Dr. Hayes was my advisor in seminary and co-leader of my contextual education group. Not only that, but I also had him for both sections of Old Testament/Hebrew Bible and a seminar class on the Psalms. So we got to know one another fairly well. He also welcomed my family to his Alabama farm on two different occasions.

But my best story regarding Dr. Hayes involved sharing during a critique in con ed. I had noticed in my courses with Dr. Hayes that he often engaged in self-deprecating humor when it came to his own publications (of course referring to himself as John Smell Fungus!). He clearly had a humble view of himself that at times seemed to border low self-esteem (in my overconfident seminarian perspective at the time!). Consequently, during a critique of one another I told him that he should take more pride in his work and not be so self-deprecating. The result was this: A number of weeks later during my second section of OT/Hebrew Bible (a large lecture-style course) Dr. Hayes was lecturing when he cited some excellent OT scholarship. The work was his own, and he referred to it as "work done by the preeminent OT scholar, Dr. John Hayes!" He then looked around the room, and said, "is Tony Griffin in here?" I raised my hand and when we made eye contact he said, "How's that?" My response was: "Much better!" No one in that large class had a clue what was happening.

He was a wonderful man. I will miss him.