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Famous West Virginians

George Brett baseball player, Glendale

George Howard Brett (born May 15, 1953 in Glen Dale, West Virginia) is a former Major League Baseball player for the Kansas City Royals. He is considered one of the greatest third basemen in Major League Baseball history.

Early life and baseball career

Brett was the youngest of four sons of a sports-minded family which included his oldest brother Ken, a major-league pitcher who had pitched in the World Series in 1967 at just barely 19 years old. (Brothers John & Bobby had brief careers in the minor leagues.) Although George was born in the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia, the Brett family moved to the Midwest and later to El Segundo, a modest suburb of Los Angeles, just south of LAX airport. George grew up here, hoping to follow in his three older brothers' footsteps. He graduated from El Segundo High School in 1971 and was drafted by the fledgling Kansas City Royals in the second round (29th overall) of the 1971 baseball draft. Interestingly, Hall of Fame third baseman Mike Schmidt was drafted with the next pick (30th) by the Phillies.

Brett began his professional baseball career as a shortstop, but had trouble going to his right defensively and was soon shifted to third base. As a third baseman, his powerful arm remained an asset, and he remained at that spot for well over 15 years. Brett's minor league stops were in Billings, Montana (1971) for Rookie League, San Jose, California (1972) for Single-A, and Omaha, Nebraska in 1973 for Triple-A with the Omaha Royals, batting .291, .274, and .284 respectively. The K.C. Royals promoted him to the major leagues on August 2, 1973, where he played in 13 games and was 5 for 40 (.125).

Brett won the starting third base job in 1974, but struggled at the plate until he asked for help from Charlie Lau, the Royals' hitting instructor. Spending the 1974 All-Star break working together, Lau taught Brett how to protect the entire plate and cover up some holes in his swing that experienced big-league pitchers were taking advantage of. Armed with this knowledge, Brett developed rapidly as a hitter, and finished the year with a .282 batting average in 113 games.

Brett topped the .300 mark for the first time in 1975 with a .308 mark, then won his first batting title in 1976 with a .333 average. The four contenders for the batting title that year were Brett and Royals teammate Hal McRae, and Minnesota Twins teammates Rod Carew and Lyman Bostock. In dramatic fashion, Brett went 2 for 4 in the final game of the season against the Twins, beating out his three rivals, all playing in the same game. His lead over second-place McRae was less than .001. The title was marred by accusations of a racial angle as Twins defender Steve Brye dropped a fly ball leading to one of Brett's hits and his win of the title over McRae.

Early career success

From May 8 through May 16, 1976, Brett had 3 base hits in 6 consecutive games, a Major League record. That year, the Royals won the first of three straight West Division titles, beginning a great rivalry with the New York Yankees — whom they faced in the American League Championship Series each of those three years. In the fifth and final game of the 1976 ALCS, Brett hit a three-run homer in the top of the eighth inning to tie the score at six — only to see the Yankees' Chris Chambliss launch a solo shot in the bottom of the ninth to give the Royals' rivals a 7-6 win.

A year later, Brett emerged as a power hitter with 22 home runs helping the Royals to another American League Championship Series, 1977. In 1978 Brett batted "only" .294 (the only time between 1976 and 1983 in which he did not bat at least .300) in helping the Royals win a third consecutive American League West title. However, Kansas City once again lost to the Yankees in the ALCS, but not before Brett hit three home runs off Catfish Hunter in Game Three, becoming only the second player (after Bob Robertson in Game Two of the 1971 National League Championship Series) to hit three home runs in an LCS game.

Brett proceeded to have an incredible 1979 season, in which he finished third in MVP voting. He became the sixth player in league history to have at least 20 doubles, triples and homers all in one season (42-20-23) and led the league in hits, doubles and triples while batting .329, with an on-base percentage of .376 and a slugging percentage of .563.

1980

All these impressive statistics were just a prelude to 1980, when Brett nearly matched Ted Williams' feat of batting .400 in 1941. Brett was at or above .400 as late in the season as September 19 before settling at .390, the modern record for the highest average ever by a third baseman. This time, there was no doubt Brett was the league MVP. George Brett's 1980 batting average of .390 is second only to Tony Gwynn's 1994 average of .394 for the highest single season batting average in the last 65 years (next at .388 are Rod Carew (1977) and Ted Williams (1957)). Brett also recorded 118 RBI, while appearing in just 117 games.

