- Born
- October 4, 1948 · Sedalia, MO
- Passed
- May 2, 2026 · Sedalia, MO
- He was
- A machinist for 38 years
Bob Hayes was born in Sedalia and buried in Sedalia, and in between he left exactly twice — once for the Army, and once for a week in Branson in 1994 that he described afterward as “fine.”
He was drafted in 1968 and served two years, most of it as a mechanic. He didn’t talk about it. When his grandson asked him directly, at sixteen, he said, “I fixed trucks. Somebody had to,” and then asked whether the boy had checked his oil lately. That was the end of it.
He came home and went to work at the rail shop, where he stayed thirty-eight years. He was a machinist, which he would want stated plainly, because he had strong opinions about people who called themselves engineers without the papers. He could hold a tolerance by feel. Younger men would bring him work to check and he would turn it over twice in his hands and hand it back and say what was wrong with it, and he was right.
Around the neighborhood he was the first call. Mowers, storm doors, a dishwasher that walked across the floor, a bicycle chain, a furnace at eleven at night in January. He never took money. He would accept a beer, or a plate of something, or nothing.
He could not tell you he loved you. He could rebuild the transmission in your first car over a weekend and hand you the keys without a word, and you would know.
He married Diane Kessler in 1971 and they had three children and, eventually, six grandchildren, all of whom learned to hand him tools before they learned to ride bikes. He kept a coffee can of drill bits on the bench that no one was permitted to reorganize. It is still there. It has been left alone.
He is survived by Diane; his children Michael, Sharon Hayes Delgado, and Kevin; six grandchildren; and his brother Wayne. He was preceded in death by his parents, Lowell and Marjorie Hayes, and by his daughter-in-law Anne.