Howard H "Tim" Hays, Jr. (June 2, 1917 – October 14, 2011) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning publisher of the Press-Enterprise in Riverside, California.
[1] He was a lifelong advocate for open government and gained national fame for his efforts to defend and define First Amendment rights of the press.
In 1967, he supervised the publication of a series of more than 100 articles exposing abuse of authority by a judge who served as the conservator for the Agua Caliente Indians in Palm Springs.
[1][3] His subsequent efforts to fight restrictions on the freedom of the press that local government officials and judges attempted to impose resulted in the Press-Enterprise taking two open-government cases all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
[2] Hays played an active role in advocating for the establishment of a campus of the University of California in Riverside.
The efforts of Hays and his fellow Riverside-area civic leaders lead to the opening of the University of California, Riverside in 1954.
[1] Hays and the other civic leaders advocacy ultimately resulted in Duane Roberts, a local businessman, buying the hotel in 1992 and investing millions of dollars to restore and reopen it.
[1] The Press-Enterprise office building was named the Howard H "Tim" Hays Media Center when it was dedicated in 2006.