Brett started out slowly, hitting only .259 in April. In May, he hit .329 to get his season average to .301. In June, the 27 year-old third baseman hit .472 (17-36), raising the season's average to .337, but played his last game for a month on June 10, not returning to the line-up until after the All-Star Break on July 10.

In July, after being off for a month, he played in 21 games & hit a spectacular .494 (42-85), raising his season average to .390. Brett started a 30 game hitting streak on July 18, which lasted until he went 0-3 on August 19 (the following night he went 3-3). During these 30 games Brett hit .467 (57-122). His high mark for the season came a week later, when the batting average was at .407 on August 26, after he went 5-5 on a Tuesday night in Milwaukee. He batted .430 for the month of August (30 games), and his season average was at .403 with 5 weeks to go. For the three hot months of June, July, & August 1980, George Brett played in 60 American League games and hit an astounding .459 (111-242), most of it after a return from a month-long injury. For these 60 games he had 69 RBI's and 14 home runs.

Brett missed another 10 days in early September and hit just .290 for the month. His average was at .400 as late as September 19, but he then had 4 for 27 slump, and the average dipped to .384 on September 27, with a week to play. For the final week, Brett went on a 10-19 tear, which included going 2 for 4 in the final regular season game on October 4. His season average ended up at .390 (175 hits in 449 at-bats = .389755), and he averaged more than one RBI per game. Brett led the league in both on-base percentage (.454) and slugging percentage (.664) on his way to capturing 17 of 28 possible first-pace votes in the MVP race.

More importantly, the Royals won the American League West, and would face the Eastern champion Yankees in the ALCS.

1980 post-season

In the 1980 post-season, Brett led the Royals to their first American League pennant, sweeping the playoffs in three games from the rival Yankees who had beaten K.C. in the 1976, 1977 and 1978 playoffs. In Game 3, Brett hit a ball well into the third deck of Yankee Stadium off superstar closer Goose Gossage. Long-time ABC broadcaster Howard Cosell commented "...it looked like Gossage let up on that pitch that Brett hit out, and Brett made him pay for it." A few seconds later the ABC radar gun showed the pitch's speed at 98 mph, Gossage's fastest pitch of the game.

George Brett then hit .375 in the 1980 World Series, but the Royals lost in six games to the Philadelphia Phillies. During the Series, Brett made headlines for reasons other than his play on the field. After leaving Game 2 in the 6th inning due to hemorrhoid pain, Brett had minor surgery the next day, and in Game 3 returned to hit a home run as his Royals wound up winning in 10 innings by the score of 4-3. (In 1981 he would miss two weeks of Spring training to have his hemorrhoids removed.)

The Pine Tar Incident

Brett had injuries on-and-off for the next four years, during which his most notable event in his career was the notorious "Pine Tar Incident". On July 24, 1983, the Royals were playing the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. In the top of the ninth inning, Brett came up to bat against Goose Gossage, his old rival. Brett hit a two-run homer, to put the Royals up 5-4. After Brett rounded the bases, Yankees manager Billy Martin came out of the dugout and used home plate to measure the amount of pine tar, a legal substance used by hitters to improve their grip, on Brett's bat. Martin cited an obscure rule that stated the pine tar on a bat could extend no further than 18 inches. Brett's pine tar extended about 24 inches. Earlier in the season, the Yankees had taken note Brett's habit of adding pine tar further than the allowed 18 inches, but waited until a crucial time to point it out to the umpires.

"I've never seen this," said sportscaster and ex-Yankee Bobby Murcer on WPIX as he watched McClelland measure the bat across the plate. "I never have either," said Murcer's partner, Frank Messer. A few moments later, the home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, signaled Brett out.

The normally mild-mannered Brett charged out of the dugout, enraged, and was immediately ejected. An incredulous Messer:

Years later, Brett explained his outburst by saying "It was just such an extraordinary thing to hit a homer off [Gossage], the thought of losing it was too much". In the same interview he also humorously chided his teammate Hal McRae (who was on deck) for not removing the bat from home plate before Billy Martin could have it inspected. "If Hal had [taken the bat], then I'd only be known for hemorrhoids," Brett quipped.

