Obituary Record

Funeral Mass for Hancock County businessman, developer and civic leader James Norton Haas Sr., 78, will be celebrated at 10 a.m. Monday at Our Lady of the Gulf Catholic Church in Bay St. Louis.

Burial will follow in Bayou CoCo Cemetery in the Kiln.

Visitation will be from 7 to 10 p.m. Sunday at Edmond Fahey Funeral Home with Rosary to be recited at 8 p.m.

Mr. Haas, a native of Kiln, died Friday, Aug. 23, 1985 in Slidell, La.

He was a resident of No. 31 Chantilly Terrace, Bay St. Louis and a member of Our Lady of the Gulf Parish.

Mr. Haas was the descendant of a pioneer Hancock County family dating back prior to the Civil War who were engaged in sawmill, naval stores and land businesses from reconstruction days.

Mr. Haas graduated in 1925 from St. Stanislaus College where he was active in athletics.

Following graduation from SSC he served as Kiln High School's first football coach and organized a successful independent baseball eam known as the Kiln Lumberjacks.

He also was among the first professional basketball referees on the gulf Coast, and assisted in organizing the Mississippi Gulf Coast Baseball League and managed the Waveland Sentinels in the league

He was named to the St. Stanislaus Hall of Fame in 1977.

In the early 1930's he became manager and operator of his family's businesses.

He assisted in organizing the Mississippi Retail Lumber Dealers Association and seerved on the original board of directors.

Mr. Haas served twice as presient of a reorganized Bay St. Louis Rotary Club in 1936-7 and 1937-1938. As Rotary president he led a successful drive to institute a city-owned and operated natural gas system which is still in existence today.

He was an original subscriber to the Coast Electric Power Association.

In the 1950s he was an active compaigner for a new hospital in Hancock County and served as member and first president of the Hancock County Hoospital Board of Trustees.

He served as general chairman of a Thanksgiving Service in Bay St. Louis on the anniversary of Hurrican Camille. The Service was conducted by Hancock County ministers of all faiths and races and attended by more than 2,000 people.

He was appointed by President Richard Nixon to the Hancock County Draft Board, and was a chartaer member, director and officer of the Hancock Development Corporation which was charged with securing financial support for and promoting new industry in Hancock County in cooperation with the Hancock County Port and Harbor Commission.

Mr. Haas was chairman of a drive to raise fimds to reorganizethe local chamber of commerce which raised more than $20.000 in seven days. He was past membership chairman of the chamber, and i n 1977 was named the Hancock County Chamber of Commerce's Outstanding Citizen of The Year.

He served for the past seven years as president of the Hancock County United Way.

He was also fund-raising campaign chairman for a $125,000 improvement program sponsored by Our Lady of the Gulf Catholic Church for its Our Lady Academy high school for girls.

Haas was a member of the board of directors and executive commissioner of the New Orleans Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America and served as campaign chairman for capital improvement of the V-Bar Ranch in Hancock County for the Cypress District.

He raised more than $75,000 for Cypress District, the highest amount raised by any distict in the council.

He was recipient of the Boy Scouts of America Silver Beaver Award, one of the highest awards given to volunteer Boy Scout workers.

He recently served as president of the Hancock County Historical Society and was a charter member of a n on-profit corporation organized to promote historical preservation in Hancock County.

He was instrmental in obtaining for Hancock County, through the Pearl River Basin Development District, a multi-million dollar recreational park on the Jourdan River west of Hwy 603 dedicated as the "McLeod Memorial Park" in memory of his aunt and uncle, Mr. And Mrs. A. J. McLeod.

In 1974 he was designated by he Mississippi Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo as King Neptune to reign that year over the organization's annual Fourth of July weekend fishing extravaganza in Gulfport, one of the largest events of its type in the United States.

Mr. Haas was active in Fourth Degree Knights of Columbus work, having served as faithful scribe of the Pere Le Duc Assembly of the Fourth Degree in Bay St. Louis.

He was past president of the Bay St. Louis Rotary Club and was honoree at a recent "Norton Haas Day" tribute sponsored by the Bay St. Louis Friends of the Library.

Mr. Haas was preceded in death by his wife, Mrs. Gladys Durrett Haas. Also by three sons, James Norton Haas Jr. Of Slidell, La., Michael D. Haas and Nicholas M. Haas, both of Bay St. Louis; one daughter, Mrs. Geraldine Matthews of New Orleans, La.; 12 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Source: Sea Coast Echo