His paternal grandfather was newspaperman William Harding Mayes, Lt. Governor of Texas from 1913 to 1914 and the founder of the journalism school and first Dean of Journalism at the University of Texas.
Born in Mayfield, Kentucky, Mayes was educated at Norton's English and Classical School in Tennessee, Paducah District Methodist College in Kentucky and Vanderbilt University.
William Shakespeare | William Laud | William Blake | William | William III of England | William Morris | William McKinley | William Howard Taft | William Ewart Gladstone | William the Conqueror | William S. Burroughs | William Shatner | William Faulkner | William Randolph Hearst | William Wordsworth | William Tecumseh Sherman | William Hogarth | Prince William, Duke of Cambridge | William Penn | William Jennings Bryan | William Gibson | Warren G. Harding | William Wilberforce | William James | William Makepeace Thackeray | Fort William | William Hanna | William Hague | William III | William Hurt |