Regina Hayes

Regina Hayes is a character in *Morning Show*, a segment of *It's All Been Done Radio Hour*. When introduced, she is the corrupt mayor of Columbus, Ohio. Her age has not been established, but she calls Gus Goodall a "young man."

**First appearance:** *Morning Show* #1.04 "Emergency Powers"

**Number of appearances:** 1 (as of August 2020)

**Actor:** Samantha Stark

## **Story**

Regina was a City Councillor before being elected mayor of Columbus in 2016. Her campaign was partially funded by the Druf organization, which was (at least from 2016-2019) embroiled in scandal for money laundering and illegal training. Regina knew this and used funds from her job on the City Council to benefit them ("First Show").

While serving as mayor, she did quite a lot for the city. Among her accomplishments were increasing school funding, turning attention on repairing failing infrastructure, landing two big corporations looking to move their headquarters, starting projects to revitalize three failing neighborhoods, and making the city's voice heard on national matters. Radio host Pat Shock referred to her as a hero of his for all of this, although radio producer Shelly Meyers always thought Regina a slimy politician, only doing things that made her popular for her own selfish gain ("Emergency Powers").

WUBD's *Morning Show* broke the news of her connection to the scandal just minutes into their very first broadcast in mid-2019. Their source was Regina's aide, Aidan Pearson, who did not give her a heads up about the story, intending to manage it himself for his own gain ("The Aide"). Right after the story aired, Regina called the head of WUBD, Brooks Dylan, furious, and although Dylan was tempted, he did not fire those that exposed Regina's misdeeds ("Owning Up").

Two weeks after news broke, Regina went on *Morning Show* herself. Her staff had promised she was appearing to discuss the scandal and resign on-air. However, once there, Regina instead tried to hijack the platform to announce she was enacting emergency powers to combat climate change. She stated the federal government had failed to act and cited their pulling out of international agreements. As such, she was creating recommendations for citizens to save energy, setting up a commission to make local changes, and suing the federal government for failing to act.

Pat rightly saw through this and tried to steer the conversation back to her crimes, accusing her of manufacturing a crisis to distract from her problems. Regina asserted her innocence completely and vowed to fight the charges, which disappointed the host. He lamented that she wasn't living up to her responsibility, and had fallen in his estimation.

Regina does have business dealings with Brooks Dylan, and says if she goes down, he will, too. He replies that they'll see and stands by his radio staff, at least in front of her ("Emergency Powers").

Regina was still in office when a zombie outbreak struck the West Coast, and even though Ohio was far from the infection, used it as further distraction. She planned to declare martial law and enact a curfew, though it is unknown if she followed through with either ("Fallout").

## **Trivia**

* Columbus' actual mayors in recent years, at least prior to 2020, have been very well respected and there have not been corruption charges. This story is completely fiction, and is based on no real politicians in this locality.