William C. Mays, a successful dentist at Kiowa, Kan., and the present mayor of that city, was born June 3, 1872, on a farm near Jeroldstown, Tenn. His father, George C. Mays, was born on the same farm, in 1850, and in 1868 married Miss Isabel Woolsey, also a Tennessean by birth. For thirty years after their marriage George C. Mays and his wife remained farmer residents of Tennessee and there their six children were born. In 1898 the family removed to Kansas and located in Smith county, where the parents and three of their children still reside. James M., the eldest son, born in 1869, is single and resides with his parents; William C. is second in order of birth; Daniel T., born in 1874, is also single and resides at home with his parents; Fannie E., born in 1876, resides at the parental home; Nora E., born in 1878, is the wife of Frederick Storts, a railroad man at Colorado Springs, Col.; and John W., born in 1880, is a dentist at Esbon, Kan.

Dr. William C. Mays was reared in Tennessee and was educated in the public schools of that state and at Tusculum College. He then entered Knoxville Dental College to prepare for the profession he had chosen and graduated as a Doctor of Dental Surgery. He first located for practice at Lebanon, Kan., where he remained until 1908; then he removed to Kiowa, where he has a large and profitable patronage. His office is fitted with electrical appliances and all equipment essential to a modernly appointed dental office. He is a man of progressive spirit, and wherever he has been located has entered actively into the public life of that community. At Lebanon, Kan., he served two years as a member of the city council, and at the spring election in Kiowa, in 1911, he was elected mayor. He gives his political allegiance to the Republican party and affiliates fraternally with the Masonic order, the Knights of Pythias and the Modern Woodmen of America. He was one of the representatives from Kansas that attended the Head Camp of the Modern Woodmen of America, held at Buffalo, N. Y., in 1911, an office of distinction and honor.

On May 25, 1898, at Topeka, Kan., was solemnized the marriage of Dr. Mays and Miss Sarah E., daughter of Thomas Dykes, a retired farmer at Lebanon, Kan. Dr. and Mrs. Mays have two children—Grace C., born May 17, 1899, and Marjorie L., born March 3, 1908.