Diane Sawyer Mother Dies, Jean Sawyer Hayes, ABC news anchor Diane Sawyer's mother and the wife of E.P. "Tom" Sawyer, has died in Louisville at 94.
A civic leader and longtime elementary school teacher, Hayes had been ill for some time and passed away on Wednesday.
Diane Sawyer said in a brief phone interview Thursday morning that her mother was a force of nature, optimistic, spunky and energetic — qualities that served her well working with young children.
Years after her three decades in the classroom, her former students stopped her on the street, in restaurants and at the grocery store to tell of her impact. "Her students by the hundreds were jolted into the possibilities of their lives," Sawyer said. "She was a pioneering spirit."
Hayes, a native of Monticello, Ky., often was seen out with her famous daughter when Sawyer visited Louisville for private trips and TV assignments, including a stop four years ago to tape a report on the ways local businesses where Sawyer grew up were dealing with the economy.
Hayes' late husband, Erbon Powers "Tom" Sawyer was a former Jefferson County attorney and judge-executive. A Republican, he served from his appointment in 1963 until his death in a car accident in September 1969. The 550-acre state park in eastern Louisville was named for him.
The former Jean Dunagan was born in 1920 and grew up on the family's Wayne County farm. She met her husband, a fellow Western Kentucky University student, when the two were taking summer classes at Lindsey Wilson College.
Hayes's roommate was Sawyer's sister, and she made an instant impression as the prettiest girl on campus, the late Sawyer once told The Courier-Journal. They married in 1939.
Jean Sawyer earned her education degree and taught at several elementary schools, including Gideon Shryock on Browns Lane, while her husband climbed the ranks. She described teaching as "one of the nicest things you can do."
Diane was her pupil in third grade at the former Melbourne Heights and her mother said that while it wasn't the "best situation ... I treated her just exacly like the other students. Days went by when I didn't even think of her as being my daughter."
In the same 1963 newspaper profile on an accomplished local family, older daughter Linda Sawyer was then runner-up for the 1961 Junior Miss America and a sophomore at Wellesley College.
Diane was a senior at Seneca High, winner of the 1963 national Junior Miss pageant and headed off shortly to join her sister at Wellesley. Diane Sawyer would later return to Louisville, became the "weather girl" at WLKY and jumped to the White House press staff before returning to television news.
Linda Sawyer Frankel became a fashion editor at Vogue Magazine in New York. The later became an advertising executive in Miama.
GALLERY: DIane Sawyer through the years
As youngsters, neither girl was allowed to play with neighborhood friends until she finished practicing the piano. Going steady with boys also was nixed, a rule the parents explained didn't create drama because their daughters were too busy with school, church and other activities.
"We are this type of family ... we didn't send them to Sunday School, we went with them. Whenever they had a problem, it was our problem. If a school project meant chasing dragonflies, we chased dragonflies," Hayes said then.
Republican Gov. Louie Nunn appointed Jean Sawyer the chairwoman of the 24-member Kentucky Commission on Women which worked to highlight women's issues — the need for education, equal employment opportunities and day care for children of working mothers.
She quit after 11 months, citing the lack of funding and support for the commission by Kentucky legislators.
The elder Sawyer remarried in 1975 to Ray Hayes, a psychiatrist and one-time superintendent of Central State Hospital. She was widowed a second time in 1997.
Five years ago, Hayes donated $1 million to match another $1 million from the state to build a community center at the park to honor her late husbands.
"After all these years, she was still very much plugged in to what was going on there," said park manager Clay Foreman.
Frankel and Sawyer remained close to their mother, talking daily between monthly visits to Louisville. Hayes, meanwhile, kept in close contact with dozens of cousins, nieces, nephews and grandchildren, Frankel said.
"She was really the center of our lives," Frankel said. "She was always the one that people called then they wanted good advice, or help with anything. She was so capable and concerned, and really devoted to her family."
A visitation is scheduled from 3 to 8 p.m. Friday at Pearson's Funeral Home, 149 Breckenridgle Lane, in St. Matthews. Private services will follow.