The Royals protested the game, and their protest was upheld by AL president (and former Yankees chief executive) Lee MacPhail, who ruled that the bat was not "altered to improve the distance factor", and that the rules only provided for removal of the bat from the game, and not calling the batter out.

The game was continued later that season, starting after Brett's homer. Billy Martin had one last trick up his sleeve, appealing the play before, saying the umpires had no way of knowing Brett and the other runner had touched all the bases. Martin was stunned when the umpires produced affidavits saying he had. The game had virtually no effect on 1983's pennant race, but was in many ways the closing chapter on a heated rivalry. The video of the enraged Brett is replayed often on the anniversary date of July 24, and the Pine Tar Game has become part of baseball folklore. Brett's famous pine tar bat is now on display at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

1985

In 1985, Brett had another brilliant season in which he helped to propel the Royals to their second pennant. He batted .335 with 30 home runs and 112 RBI, finishing in the top 10 of the league in 10 different offensive categories. Defensively, he won his only Gold Glove. In the final week of the regular season, he went 9-for-20 at the plate with 7 runs, 5 homers, and 9 RBI in six crucial games, five of them victories, as they Royals closed a gap and won the division title at the end. He was MVP of the 1985 playoffs against the Toronto Blue Jays, with an incredible game 3. With KC down in games 2-0, Brett homered in his first two at bats against Doyle Alexander, and doubled to the same spot in right field in his third at bat, leading the Roayls comeback. Brett then batted .370 in the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, as the Royals again rallied from a 3-1 deficit to become World Series Champions for the first and so far only time in Royals history.

Later career

In 1988, Brett moved across the diamond to first base in an effort to reduce his chances of injury and had another MVP-calibre season with a .306 average, 24 homers and 104 RBI. But after batting just .290 with 16 homers the next year, it looked like his career might be slowing down. He got off to a terrible start in 1990 and at one point even considered retirement. But his manager, former teammate John Wathan, encouraged him to stick it out. Finally, in July, the slump ended and Brett batted .386 for the rest of the season. In September, he caught Rickey Henderson for the league lead, and in a battle down to the last day of the season, captured his third batting title with a .329 mark. This made him the first player in history to date to win batting titles in three decades.

Brett played three more seasons for the Royals, mostly as their designated hitter, but occasionally filling in for injured teammates at first base. He passed the 3,000-hit mark in 1992 and retired after the 1993 season. In his final at-bat, he hit a single up the middle against Rangers closer Tom Henke and scored on a home run by teammate Gary Gaetti.

The Kansas City Royals have retired Brett's number 5.

He was voted the Hometown Hero for the Royals in a 2-month fan vote. This was revealed on the night of September 27, 2006 in an hour-long telecast on ESPN. He is one of the few players to receive over 400,000 votes.

Legacy

His 3,154 career hits are the most by any third baseman in major league history, and 15th all-time. Baseball historian Bill James regards him as the second-best third baseman of all time, trailing only his contemporary, Mike Schmidt. Brett was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1999, with what was then the fourth-highest voting percentage in baseball history (98.2%), trailing only Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, and Ty Cobb. In 2007, Cal Ripken Jr. passed Brett with 98.5% of the vote. He received the highest percentage for an infielder ever, higher than all-time outfielders Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, and Joe DiMaggio. That same year, he ranked Number 55 on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was nominated as a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. Brett is one of four players in MLB history to accumulate 3000 hits, 300 home runs, and a career .300 batting average (the others are Stan Musial, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron). Most indicative of his hitting style, Brett is fifth on the career doubles list, with 665 (trailing Tris Speaker, Pete Rose, Stan Musial, and Ty Cobb). Combining his superior hitting skill with his great defensive ability and team focus (& humility), George Brett is arguably one of the most complete baseball players of all time.

Post baseball activities

Following the end of his baseball career, Brett became a vice president of the Royals and has worked as a part-time coach, as a special instructor in spring training, filling in as the batting coach, and as a minor league instructor dispatched to help prospects develop. In 1998, an investor group headed by Brett and his older brother, Bobby, made an unsuccessful bid to purchase the Kansas City Royals.

