Ray G. Hays was born April 8, 1904 in Jackson County, Kentucky. He was a son of Green V. and Laura Hays - one of the 13 children belonging to this family. Ray completed the first 6 grades of elementary school and dropped out because he was needed at home. For fourteen years, he worked beside his father and brothers on the hillside farm. Together they logged, cut cross ties, cradled wheat, shocked fodder, and eked out a living. Specially influenced by his godly mother, Ray began to sense that something more was needed to make his life meaningful. He experienced a very genuine conversion at age 26, which caused him to hunger for more education. He returned to the sixth grade and for six years continued his elementary and secondary studies. Ray then went to the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago where he studied for three years without returning home. Upon graduation, he came home to find that his parental home had just burned to the ground. With his brother Roy, the home was rebuilt before he went to Hamilton, Ohio where he founded the Peoples Gospel Mission in a converted bar known as the Green Onion. While in Hamilton, Ray met and married Janie Bowling, formerly of Laurel County, Kentucky. On June 29, 1935, they were married. Within a few years, the Kentucky hills beckoned and the family moved to Gray Hawk. There a home was built and a family of eleven children was raised. Seven sons and four daughters were nurtured in this home, each one finding encouragement to "do something with your life that will be of benefit to others."

Four daughters - Alma Shouse of Lawrenceburg, Ruth Sorrell of Goshen, Indiana, Linda Lakes of Gray Hawk, Kentucky., and Judy Shepherd of Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, all became teachers. The oldest son Talmadge is a doctor in Pineville, Kentucky. Calvin is a minister and businessman. Truman is a businessman. Ray is a recruiting officer for the United States Navy. Paul is a Sergeant with the Kentucky State Police. Carl is an inspector with the Kentucky department of mining services. One son, Henry, was tragically killed February 1, 1968 in McKee, Kentucky.

Ray Hays was ordained to the ministry of the Reformed Church in America in 1948 at the renowned Marble Collegiate Church in New York City. Subsequently, he became the Evangelist at large for the Kentucky
mountain work of the Reformed Church in America. In that capacity, he founded churches in such remote areas as Salt Rock, Sand Springs, Sinking Valley, Buncomb and Cool Springs, while regularly conducting
services of worship five times each Sunday.

Until months before his death on March 6, 1988, Ray Hays was planning to go yet once more back into the hills to tell the folks, "We have a big, kind and merciful God - and we need to get to know him."

On March 9, 1988, Ray G. Hays was laid to rest in the family cemetery at Gray Hawk - the last of his generation yet forever first in the hearts of his wife, his daughters and his sons.

Source: 17 March 1988 - The Sun-Courier