Vivian Rose Hayes 1941-2010

HAYES

Posted By: Connie Swearingen (email)
Date: 2/27/2011 at 14:24:39

Sioux City Journal
7 November 2010

SIOUX CITY --Vivian Rose Hayes, of Indianapolis, Ind., formerly of Sioux City, succumbed to cancer at the age of 68 on Oct. 16, 2010.

Her Celebration of Life will be noon to 3 p.m. Friday, Nov. 12, with some words from friends and family at 1:30 pm., at The Chateau at Britton Falls, 13079 Del Webb Parkway in Fishers.

Vivian Hayes was born in Sioux City to Calvin and Helen Hayes on Nov. 11, 1941. She attended Colorado Women's College and was an avid Nebraska Cornhusker fan. She chose to work in the field of media buying and advertising, working in New York, Chicago, and Indianapolis. She was rumored to have argued politics with Andy Warhol and discussed art with Salvador Dali, having lived just across from the Playboy Mansion in Chicago in the 1960s. Vivian later produced a weekly radio program in New York, acted in several television and radio commercials, and hosted her own weekly television game show in Minneapolis.

Prior to her passing, she had just returned from a memorable road trip with her childhood friend Connie Hensley to visit her niece, Rebecca Kuker, grandnephew, Hayes, and grandniece, Bosley in Wyoming, as well as her sister, Ruth Hayes Bosley in Idaho. Her niece, Rachael Bridenstine and adopted nephew, Corey Stange, were constant confidants, and the sounding board for Vivian's omnipresent opinions on life, politics, fur coats, cats, Rush Limbaugh, and the joys of shopping on TV.

Vivian Hayes was a professional figure skater - a national champion "pair dancing" figure skater - and toured as a member of the "Ice Follies" in the 1970s. Her career in the advertising and media world started in the 1960s and included her endeared tenure at WTHR - NBC Indianapolis, where she became National Sales Manager - a particularly significant event in the "Mad Men" male-dominated world of advertising during those days. Vivian was a co-founder of the Network of Women in Business in Indianapolis and ultimately started her own company, Midwest Media Inc. She cherished dearly her lifelong relationships with coworkers, clients, and colleagues in the media industry in Indianapolis.

Vivian Hayes was a free spirited, independent woman who succeeded in a man's world. She was a wonderful aunt to her two nieces, an accomplished media executive, an ice skating champion, a surrogate mother to a select few, and a friend to all. When a nurse asked about her life just before her death, Vivian replied quite directly and succinctly, "I was a skater".

Vivian Hayes gave of herself without reservation. There was never a Christmas in the Hayes family that she did not play a major role. Without her overly voluminous, perfectly wrapped QVC gifts to her nieces and their kids, the family Christmas trees would have been barren. The same could be said by her friends and family of having lived life without Vivian.

Vivian was generous beyond measure, endearingly eccentric in her tastes, and as genuine of a human being as has ever skated this earth.