In 1992, Brett married the former Leslie Davenport and they currently reside in the Kansas City suburb of Prairie Village, KS. The couple has three children: Jackson (named after his father), Dylan, and Robin (named for fellow Hall of Famer Robin Yount of the Milwaukee Brewers).

Trivia

• He owns a restaurant on the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, MO, aptly titled George Brett's Restaurant.
• Brett's former Royals manager Whitey Herzog commented on Brett: "...he's the only guy I've ever seen who could literally fall out of bed on January 1 and get a base hit."
• Brett is a close friend of radio personality (and former Royals front office employee) Rush Limbaugh, who stood up in Brett's wedding.
• Brett takes particular pride in the contents on the back of his baseball cards: "It means something to me and hopefully the fans for a kid to flip my card over and see only one team and one city listed. That doesn't happen a lot anymore, but it should."
• He is reported to be the coiner of the phrase "the Mendoza line".
• He holds the record for consecutive games with 3 or more base hits, with 6.

Elected to Hall of Fame by Baseball Writers in 1999, Player
488 votes on 497 ballots   98.2%
Born: May 15, 1953, in Glen Dale, West Virginia
ML Debut: 8/2/1973
Primary Position: Third Baseman
Bats: L   Throws: R   Primary Uniform #: 5
Played For: Kansas City Royals (1973-1993)
Primary Team: Kansas City Royals
Post-Season: 1976 ALCS, 1977 ALCS, 1978 ALCS, 1980 ALCS, 1980 World Series, 1981 ALDS, 1984 ALCS, 1985 ALCS, 1985 World Series
Awards: All-Star (12): 1976-1986, 1988; American League Most Valuable Player 1980; Gold Glove: 1985; 1985 ALCS Most Valuable Player

Bruce Bosley, Pro Football Player, Green Bank, 1933-1995

Bruce played 13 years for the San Francisco 49rs and 1 year for the Atlanta Falcons

