John F. Hayward

1937 - 2024

News story
By Mark Zaborney
Blade staff writer

John F. Hayward, a lawyer and long-serving trustee of the Toledo Lucas County Public Library who also oversaw growth in programs and enrollment as Mercy College president, died Jan. 27 at Kingston of Sylvania. He was 86.

He had Parkinson's disease, his family said. Formerly of the historic Westmoreland neighborhood of central Toledo and LaSalle, Mich., he lived most recently in Sylvania Township.

Mr. Hayward retired in 2014 as president of Mercy College of Ohio, which focuses on health science studies. The school then offered more than a dozen degree programs, compared with three when he began eight years earlier, and had 1,100 enrolled students, 600 more than in 2006.

"I've had several people tell me he was the smartest guy they ever knew, which was nice to hear," his son J.P. Hayward said. "He shared that gift and put that to work at the college."

He became the third president of the college, an affiliate of what is now Bon Secours Mercy Health, two years after the death of his wife, Mary Beth Hayward, who had been an associate professor of the Medical College of Ohio school of nursing.

"He was everybody's definition of a good man," said Robert Maxwell, a former chairman of the Mercy College board and a retired chief executive of the Lathrop Co. "He was successful at being a son, a husband and a father, and a grandfather and great-grandfather, and community servant, and a friend, really."

Lori Edgeworth, hired to the college in 2009, moved in 2011 to a position, director of assessment and planning, that reported directly to Mr. Hayward. He assured her, "'You can learn what you don't know,'" she recalled. "John hired the person. He was looking for people skills. That's what mattered to him.

"He trusted the people," said Mrs. Edgeworth, now vice president for enrollment and partnerships. "He told you what he expected, and he looked at you and said, 'Go do it.'

"He had a presence about him. He gave respect to anyone he was speaking with, therefore you respected him, because it was a mutual respect."

Jennifer Discher, Mercy Health vice president of mission in the Toledo market, said that Mr. Hayward was dignified, exuded class, and was a quintessential statesman.

"John was a supporter of the Sisters of Mercy and I think he witnessed to what their founder Mother Catherine McAuley espoused: 'Try to meet all with peace and ease,'" Ms. Discher wrote in an email. As a Mercy College board member and as president, he enjoyed seeing students learn.

He spoke to students during Martin Luther King, Jr., Day commemorations about justice and the cases that followed the 1970 shootings at Kent State University. He served as a special counsel to the Ohio attorney general in the aftermath of the incident.

"John valued the work of higher education and the transformation that can occur when students make connections between education, service, and justice," Ms. Discher wrote.

He closed his law career as a partner in the health law practice group of the firm of Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick. He'd earlier been a Lucas County assistant prosecutor and a founding principal in the firm of Hayward, Cooper, Straub, Walinski & Cramer. He was a former president of the Toledo Bar Association and the Ohio State Bar Foundation, and served on the state bar's board of governors.

Mr. Hayward joined the Toledo Lucas County Public Library board of trustees in 1973, succeeding his father, attorney Franklin Hayward, who died. He remained on the board for 31 years, tying the service record of Thomas Anderson, a library spokesman said in 2004, when Mr. Hayward announced his retirement.

Along the way, he was board president seven times and worked with three directors. During his board service, voters approved an operating levy and ballot measures to fund a new branch building, improvements to others - and a $24.9-million expansion of Main Library downtown.

He also helped create the Library Legacy Foundation, a first of its kind in Ohio, to allow philanthropic contributions to the library system.

"He's always ready to look beyond today," said the late Clyde Scoles, then library director, at Mr. Hayward's retirement. "He wants to know what we are looking at in 15 years, 20 years."

Jason Kucsma, who succeeded Mr. Scoles, said in a statement: "John Hayward was a visionary who saw, appreciated, and advocated for the critical role the library plays in strengthening our communities.

"So much of our work today is informed by his commitment to the library as a cornerstone of democracy," said Mr. Kucsma, the library system's executive director and fiscal officer.

John Franklin Hayward was born Nov. 3, 1937, to Anna Mae and Franklin Hayward, the first of what would be four children. He was president of his 1955 graduating class at Central Catholic High School. He was a 1959 graduate of the University of Notre Dame, which he attended on a Navy ROTC scholarship. Commissioned for Navy duty afterward, he served aboard the USS Independence.

He received his law degree in 1966 from Georgetown University.

He and the former Mary Beth Ludwig married Aug. 25, 1962. She died Jan. 20, 2004. Their daughter Elizabeth Hayward Bonifas died Oct. 3, 2013.

Surviving are his wife, Jeanie Bugert Hayward, whom he married in 2005; sons John P. Hayward, Thomas Hayward, and Ethan Hayward; daughter, Bridget Kahle; stepson, Michael Bugert; stepdaughters Kristi DelVerne, Gretchen Williams, and Jennifer Norman; sisters Kristi Brewer and Sally Marlowe; brother, Richard Hayward; 10 grandchildren; a great-granddaughter, and 13 step-grandchildren.

Visitation will be from 4-8 p.m. Friday at Walker Funeral Home, Sylvania Township. A memorial Mass will begin at 11 a.m. Saturday at Corpus Christi University Parish.

The family suggests tributes to the Library Legacy Foundation of Toledo Lucas County Public Library.