Hays Hall was built in 2001 and was known simply as the New Residence Hall or "NRH" for the first 4 years.  In Spring 2005 the Board voted unanimously on naming the Residence Hall - Hays Hall after Margaret Parx Hays.

Margaret Parx Hays was truly a modern woman.  She practiced careers in higher education and the U.S. Foreign Service prior to reaching what many who know her would call a 'true calling,' community service.  Margaret was a student in a hurry.  Dual enrollment in high school and college classes is no newfangled idea.  She took four college classes in her senior year at Newsome Dougherty Memorial High School.  This enabled her to graduate from high school in 1929 and graduate from Gainesville Junior College in 1930!

By going to school in the summers, she received her B.A. degree from North Texas State Teachers College in 1931. Margaret spent the next eleven years working for North Texas in a secretarial and guidance counseling capacity, taking time out to receive her M.A. degree from the University of Michigan.   Due to the excitement of World War II and an 'itchy foot,' Margaret took advantage of the Department of State in the Foreign Service.

Margaret's foreign service career began as a code clerk in Buenos Aires during the war, and ended with the rank of Second Secretary and Consul.  Her foreign posts also included Bogota; Rio de Janeiro; Mexico City; Manila; and Hong Kong.  Her diplomatic  credentials include the signatures of presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy as well as Queen Elizabeth (for Hong Kong) and President Ramon Magsaysay of the Philippines.

So-called 'retirement' marked a beginning of Margaret's third career, community service.  From 1972 - 77, she was the first director of the Cooke County Mental Health Center and served as mayor of Gainesville from 1981-1983.  With her passion for history, she was one of the leaders of the movement to save the historic Gainesville firehouse and restore it to become the Morton Museum.  Margaret was Director of the museum in its infancy.  She was a prodigious grant writer, and her last two crusades in Gainesville were the preservation of the Santa Fe depot and the historic Jones Farm near Lake Ray Roberts.  Margaret was one of the founders of the Community Preservation Foundation.  In short, if you mention a local history project, Margaret was bound to be involved.

Margaret Parx Hays was awarded  the first "F.M. Hemphill Distinguished Alumni" by the NCTC Ex-Student Association in 1995.  Margaret left Gainesville in June of 2002 and currently lives in Arkansas.

Margaret Parx Hays infront of Hays Hall in 2005!

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