Watching his father spend long hours treating leather working in a tanning company in tiny Durbin, W.Va., young Bruce Bosley made up his mind that there was something better out there for him to do.
As it turned out, his way out of the tanning business happened to be a football scholarship to West Virginia University. Bosley, a third team Class B all-state fullback at Green Bank High School, caught the sharp eye of West Virginia football coach Art “Pappy” Lewis and he was offered a full scholarship to play for the Mountaineers.
Even though Lewis knew all about him, others in the state weren’t as quick to notice.
Bosley was not one of the 50 high school players invited to play in the 1952 West Virginia North-South all-star game. After the first day of practice, one player got hurt and another got sick and the high school coaches went scrambling to find a replacement.
Lewis, watching the two teams practice, finally spoke up: “Hell, I can get you the best damn player in the state. His name is Bruce Bosley.”
Quarterback Fred Wyant, who later became a teammate of Bosley's at WVU, spotted the husky Green Bank native the minute he walked out onto the practice field.
“We were out on the field and all of the sudden here came this guy who looked like a Greek god,” Wyant remembered.
A big, strong country boy, Bosley was the type of player physically capable of playing college football right away.
“Bruce was extremely strong, had great football instincts and was intelligent,” recalled Gene Corum -- WVU’s line coach at the time. “I called him a gentle giant. I had seen his tremendous strength on the field and then I had seen him baby sit my two daughters and he was so gentle with them. They loved him.”
Not only was Bosley a gifted athlete, he was also a top-rate student who took the hardest courses at WVU.
“I don’t remember Bruce practicing very much,” said teammate and NFL Hall of Fame linebacker Sam Huff. “He was in engineering and had a lot of labs.”
As it turned out, Bosley didn’t need that much practicing.
The 6-foot-2, 240-pound lineman quickly developed a reputation for manhandling opposing players in the trenches. Bosley was an immediate starter and was one of the primary reasons West Virginia went from 5-5 in 1951 to 7-2 in 1952.In 1954, after a dominating performance against Penn State, Bosley was considered one of the country’s top linemen. He was named AP player of the week after West Virginia’s 19-14 victory at Penn State and went on to earn consensus All-America honors as a senior in 1955. West Virginia won 31 of 38 games Bosley played in during his four seasons from 1952-55.
Bosley, also an Academic All-American with a degree in chemical engineering, was invited to play in the College Football All-Star Game, the North-South Game and the Senior Bowl.
Based on his performances in those games, new San Francisco 49ers coach Norman Stader decided to make Bosley the team’s second pick in the second round of the 1956 draft as a defensive end.
By 1957, Bosley switched to line and was the team’s starting left guard, earning his first pro bowl berth in 1961. Two years later in 1963 when the team was searching for a center after an injury to starter Frank Morze, all-pro guard Bosley stepped in and learned that position.
In 1965, Bosley was named to the pro bowl again and was honored two more times in 1966 and 1967.
Detroit Lions all-pro middle linebacker Joe Schmidt says Bosley was one of the league’s most underrated snappers of the mid-1960s. According to Bosley’s 49er teammate “Tiger” Bill Johnson, Schmidt always voted him to the pro bowl.
“(Schmidt) is one of the smartest linebackers in the business,” Johnson once said, “and he thinks Bosley is the greatest center going in the game today.”
Even though many of the 49er teams Bosley played on had losing records, San Francisco was always known for its innovative offenses led by quarterback John Brodie and running back Ken Willard.
Bosley also had a part in Coach Howard “Red” Hickey’s shotgun offense first introduced in the NFL in 1961.
Bosely played in two of the more memorable games in NFL history. The first came on Dec. 22, 1957, at old Kezar Stadium when San Francisco blew a 24-7 halftime lead and lost 31-27 to the Detroit Lions in a one-game playoff to determine the Western Conference championship.
Playing without injured quarterback Bobby Layne, the Lions still managed to score three touchdowns in a span of 4:29 in one of the greatest comebacks in NFL history.
“At halftime I was thinking about the $5,000 we’d get for winning the game,” said Bosley after the game.
Seven years later on Oct. 25, 1964, Bosley was involved in one of the strangest plays in NFL history when Minnesota Vikings defensive lineman Jim Marshall picked up a Billy Kilmer fumble and ran the wrong way to his own end zone.
Chasing Marshall all the way to the Viking goal line was Bosely, who greeted Marshall in the end zone with a friendly tap on the shoulder to record the safety and an ear-to-ear grin: “Thanks Jim,” he said.
By 1967, Bosely was cultivating his other passion: restoring old homes. NFL Films visited his Hillsbrough W.S. Crocker Estate carriage house for a show called “They Lead Two Lives,” which chronicled his career as both a star football player and respected home builder.
During the next 11 years he remodeled two other estates in Hillsborough as president of Interior Design, a home building, remodeling, interior decorating, furnishing and real-estate company.
Meanwhile, Bosley spent another season with the 49ers in 1968 and a year with the Atlanta Falcons in 1969 before retiring.
Bosley became part-owner of a wholesale electrical supply house in addition to his home remodeling business and was also well-known for his civic and charitable activities in San Francisco.
Among his most prominent roles was membership on the board of directors for the San Francisco Annex for Cultural Arts, membership on the mayor’s committee for the San Francisco Council for the Performing Arts, and a long-time volunteer role with both the San Francisco Film Festival and the San Francisco Ballet.
Bosley also served a stint as the president of the NFL Alumni Association.
He lived and thrived in San Francisco until his death from a heart attack on April 26, 1995.
Despite spending nearly 40 years of his life in northern California, Bosley never forgot his West Virginia roots.
“Things may change and your career may take you away in a different direction but there are things you never forget. I’ve never left my roots. They are in West Virginia,” Bosley told Charleston Daily Mail sports editor Bill Smith several years ago.
Bosley is listed on the San Francisco 49ers “Golden Era” team from 1946-69 and he was named to the college football’s 75^th Silver Anniversary Team in 1981.
Bosley, a member of the College Football Hall of Fame, was a part of West Virginia University’s second hall of fame induction class of 1992.
More recently, he was named the state of West Virginia’s 30^th greatest sports figure in a poll conducted by CNNSI.com.

