you didn’t want to be on the receiving end.
“He’s everything you’ve heard but you didn’t want to be on the wrong side,” Darden said with a smile. “It was a switch, and when that switch flipped, you needed to step back, because he was all business. He would get nervous at times and a few in his presence made the mistake of taking that for fear. Well, they shortly found out thereafter that just because he was nervous, he weren’t scared of nothing. If he was, he sure was good at hiding it because he’d get into some pretty tough situations but always came out on top.
“That said, and this goes back actually to when I was mayor,” he continued, “I told the board back then, we’ve had a lot of great chiefs but we will never find another police chief like John Hayes.”
When Mayor Craig Warren arrived at the town hall, he joined the roundtable.
“When it came to catching guys doing crazy things around town, or even just something like riding a lawn mower or horse around town drunk,” the mayor said. “Little stuff like that, John, he was notorious for getting some of those guys. But, the thing I remember most about John so much, and I was just a teenager on the rescue squad at the time, but John, when he was around you, he treated like you like he was your dad.”
“Not knocking police officers, but a lot of times they’ll throw their influence or badge around but I never felt like he was that way,” Warren added. “He just kind of blended in and felt like he was one of guys, he was really just a positive influence.”
Whether he was busting heads, fixing your TV or serving as an honorary dad, Hayes leaves behind a long-lasting presence that was felt throughout the community of Newton Grove.
“I always remember those little bracelets that had WWJD (What What Jesus Do?) on them,” Greg Warren said. “As I‘m in the field I always think, WWJJD, and that’s, ‘What Would Jesus and John Do?’”
“He used to tell us all the time when we were smaller, treat people how you want to be treated,” Bland added. “I didn’t get in law enforcement till I was 33. When I did he told me, when you start dealing with people, remember, treat them how you want to be treated. He also said, treat them fairly, because he was always about second chances too and he knew sometimes people just need that second chance to help them out.”
As the stories were wrapping up and the shared memories reached their conclusion, Bland shared one last story he heard about his grandfather, one the entire roundtable agreed was fitting for John Hayes.
”I was talking to Judge Robert Gilmore back when I was telling him granddad was basically unresponsive at that time and we weren’t expecting to have him much longer,” Bland said. “I was talking with dad and all them the other night as we were sitting there talking, and Judge Gilmore said, you know, he was like the last of what I would consider to be the true Andy Griffiths of law enforcement. And he really was because he was just that gentle.
“He deeply loved his family and always did whatever he had to do to make sure we were taken care of and he truly loved Grandma more than anything, I’m really going to miss him,” Bland said.
