When Bill and Connie Hayes were growing up in Mifflin County, they both say, their parents instilled in them the importance of supporting their community and helping their neighbors. Today, the couple not only lives according to these values, but they actively encourage and inspire others to do the same.
For their many contributions to the local community and Penn State University, the Hayeses will be recognized as the university’s 2025 Renaissance Fund honorees on Nov. 11 at a reception supporting the newly created William P. and Connie H. Hayes Renaissance Scholarship Fund.
Culture of Giving
Bill grew up as one of six children on a large dairy farm in Belleville. Like many of his neighbors in the Kishacoquillas Valley, he was deeply involved in 4-H, and says his mother was instrumental in getting a large 4-H Horse and Pony Club up and running in the area.
The farm was situated in the heart of Amish country, where the concept of caring for neighbors was entrenched in daily life — something the Hayes family experienced firsthand when one of their barns burned down.
“Amish farmers came from miles around to rebuild a modern new dairy barn. The women, along with my mother, would prepare hot lunches and serve the volunteers at long, outdoor wooden tables,” he says. “We truly grew up in a culture of neighbors helping neighbors. It inspired me then and still does today.”
Still, he says, his parents were his biggest inspiration.
“I can’t give my parents enough credit for creating a culture of community engagement in the Hayes household when I was growing up. Not only did they live by example as highly active community leaders and volunteers, but we would openly discuss the importance of giving back at the nightly dinner table,” he says.
As Connie was growing up nearby in Burnham, she says, her parents were likewise actively involved in community service. Among other things, her father served on borough council and worked to clean up the streams where he loved to fish, while her mother was a long-time volunteer with the Girl Scouts.
“Their volunteerism was something that I was always aware of,” she says. “One of the important things for both Bill and me is that we have instilled that in our children, and we see them doing the same with theirs. That’s how you build that culture of giving.”
Kish Comes Knocking
The couple met through Bill’s sister when Connie was a high school senior and Bill was a freshman at Lafayette College, where he majored in American civilization and English literature. They started dating the following year and married right before Bill shipped off to basic training with the United States Coast Guard after graduation.
Connie, who majored in math at Elizabethtown College, began her professional career as a substitute teacher but soon ascertained that teaching was not for her. She instead became a dental assistant, a job that served her well because she could always find work as the couple relocated throughout Bill’s four years of active duty.
While Bill was stationed in Yorktown, Virginia, Connie gave birth to the couple’s first two children, Parker and Maggie. Upon the completion of Bill’s military service, the young family returned to the Kish Valley to live on the Hayes farm, which remains in the family to this day.
Soon, Bill says, “The bank came knocking.”
“The bank” was Kish Bank, where Bill’s father had served on the board of directors. Although Bill had dreams of going to law school, he recalls, “Connie suggested that a little health insurance might be a good thing. That was just before we had our third child, so she must have been prescient about that.”
He accepted a job as a management trainee/teller in 1977 and quickly moved up the ladder, becoming the bank’s president and CEO by 1983, along with chairman in 1993. He held those positions until taking a step back in 2023 as his son, Greg, took over as president and CEO.
The bank’s growth mirrored Bill’s rapid trajectory in those early years.
“It was a very small country bank when I started,” he says. “Fortunately, the timing was good; banking was just going through deregulation, so some of the obstacles to competition were knocked down. … The next eight to 10 years were years of tremendous growth for Kish.”
Bill and the board envisioned Kish Bank’s future as that of a regional community bank, extending into several counties. In 2003, the Hayeses made the move to State College in support of Kish Bank’s expansion into the Centre County market.
Under Bill’s leadership, Kish Bank has grown from having $10 million in assets, 17 employees, and three locations in Kish Valley to today having $1.6 billion in assets, 250 employees, and 20 locations across five Pennsylvania counties and northeastern Ohio.
But beyond the numbers, Bill seems most proud of the philanthropic culture that has developed at Kish Bank over the years.
Leading by Example
“Making lives better is more than just delivering banking services,” he says. “We encourage our employees to volunteer; we pay them to take time off to do it. We direct our philanthropic giving to organizations where employees are actively engaged. … Over time it developed into a culture at Kish that today is commonly accepted as one of our highest values.”
Focusing on children, housing, health, and economic development, Kish Bank and its employees have supported dozens of local organizations, including the Centre County Youth Service Bureau, Coaches vs. Cancer, Centre Volunteers in Medicine, Habitat for Humanity, and many more. Kish Bank also hosts an annual Celebration of Community event in which they honor local organizations and individuals for their contributions to the local community.