Pearl S. Buck author, Hillsboro, 1892-1973

The Sydenstrickers lived in Chinkiang (Zhenjiang), in Kiangsu (Jiangsu) province, then a small city lying at the junction of the Yangtze River and the Grand Canal. Pearl's father spent months away from home, itinerating in the Chinese countryside in search of Christian converts; Pearl's mother ministered to Chinese women in a small dispensary she established.

From childhood, Pearl spoke both English and Chinese. She was taught principally by her mother and by a Chinese tutor, Mr. Kung. In 1900, during the Boxer Uprising, Caroline and the children evacuated to Shanghai, where they spent several anxious months waiting for word of Absalom's fate. Later that year, the family returned to the US for another home leave.

In 1910, Pearl enrolled in Randolph-Macon Woman's College, in Lynchburg, Virginia, from which she graduated in 1914. Although she had intended to remain in the US, she returned to China shortly after graduation when she received word that her mother was gravely ill. In 1915, she met a young Cornell graduate, an agricultural economist named John Lossing Buck. They married in 1917, and immediately moved to Nanhsuchou (Nanxuzhou) in rural Anhwei (Anhui) province. In this impoverished community, Pearl Buck gathered the material that she would later use in The Good Earth and other stories of China.

The Bucks' first child, Carol, was born in 1921; a victim of PKU, she proved to be profoundly retarded. Furthermore, because of a uterine tumor discovered during the delivery, Pearl underwent a hysterectomy. In 1925, she and Lossing adopted a baby girl, Janice. The Buck marriage was  unhappy almost from the beginning, but would last for eighteen years.

From 1920 to 1933, Pearl and Lossing made their home in Nanking (Nanjing), on the campus of Nanking University, where both had teaching positions. In 1921, Pearl's mother died and shortly afterwards her father moved in with the Bucks. The tragedies and dislocations which Pearl suffered in the 1920s reached a climax in March, 1927, in the violence known as the "Nanking Incident." In a confused battle involving elements of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist troops, Communist forces, and assorted warlords, several Westerners were murdered. The Bucks spent a terrified day in hiding, after which they were rescued by American gunboats. After a trip downriver to Shanghai, the Buck family sailed to Unzen, Japan, where they spent the following year. They then moved back to Nanking, though conditions remained dangerously unsettled.

Pearl had begun to publish stories and essays in the 1920s, in magazines such as Nation, The Chinese Recorder, Asia, and Atlantic Monthly. Her first novel, East Wind, West Wind, was published by the John Day Company in 1930. John Day's publisher, Richard Walsh, would eventually become Pearl's second husband, in 1935, after both received divorces.

In 1931, John Day published Pearl's second novel, The Good  Earth. This became the best-selling book of both 1931 and 1932, won the Pulitzer Prize and the Howells Medal in 1935, and would be adapted as a major MGM film in 1937. Other novels and books of non-fiction quickly followed. In 1938, less than a decade after her first book had appeared, Pearl won the Nobel Prize in literature, the first American woman to do so. By the time of her death in 1973, Pearl would publish over seventy books: novels, collections of stories, biography and autobiography, poetry, drama, children's literature, and translations from the Chinese.

In 1934, because of conditions in China, and also to be closer to Richard Walsh and her daughter Carol, whom she had placed in an institution in New Jersey, Pearl moved permanently to the US. She bought an old farmhouse, Green Hills Farm, in Bucks County, PA. She and Richard adopted six more children over the following years. Green Hills Farm is now on the Registry of Historic Buildings; fifteen thousand people visit each year.

From the day of her move to the US, Pearl was active in American civil  rights and women's rights activities. She published essays in both Crisis, the journal of the NAACP, and Opportunity, the magazine of the Urban League; she was a trustee of Howard University for twenty years, beginning in the early 1940s. In 1942, Pearl and Richard founded the East and West Association, dedicated to cultural exchange and understanding between Asia and the West. In 1949, outraged that existing adoption services considered Asian and mixed-race children unadoptable, Pearl established Welcome House, the first international, inter-racial adoption agency; in the nearly five decades of its work, Welcome House has assisted in the placement of over five thousand children. In 1964, to provide support for Amerasian children who were not eligible for adoption, Pearl also established the Pearl S. Buck Foundation, which provides sponsorship funding for thousands of children in half-a-dozen Asian countries.

