If you knew the late Little Star Montessori School founder Rayma Hayes, many of your mental images of her are probably of her sitting: cross-legged on the floor with a child working with the golden beads, on a bean bag chair with a youngster in her lap reading a book, at a table in a corner helping a student thread a needle, just offstage with a script, waiting to give a prompt in a school play. Often a whirlwind of activity, Rayma always made time to sit with children.
Thus it is fitting that Little Star is “honoring Rayma’s incredible legacy and generosity” (and that of her late husband, John Hayes) with a stone and wood memorial bench on Little Star’s Winthrop campus playgound, a school press release said.
Donated by longtime Little Star supporters and close friends of John and Rayma, Ted and Iris Wagner, the bench was designed and constructed by Dan Miller and Kelly Wastman, with direction from longtime Little Star teachers Kim Claussen and Michelle Shaffer and assistance from Rising Tide Construction.
The bench features carved stone legs that depict children’s books and the Montessori philosophy books that Rayma used to shape the Little Star programs, as well as a stone seat and a wooden slab backrest. The many hours Rayma spent reading to and with children at Little Star will be memorialized in this bench, where generations of Little Star students in the future will curl up with a book, alone, or with a friend or teacher. Situated under one of Rayma’s favorite trees on the school playground, the bench will “inspire teachers and children to read together for many years to come,” the press release said.
Rayma passed away in March 2017; John passed away just recently, in July 2023. Rayma founded Little Star in 1982, in collaboration with a group of teachers, and both John and Rayma dedicated much of their lives to the school, which provides joyful early learning opportunities to children in the Methow Valley. Their impact on the Methow Valley community extends well beyond Little Star, though, and is difficult to quantify. Those wishing to honor the lives and work of John and Rayma Hayes are encouraged to donate to the Rayma Hayes Financial Aid Fund, which distributes more than $120,000 each year in need-based financial assistance to families.
For more information visit littlestarschool.org/give-today or email brad@littlestarschool for more information.
