Not that many years ago, 66-year-old Jay Malone admitted in a whimsical way, “I’m still searching for my purpose in life.”
After retiring in 2024, he apparently found the answer.
By profession a director of academic and research organizations, he has embraced volunteerism and serving humankind. He wakes up every morning with a smile on his face and a mission on his mind.
Through Sunnyside Presbyterian Church, Jay serves and prepares meals for Hope Ministries … is a shepherd for children’s and youth ministries … visits members who can’t attend church … and coordinates Sunnyside’s volunteer opportunities with Cultivate Food Rescue. He is the moderator for Sunnyside’s Deacons.
He also volunteers two or three times a week at Cultivate —where unused but good food is picked up from groceries, restaurants and manufacturers and then distributed to those in need. “What a fabulous program,” he says.
A father of three and married to his wife Becky, Jay also is involved in the Neighbor to Neighbor program — teaching English to refugees a couple of times a week and helping them learn to drive.
Drive? He certainly has his own drive.
Here are nine things to know about Jay:
1
He grew up during desegregation in the South — in Natchez and Jackson, Mississippi. He is shocked now when he thinks back to the inequalities of life. “We always had a maid and I had no idea why we had a bathroom in the car port.”
The oblivion of that time still makes him uncomfortable. It bothers him that people he dearly loved were not trying harder to improve the racial divide.
Of course, life is better now in his home state but still a mess in other ways, according to Jay. “Sometimes, I wonder if I should return to Mississippi and do my small part in trying to make it better.”
2
He remembers helping his oldest brother deliver the Jackson Clarion Ledger newspaper. “I folded the papers and then tossed them out of the car while he drove. We probably had 200 customers.”
They would drive right by the home of Eudora Welty, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient. “She never took the paper and I always wondered why,” Jay recalls.
Later in life, he discovered that the newspaper owners at the time were segregationists and that didn’t sit well with Welty — or Jay.
3
Jay’s father, Dick Malone, was a rags-to-riches story. He grew up dirt poor on the Louisiana-Texas border. He dreamed of college, but it was beyond his reach until he served during World War II. With the GI Bill, he decided to attend the University of Texas. But he couldn’t find anyone to pick him up while hitchhiking to Austin.
“After a couple of hours he finally said, ‘To heck with it, I’ll go to LSU instead,’” Jay says. “He crossed the highway and the first car that went by picked him up. He went to Baton Rouge and that’s where he met my mother.”
He went on to become a CEO of hospitals in Dallas and Jacksonville after starting his career as a cookie salesman.
4
Jay attended Mississippi College, the University of South Florida and Jacksonville Junior College during an academic career that he calls “checkered.”
He met Becky in Jacksonville and they married when he was just 20. “I wasn’t even old enough to drink, but then it didn’t really matter since I grew up in a Baptist home,” Jays says with a smile.
After he graduated, they decided to go on an adventure. “We sold everything, and with my father’s help, bought a pop-up camper,” he remembers fondly. “We visited all the national parks while working through the South and eventually made it up to Seattle. We ran out of money after four months.”
Both of them then worked for 18 months in St. Croix in the Caribbean as part of a Lutheran Social Services program for abused and abandoned children.
5
About that time, Jay read the book, “What Color is Your Parachute?” to see if he could figure out what profession might suit him best. He did love history and so becoming a history professor was the conclusion.
He returned to the University of Florida and received his Masters (1991) and PhD (1996) in the history of science. It was during this time that he felt he had become an atheist. He said he had a difficult time correlating believing with objective reasoning.
6
With his atheist leanings at that time, he couldn’t call it divine intervention that after he completed his dissertation (on Colonial planter/naturalist William Dunbar), he quickly received a job offer. He accepted and became the executive director of the History of Science Society (HSS), based then at the University of Washington in Seattle.
He led HSS for more than 20 years — at Washington for five years, the University of Florida for seven and then Notre Dame beginning in 2010.
Under Jay’s leadership, the Society helped the public understand scientific processes and help to further scientific research. He also oversaw a quarterly newsletter for the more than 3,000 HSS members worldwide.
He enjoyed being at Notre Dame and admits that he “recaptured God” there. “It was uplifting to walk into Geddes Hall (where his office was) and see the inscription of ‘God is Love,’ above the door,” he says.
7
For the last seven years, Jay has been involved in South Bend Community Rowing as a member of an “eight” — a racing shell with eight rowers using sweep oars. The competitive season starts with the Chicago Sprints Regatta in early July.
He loves the teamwork and the workouts — often four times a week with a 5:45 a.m. start on Fridays. He and Becky live on the St. Joseph River across from the Notre Dame Boathouse.
“It’s hard to describe the exhilaration of being on the water when it is perfectly still in the early morning,” Jays says.
He wonders what one of his older brothers would say of Jay’s fitness regimen after he once told Jay, “You have the body of a reader.”
8
After recovering from a hip replacement last December, Jay is back riding his bike around town. “I especially like to ride in the snow,” he admits. “I have a bike with fat tires.”
A Southerner by blood, Jay nevertheless embraces South Bend’s winters so much that he once had a bumper sticker on his car that read, “I Love Snow.”
9
Jay has been retired since 2024 after his 20-plus years with HSS and then a two-year stint as the director of the Association of College and Research Libraries.
He stays in South Bend because of the opportunities for volunteering, his adventures in rowing, his church involvement and Notre Dame. “Notre Dame offers so much to do,” he says.
And Jay himself is always around to offer a helping hand.
Bill Moor, who started at the Tribune in 1973, served as sports editor and as a human-interest columnist during his tenure. Contact him at bry14zzo@gmail.com
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Malone found life in South Bend winters, volunteer work ∣ Moor’s The 9
Reporting by Bill Moor, Special to The Tribune / South Bend Tribune
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