Brooks Hays Memorial Fund Launched in Capitol Ceremony Accolades for a former Southern Baptist Convention president and member of Congress whose name became a household word marked a ceremony at the U.S. Capitol January 26 establishing the Brooks Hays Memorial Fund. The fund, in memory of the former Arkansas congressman who died in 1981, will benefit five organizations in which Hays took a lively interest: the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, the U.S. Capitol Historical Society, Former Members of Congress and Calvary Church (all of Washington, D.C.) and Second Church of Little Rock, Ark. Hays was a member of both churches. Sen. Dale Bumpers, D-Ark., who announced the fund, called Hays "first, last and always a devout Christian Baptist. He was a household word in our house from the time I was a child." "Sometimes you pay a high price for principle and Brooks paid a very high price," Bumpers told the 40 journalists and friends of Hays in the Mike Mansfield Room in the Senate, "but later Brooks said it was a small price to pay." Hays was defeated for a ninth term in Congress in 1958 after seeking to mediate a dispute between then-Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas and President Dwight D. Eisenhower, during the 1957 school desegregation crisis at Little Rock's Central High School. Former Congressman Walter Judd of Minnesota, who along with Hays founded Former Members of Congress, said, "Defeat in politics is no disgrace. Default is." Warren Cykins, a senior staff member at the Brookings Institute who was Hays' assistant in Congress, the State Department and the White House, said Hays "was always looking out for the little person. . .this Baptist from the Ozarks reached out and found me, from Boston and of the Jewish faith," Cykins said. "It was exciting to have such an association with him." Sen. David Pryor and Reps. Ed Bethune and Beryl F. Anthony Jr., members of Arkansas' congressional delegation, also attended the ceremony. Others in the audience were Hays' wife, Marion; his daughter, Betty Brooks Bell; and Clarence Cranford, pastor of Calvary Church when Hays was a member and president of the American Baptist Convention, at the same time Hays presided over the Southern Baptist Convention. (BP) Brooks Hays Remembered Four members of the Arkansas congressional delegation greet Marion Hays following a ceremony establishing a memorial fund in honor of her late husband, former Arkansas Congressman Brooks Hays. Hays, also a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, died in 1981. Joining Mrs. Hays are (from left) Sen. David H. Pryor, Rep. Ed Bethune, Rep. Beryl Anthony and Sen. Dale L. Bumpers, speaker for the announcement ceremony at the U.S. Capitol. (BP photo by Gerri Ratliff March 17,1983 9
