Dan T. Hayes may have retired from a career in education, but he never ended his involvement with the schools.
Mr. Hayes, who served in the Army during World War II, died on Friday — Veterans Day.
“He was family first — there were four of us children — then education, then the sports. That was his life’s passion,” said his daughter Lori Zupke.
Mr. Hayes was born in Fayetteville, Tenn., but lived in Akron from the age of 2. He graduated from Central High School and the University of Akron.
Mr. Hayes was employed by Akron Public Schools for 30 years, serving first as an elementary school English teacher, then as a junior high assistant principal and principal and Ellet High School principal. He ended his career as an administrator in charge of the district’s guidance counselors.
When he retired from Akron schools in 1979, he became the “towel boy” at the Scandinavian Health Spa, later known as Bally’s Health Spa, in the Merriman Valley, Zupke said.
“He would be there at 4 a.m., greet people, hand them their towels,” Zupke said. “He instituted a bulletin board with a word of the day. He worked there for 17 years.”
Zupke said her father garnered a new group of friends at the spa.
“He maintained his friendships,” she said, and kept in touch with former students. Among them is Joe Yost, football coach at Ellet.
“The thing none of us realized is that when we graduated from Ellet, our principal, Mr. Dan Hayes, was our principal for life,” Yost said. “He was always there if you needed counsel.
“He was a good guy,” Yost said. “Tough when he needed to be tough. Kind when he needed to be kind. His legacy has lived on all these years. He would encourage people to set their sights very high.”
Zupke, a retired high school math teacher who still works part time at Innes middle school, went into education herself because of her father.
“I liked the way he conducted himself,” she said. “He had high expectations of students. Discipline, firm, fair, consistent — all of that was part of our life growing up. It wasn’t a job. He would say he was going to school. He never said he was going to work.”
Mr. Hayes was a charter member of the Silver League, a softball league for seniors, and inducted into the Summit County Sports Hall of Fame in 2008. He was on the team up until last year, his daughter said, and played until he was 88 or 89, then was manager until he was 91.
“He absolutely enjoyed it,” Zupke said. “It was his social time. Our mother passed away in 1993, so that helped to fill that void.”
Mr. Hayes had been involved in competitive athletics since his freshman year at Central High School in 1938, according to Akron Beacon Journal archives. He lettered four years there on the track team, continuing the sport at the University of Akron for four years, earning MVP awards as a junior and senior. He served as a track official during his career with APS, receiving a 50-year service award for officiating and continuing to volunteer for City Series, district and regional meets.
During World War II, Mr. Hayes served as an Army technical sergeant in Italy. He recalled a mission to Bologna in a story he wrote for a 2004 series in the Beacon Journal:
“My first and plenty exciting. Took right waist over the target (a bridge). A hunk of flak burst through the window and over my head. It’s eerie-sounding stuff but the captain called it light anti-aircraft. No doubt I’ll be doing lots of praying soon as I hug the armor plating in the plane.”
Mr. Hayes was preceded in death by his wife of 42 years, Dorothy, and sisters Marjorie and Joanne.
He is survived by his children, Leslie (Mark) Scatterday, Lori (Bob) Zupke, Lisa Tell, and Dan (Laurie) Hayes; and grandchildren, Amy (Nick), Jason (Julie), Jeremy, Bobby, Courtney, Daniel and Jacob.
A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m. Tuesday at Hummel Funeral Home, 500 E. Exchange St., Akron. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made in Mr. Hayes’ honor to the College of Education Scholarship Fund at the University of Akron, Department of Development, Akron, OH 44325-2603.
Staff writer Marilyn Miller contributed to this report. Monica L. Thomas can be reached at 330-996-3827 or mthomas@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter @MLThomasABJ and https://www.facebook.com/MLThomasABJ.