Jr. Hardy V. Hayes

June 22, 1924 – August 18, 2015

Hardy was born in Nashville, Tennessee to Hardy and Susie May Hayes but grew up in Northern Kentucky. He had one sister named Alma Joyce who was five years younger than he. At the age of twelve Hardy responded to an invitation to accept the Lord as his personal Savior. He was nurtured by a caring pastor and became firmly grounded in the truth which sustained him in the military and the rest of his life.

He enlisted in the Army May 5, 1943. He sailed to England in April 1944 and was assigned to Patton’s Third Army. They left Southhampton on July 30, 1944 and arrived on Utah Beach on August 6, 1944. First contact with the enemy was on December 26, 1944 in Saarlauten, Germany on the Siegfried Line and was there during the Battle of the Bulge. He had several close calls with death and was wounded when they were preparing to cross the Rhine river.

According to Hardy, “VE Day” ended the war for me on May 8, 1945 at Hannover, Germany facing the Russians across the river. The entire 95th Infantry Division, now up to full strength with some replacements that had arrived from the States only a few days earlier, returned home on the USS General Blackford to a hero’s welcome on July 4, 1945. We disembarked in Boston. The entire division was put on a train and we made our way across the US stopping many times to let men off near their home towns. I went home to my parents who lived in Phoenix. During the time at home, the atomic bomb brought the Pacific War to an end and we were given another 30 day furlough.”

In 1946 after being discharged from the Army, Hardy enrolled as a student in John Brown University in Arkansas. Friends encouraged him to work as announcer in the campus radio station, KUOA. God called him to Japan to serve as a missionary and to start a Christian radio station there. In March of 1950 Hardy met Lois Simmelink who was a single missionary serving with the Far Eastern Gospel Crusade as a hostess in Japan. After courtship they were married in the Emperor’s refurbished dairy barn on October 3, 1950. After three years in Japan they returned to the US where their only daughter, Mary Sue was born in 1954. She spent most of her life in a Christian home for people with disabilities in Wisconsin.

After returning to the US God directed Hardy and Lois to join World Radio Missionary Fellowship and spent four years working in their missionary radio station, HCJB in Quito, Ecuador. After leaving Ecuador he managed Christian radio stations in Orlando, Florida and Green Bay, Wisconsin. He then served eleven years with Northwestern College Radio as Director of Operations for nine radio stations in five locations. He was then called to serve as Director of the World Radio Network and helped to establish Christian radio stations along the US/Mexico border. He helped to establish radio stations in Brownsville, Laredo and Corpus Christi, Texas. God used him to help Rio Grande Bible Institute begin Radio Esperanza (Radio Hope) in Edinburg, Texas.

In June 1989 Hardy and Lois retired and moved to Bradenton Missionary Village in Bradenton, Florida where Hardy spent hours daily servicing computers for fellow residents.

God gave Hardy a very satisfying life serving the Kingdom of God in very significant radio ministries that have reached a multitude of people of many nationalities with the Gospel of Christ.

Hardy is preceded in death by his first wife, Lois, his second wife, Alice and his daughter, Mary Sue. He is survived by his wife, Carol.

A graveside service with Military Honors will be held on Monday, Aug. 24th at Bushnell National Cemetery.

(Most of this information was written by Lois Hayes. Since her passing Hardy met Alice, who was a missionary widow living in the same retirement village. They were married and lived in the village until her passing. More information and dates can be obtained from friends like Keith Robb and Paul and Karla Say, still living at il Villaggio in Bradenton, FL)