Bays "just got drawn" into helping kids

Erik Onstott
The Orange Leader

April 08, 2009 04:03 pm

— When his wife Joan went back to work — as a counselor at Oates Elementary School — after their children were grown, DuPont retiree Jim Bays said of helping out with functions at the school, “I just got drawn into it.”
Bays mentioned part of the reason he helped out was to return the help he and his wife got when they were first married — to “pay it forward,” as the expression goes.
“As we got older, we started paying back all the help we got when we were younger,” he said. “A lot of the ladies, their husbands are working and there aren’t a lot of men around to help them out.”
When he was working at DuPont, Bays said, he would go up to the school to help out in the afternoons; Bays continued to donate his time when he retired from DuPont in 2002. Most recently, on Tuesday evening he was serving nachos at Family Night at Oates.
“When it is TAKS time he is up here until 7:00 or 8:00 p.m. at night lending moral support and running out to get supper,” said Kathleen Rogers, assistant principal at Oates Elementary. “No task is too difficult or too much trouble. We count on Mr. Bays each time we have an event. His help is invaluable. He never seeks out recognition.”
Indeed, “the thanks I get is really great, and the people are appreciative. That’s all the recognition I ever expected,” Bays said. “There are people out there a lot more deserving than I would be."

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