John Mayer honors dad through local scholarship

Fairfield County native and singer/songwriter John Mayer set up a scholarship fund in his father’s name, who was a longtime Bridgeport-area educator, through Fairfield County's Community Foundation to celebrate Richard Mayer's 90th birthday this week. less Fairfield County native and singer/songwriter John Mayer set up a scholarship fund in his father’s name, who was a longtime Bridgeport-area educator, through Fairfield County's Community Foundation to ... more Photo: Contributed Photo / John Mayer Photo: Contributed Photo / John Mayer Image 1 of / 47 Caption Close John Mayer honors dad through local scholarship 1 / 47 Back to Gallery

John Mayer hopes to see more people become like his dad.

This week the Fairfield County native and singer-songwriter told his father, Richard Mayer, that his more than four decades as a Bridgeport educator would not soon be forgotten. To celebrate his father’s 90th birthday, which was a few days before John Mayer turns 40 on Monday, the songwriter set up a college scholarship fund through Fairfield County’s Community Foundation to commemorate his dad’s legacy.

“Our moving into another decade has always been in sync,” Mayer told Hearst Connecticut Media in an interview. “So I wanted to do something of import.”

Just a few minutes after Mayer told his dad the news, Richard Mayer described the gift as a “lightning bolt.”

“I couldn’t have expected a better gift than this,” he said. “I gave 42 years to the Bridgeport education system and they gave me a wonderful life. This is just a wonderful way to be remembered and be doing something positive.”

The Richard Mayer Scholarship Fund will launch next spring, according to the foundation. Graduates from Bridgeport public high schools, including Central and Harding at which Richard Mayer worked, will be eligible to apply for the four-year scholarship.

The specifics of the application process are being worked out, according to Karen Brown, the foundation’s vice president of innovation and strategic learning, but the recipients will be students with plans to follow in the steps of Richard Mayer by becoming an educator or educational administrator. The scholarships are set to be doled out in $5,000 increments for four years so long as the recipients maintain the required GPA.

“This will be the third fund that John has set up at the foundation,” Brown said. “It’s a testament to John’s philanthropic leadership and commitment to the region in which he grew up.”

The nature of the scholarship fund represents a personal tribute to his career, Richard Mayer said. “When you consider how many days are in those 42 years, that was a number of days. Looking back on the totality of my career, it was all so positive,” he said. “I can’t think of something more thoughtful.”

The songwriter doesn’t remember when exactly the idea originated, since “artists have places, not dates,” John Mayer said. But he recalls he was in Denver when someone proposed an idea that ultimately morphed into the scholarship fund.

“I’m proudly my dad’s son, both in our daring use of metaphor and hair-trigger emotional responses and in wanting to be teachers,” John Mayer said. “I have my dad’s desire to be a teacher ingrained in me, and as I become more mature, it’s emergent.”

Happy 90th Birthday, Dad! Leave doting comments about my dad below. He’ll love scrolling through it. Also please stop this train. Thank you. 🎂 A post shared by johnmayer (@johnmayer) on Oct 11, 2017 at 6:44pm PDT

Richard Mayer’s impression on his son is significant, the songwriter emphasized, which is evidenced in his ballads, such as “In The Blood” that was released earlier this year and expresses reflections on the influence of family.

Perhaps mimicking thoughts that shaped “In The Blood” lyrics — “How much of my father am I destined to become” — John Mayer said his father’s commitment to ongoing education represents “something that’s been in my blood my whole life. As I get older, I develop more and more respect for academics. This (scholarship) is a nice cross-section of what my dad has done and what I’ve done in a way that I think honors the bloodline,” he said.

The Richard Mayer Fund is one of about 150 college scholarships totaling $800,000 distributed annually that donors have set up with Fairfield County’s Community Foundation.

Contact the writer at mbennett@greenwichtime.com; Twitter @Macaela_