Pearl Buck died in March, 1973, just two months before her eighty-first birthday. She is buried at Green Hills Farm.

Phyllis Curtin soprano, Clarksburg

Born: December 3, 1921 - Clarksburg, West Virginia, USA
The esteemed American soprano and teacher, Phyllis Curtin (née Smith), studied at Wellesley College (B.A., 1943) and received vocal instruction from Olga Avierino, Joseph Regnaeas, and Goldovsky.
In 1946 Phyllis Curtin made her operatic debut as Lisa in The Queen of Spades with the New England Opera Theatre in Boston. Her recital debut followed in 1950 at New York’s Town Hall. In October 1953 she made her first appearance with the New York City Opera, as Fräulein Burstner in Gottfried von Einem's The Trial; where she remained on the roster until 1960; then returned in 1962, 1964, and 1975-76. She also made appearances at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires (1959), the Glyndebourne Festival (1959), the Vienna State Opera (1960-1961), and at La Scala in Milan (1962). In November 1961 she made her Metropolitan Opera debut in New York as Fiordiligi, remaining on its roster for the season; she returned for the 1966-1970 and 1972-1973 seasons. Her tours as a soloist with orchestras and as a recitalist took her all over the globe until her retirement in 1984.
Phyllis Curtin taught at the Aspen (Colorado) school of Music and the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood. After serving as professor of voice at the Yale University School of Music (1974-1983), she was professor of voice and dean of the school of the arts at Boston University (from 1983); in 1992 she retired as its dean but continued to teach there.
Phyllis Curtin became well known for such roles as Mozart's Countess, Donna Anna, Rosalinde, Eva, Violetta, Alice Ford, Salome, and Ellen Orford. She also created Floyd’s Susannah (1955) and Cathy in Wuthbering Heights (1958).

Little Jimmy Dickens, Country Entertainer, Bolt

Little Jimmy Dickens, born in Bolt, West Virginia on December 19, 1925, is the master of the country novelty song, as well as a renowned ballad singer. He also known for his diminutive stature -- he's less than five feet tall -- and his affection for flamboyant, rhinestone-studded outfits and country humor. Although he never had a consistent presence on the charts, he managed to have hits in every decade between the 1940s and the 1970s, and he became one of the Grand Ole Opry's most popular performers.
Dickens was the 13th child of a West Virginian farmer. During his childhood, he fell in love with music and had a dream of performing on the Grand Ole Opry. He began performing professionally while he was a student at the University of West Virginia in the late '30s, singing on a local radio station. Dickens left school shortly after he received his regular radio job. He began traveling around the country, singing on radio shows in Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan under the name Jimmy the Kid. Roy Acuff heard Dickens sing on a radio show in Saginaw, MI, and invited him to sing on the Grand Ole Opry.
In 1949, Dickens -- who was now using the name Little Jimmy Dickens -- became a permanent member of the Grand Ole Opry. That year, he also signed a record contract with Columbia Records, releasing his first single, "Take an Old Cold Tater and Wait," in the spring of 1949. The song became a Top Ten hit and launched a string of hit novelty, ballad, and honky tonk singles that lasted for a year, including "Country Boy," "A-Sleeping at the Foot of the Bed," "Hillbilly Fever," and "My Heart's Bouquet." Early in the '50s, he formed a band called the Country Boys, which featured a steel guitar, two lead guitars, and drums. With their spirited traditional country approach and vague rockabilly inflections, the band didn't sound like their Nashville contemporaries. Perhaps that's why Dickens only had one hit between 1950 and 1962: 1954's "Out Behind the Barn."Dickens bounced back to the Top Ten with the ballad "The Violet and the Rose" in 1962. Three years later, he had his biggest hit, "May the Bird of Paradise Fly up Your Nose." The single topped the country charts and crossed over to number 15 on the pop charts. Although his next single, "When the Ship Hit the Sand," was moderately successful, Dickens wasn't able to replicate the success of "May the Bird of Paradise Fly up Your Nose." In 1968, he stopped recording for Columbia, signing with Decca Records, where he had three minor hits in the late '60s and early '70s. In 1971, he moved to United Artists, which resulted in two more small hits, but by that time he had begun to concentrate on performing as his main creative outlet. Dickens continued to tour and perform at the Grand Ole Opry into the '90s, becoming one of the most beloved characters in country music.

