Man Knows Not His Time: In Memorial of J. Hayes Hunter


Joseph. Hayes Hunter
July 21, 1918 - May 30, 2006
Cotati, California

Joseph Hayes Hunter (Hayes Hunter, J. Hayes Hunter), a retired school truancy officer who came to be known affectionately as “Hunter,” died Tuesday May 30, 2006, at the age of 87, in his Cotati home of complications from treatment of prostate cancer.

Many in the Rohnert Park-Cotati area remember the iconic Hunter, driving around in his red GMC Sierra Half Ton Pickup, his police radio crackling, as he caught kids playing hookey to take them back to school, or gleefully greeted friends and aquaitances with a grin and his favorite catch phrase “full of shit and twice as honery”.

“His mission was to keep kids in school,” said his wife, Grace Evans Hunter.

Born in Superior, Wis., in 1918. His parents moved to Oakland when he was 2 years old, and the family moved to Santa Rosa when he was 11.

Hunter’s first career was in the news business. After attending Santa Rosa Junior College, he studied journalism at UC Berkeley, and did graduate work at Stanford University.

Hunter worked for various newspapers in the Bay Area and later moved to Los Angeles to work for CBS, said his wife.

“He didn’t like it down there,” she said. “He came back up to the Bay Area and worked for the (Oakland) Tribune for several years. Then he decided to go back to school and get his teacher’s credential.”

He obtained a counseling degree from Sonoma State University.

He worked for Petaluma Jr. High and Rohnert Park Jr. High schools for over 30 years before he was hired by the Cotati-Rohnert Park Unified School District as a child welfare and attendance officer in 1979.

“He always had his badge in his pocket, and he was very proud of it,” said Larry Jones, a retired Rohnert Park police officer who spent many years working with Hunter.

Jones, known to students as “Officer Friendly,” said Hunter helped start a model crisis intervention program for truant kids that was the first of its kind in Sonoma County.

“He had a big police radio on the side of his hip and he’d pick kids up in his truck and deliver them to the school,” said Jones.

He enjoyed talking to people from all over the world on his ‘ham radio’ and was known to spend hours typing morse code, while speaking it out loud (dit dah dit dah dah dit dah), or reciting his call sign “WB6KLU”.

The devoted husband of Grace Evans Hunter of Cotati. Loving father of Deb Hunter-Walker and her husband Dennis of MI and Joseph Hayes Hunter III and his wife Kathleen of OR. Dear step-father of Monty Dunton of Petaluma, Tracey Coddington and her husband David of Caspar, CA and Rodney Dunton of Petaluma. Grandfather of 8 and great-grandfather of 2. Survived by his sister Mary Jane of Frieburg of Norman, OK and numerous nieces, nephews and cousins. Foster father of Jason and Austin Hunter.

Memorial contributions may be made to a favorite charity.

Filed under: In Memorial, Propy's Blog on May 29th, 2006 No Comments »