Wayne Wiley was a successful businessman, but his family says he also was a nature-loving, down-home, country boy.
“He could wear a suit and tie and be comfortable, but he wore bib overalls around the house,” said Sharon, his wife of 27 years.
Mr. Wiley, a tireless champion of his local community, died May 9 at age 82.
“He was always just a huge booster of Hillsboro and Jefferson County,” said his daughter, Mary Beth Stanfield of Hillsboro. “He was proud of this area, and he taught us to be.”
Mr. Wiley grew up on the family dairy farm in Hillsboro. He married a high school classmate in 1958 and they had three children before divorcing in 1986.
“He wanted to be a printer, and went to work for one,” Mary Beth said. “But when he asked for a raise and the guy wouldn’t give him one, he said, ‘I’ve got to get a new job.’ So he got on with a survey crew and loved it.”
In the mid-1970s, Mr. Wiley started Associated Land Surveyors in Hillsboro.
“My brothers were free labor,” Mary Beth said with a laugh. “He told them he was paying them in experience and learning a trade. They did surveying on weekends; then Dad would do all the drawing, all the plats during the week in the basement at Hillsboro Title Co.”
In 1989, Mr. Wiley was driving a tractor when its wheels slipped off the edge of the road and the tractor toppled over, pinning him underneath.
“He managed to pick it up twice, but couldn’t get it high enough to get his legs unstuck from under it,” Mary Beth said.
A Little League baseball team practicing nearby came to his rescue.
“Charlie Bieser found him, and he directed the boys to use their bats to lever the tractor up and Charlie dragged him out,” Mary Beth said.
One of the boys on the team was David Bieser, who would become Mr. Wiley’s stepson when he and Sharon married in 1995.
Mr. Wiley helped form the Hillsboro Chamber of Commerce in 1991.
One of the top priorities was to see the continuation of Hwy. 21 down to Hillsboro, which had stalled at Shady Valley for some time, Sharon said.
“All we heard at family gatherings was how bad Hwy 21 was,” Mary Beth said. “When Frank Roland’s wife was killed on Hwy. 21, Dad said, ‘That’s it. We have to get this done,’ and they formed the committee.”
With Mr. Wiley at its head, the newly formed Hwy. 21 Task Force went into high gear, speaking with legislators, getting involved with the East-West Gateway Council and collecting 1,600 signatures on a petition.
The ribbon-cutting for the final stretch of the highway was held in December 2008, four days after Mr. Wiley had knee-replacement surgery.
“He climbed the ladder to the flatbed they were using for a stage, gave his remarks and climbed down,” Sharon said. “Then he said, ‘Well, it’s done,’ and went home to rest.”
After he retired, Mr. Wiley built a hobby blacksmith shop.
“He got so good at it, people started asking him to make things,” Sharon said. “There are projects all over town, but the biggest one is the fancy ironwork at the Russell House.”
Mr. Wiley was involved with just about everything that went on in Hillsboro.
“He pulled Santa on the tractor in the Christmas parade,” Sharon said. “He loved to help people, mentoring people through all the various clubs he was involved in.”
Mr. Wiley served for 15 years as chair of the Armed Forces Ceremony held during the chamber’s annual Hillsboro Homecoming.
“We hope to continue it in his honor,” “chamber treasurer Mandy Alley said. “He made a lasting impact wherever he went.”
He also loved to travel.
“Going out west was our favorite,” Sharon said. “It was nothing for us to take off in the camper. He preferred that over flying so he could meet the people along the way.”
Sharon said she was grateful for the way she and her husband blended their families so seamlessly.
“Wayne loved all the kids without prejudice,” she said. “I found out he had marked his personal belongings with little notes saying who gets what, and there was no difference.”
Mr. Wiley had a deep faith.
“He’d get up in the middle of the night and read his devotional, then just sit and pray for us all for hours,” his daughter said.
Mr. Wiley had endured several health challenges over the years – back pain from the tractor accident, a heart attack in 2020, kidney problems – before being diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis. In March he had surgery to repair a ruptured artery in his nose, and never felt completely well afterward.
“I think he knew,” Sharon said. “He kept telling me, ‘I’m tired of this.’ He was ready.”
He died in the hospital, surrounded by family.
“Sharon had to make the decision to let him go,” Mary Beth said. “And we stood there and hung out with him for a while, talking about the old days and all the things we’d learned from him.”
Mr. Wiley was buried in his suspenders, in a casket made of reclaimed barn wood. His funeral procession was led by two grandsons in bib overalls, driving his beloved tractors, leading a bagpiper and the hearse to the cemetery.
“I know we’re all sinners,” Sharon said. “But if there was ever anybody close to perfect, it would be him.”
“Life Story,” posted Saturdays on Leader Publications’ website, focuses on one individual’s impact on his or her community.