The Hayeses are strong supporters of the arts and have given philanthropically to organizations like Penn State’s Center for Performing Arts and the Palmer Museum of Art, where Connie has served on the advisory board and the family has sponsored an interactive gallery, The Kish Bank and William P. Hayes Family Exploration Gallery.
“We always have felt that the arts are kind of a keystone to quality of life,” Bill explains.
Health, children, and education have also been priorities of the couple. Connie has served on committees for Easter Seals, Pennsylvania Pink Zone, Kish for the Cure, Centre Safe, and the Mount Nittany Health Foundation Charity Ball, to name a few, while Bill is currently chair of the Mount Nittany Health Foundation and a trustee for Juniata College. Some of his past positions include chairing the Lewistown Hospital board and serving on the board of the United Way of Mifflin-Juniata and the YMCA. Bill is also the current president of Centre Hills Country Club and has served in leadership positions with the American Bankers Association and Pennsylvania Bankers Association.
Gina Ikenberry, chair of the Renaissance Fund committee, says of the couple, “Bill and Connie are not only amazing volunteers, but their energy and enthusiasm is so infectious that it inspires others to get involved.”
Amish Connections
One of Bill’s first forays into health care volunteerism occurred back in 1979, when a polio outbreak swept through one of the local Amish sects. Bill says he worked with Amish church leaders to convince reluctant members to accept inoculation against the disease, closing his bank branch to the public for one week to turn it into a vaccination clinic — an effort that attracted national attention.
“There were big television trucks with satellite dishes parked along the highway, so we hung black curtains on the windows to offer privacy, which helped to cement a relationship and trust,” he says.
That relationship was further strengthened in 1992, when an arsonist burned down six Amish barns and a schoolhouse nearby. This was another incident that attracted national attention, and Bill would hold weekly press conferences with media outlets at the Kish Bank branch as the community came together to rebuild the barns.
The Amish do not typically accept outside assistance, Bill says, but people wanted to help and began sending checks to the bank. Tellers spent days opening duffel bags full of checks, many for $5 or $10, he says. Author James Michener sent a check for $10,000. Soon, they had accumulated over $1 million in donations.
“It really was a phenomenon of giving,” Connie says.
Connie herself had developed a different kind of relationship with their Amish neighbors during Bill’s early years with the bank.
The couple had been dabbling in dealing Pennsylvania antiques when Connie learned of buyers being interested in Amish quilts. While she was focused on raising three children, she befriended an Amish woman named Ruth who introduced her to other Amish families and accompanied her from farm to farm, where she would buy quilts to sell to collectors, tracing their origins through documentation found in family Bibles.
“I ended up writing an article that was published in an antiques publication, and it just evolved from there,” she says.
She became an appraiser for Delaware’s Winterthur Museum and is nationally recognized as an authority on antique and Amish textiles. One of her collections of Amish quilts is currently housed in the American Folk Art Museum in New York City.
A True Partnership
The couple are big Penn State sports fans who also enjoy golfing and spending time at their Mifflin County “retreat” along Kish Creek, where they host fundraisers as well as the family Thanksgiving celebration. Their family includes daughter Maggie, who resides in Richmond, Virginia, with her son, Anderson, and her husband, Byron; son Greg, who lives in State College with his wife, Meghan, and their children, Aidan, Sarah, and Declan; and their eldest son, Parker, who passed away in 2009 at the age of 36, and whose widow, Jennifer, remains close with the family.
Bill continues to serve as the executive chairman at Kish Bank, a position he says is “not something I’ll probably ever totally wean myself off,” while Connie continues to host and cook for fundraisers and other events.
“I have been the restaurant of choice when it came to interviewing new doctors or administrators for the hospital many, many times,” she laughs.
The Renaissance Fund honor will add one more accolade to Bill’s many awards, including the Juniata Valley Council Boy Scouts of America’s Joseph V. and Suzanne Paterno Community Impact Award, the PA Bankers Advocate of the Year Award, and recognition by the New York City Fire Department for his outstanding support of the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund.
He is proud to share this particular honor with his bride of 54 years.
“I could not ever have done what I do without Connie as my active partner. We do a lot of fundraising in our home or through activities at the bank that Connie is central to,” he says. “We do what we do for the same reasons. It’s not for our personal gain. It’s because we really believe in the causes we support.” T&G
To make a gift to the William P. and Connie H. Hayes Renaissance Scholarship Fund, visit raise.psu.edu/renaissance2025.
Karen Walker is a freelance writer in State College.