Joanne Dru actress, Logan, 1922-1996

Joanne Dru (January 31, 1922 – September 10, 1996) was an American film actress. She also was the elder sister of Peter Marshall, best known for being the host of Hollywood Squares.

Born Joanne Letitia LaCock in Logan, West Virginia, Dru came to New York City in 1940, aged 18, and after finding employment as a model, was chosen by Al Jolson to appear in the cast of his Broadway show Hold Onto Your Hats. During this time Dru met and married the popular singer, Dick Haymes, and when they moved to Hollywood she found work in theater. Dru was spotted by a talent scout and made her first film appearance in Abie's Irish Rose (1946).
Over the next decade Dru appeared frequently in films, most often cast in westerns such as the John Wayne films Red River (1948) and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949). She also gave a well received performance in the dramatic film All the King's Men (1949).
She later lamented that she had been typecast in western films, commenting that once an actress became typecast, that was the end, and adding that she had never liked horses. She also appeared in the Martin and Lewis film 3 Ring Circus. Her film career began to fade by the end of the 1950s but she continued working frequently in television, and played the female lead in the 1960 ABC sitcom Guestward, Ho!.
Although regarded as a capable and popular film actress, it was for her contributions to television that Dru was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Dru died in Los Angeles, California at the age of 74 from lymphedema, a disease "which is especially common after surgery or radiation therapy were used in combination to treat cancer", which indicates that she probably had undergone these treatments for cancer (likely breast cancer) prior to her death.

George Friel, U.S. Army Major General, Marlinton

John S. Knight publisher, Bluefield, 1894-1981

John Shively Knight, founder of Knight Newspapers, was considered a visionary of journalism in the sense that he belonged to a breed of publishers, comparable to William Randolph Hearst, who were strong-willed, competitive, and politically conscious. Their major interest was to buy newspaper competitors and create newspaper groups. To the city of Akron, Ohio, he signified a "mover and shaker," because he was instrumental to the area's growth and development, observing and contributing to Akron's metamorphosis from a canal town to a heavy industrial center, to finally a post- industrial city. Knight parlayed the Akron Beacon Journal, which he inherited from his father, into Knight-Ridder Newspapers, Inc., which by 1981 consisted of 32 newspapers in 17 states, employed 15,000 workers and boasted a circulation of 3.6 million daily.

 Born October 26, 1894, in Bluefield, West Virginia, as the second son of Charles Landon and Clara Irene Scheifly Knight, John Shively grew up in Akron, Ohio, where his outspoken father worked his way up from advertising manager to editor and publisher of the Beacon Journal in 1909. By 1915, "C. L.," as he preferred to be known, acquired full control of the newspaper and continued to write his trademark fiery editorials. Young John Knight attended Crosby Elementary and was sent to Tome School at Port Deposit, Maryland, to prepare for college. He completed his senior year at Akron's Central High School, graduating in 1914. During summer vacations from school, Knight worked in his father's newspaper office. His college education at Cornell University was interrupted in 1917 as he left to enlist in the Army, eventually seeing action in the Argonne. Upon his return to the United States, Knight traveled to California with $5,000 won in crapshooting to contemplate going into the cattle business. Instead, he followed his father's wishes, returned to Akron and became a sports journalist, writing under the pseudonym "Walker," because, he confessed, "I was ashamed of the stuff. I didn't write well enough." In 1921, Knight married Katherine "Kitty" McLain, who died unexpectedly in 1929 and left him three sons--John Shively Jr., Charles Landon, and Franklin. Already Managing Editor of the Beacon Journal by 1925, he married a second time (in 1932) to Beryl Zoller Comstock. In 1933, the elder Charles Landon Knight died and John Knight inherited the positions of editor and publisher of the Beacon Journal.

 The Akron paper was the first of a chain of newspapers under Knight's ownership. Upon purchasing the Miami Herald in 1937 for $2 million, he bought and subsequently closed the Miami Tribune and the Scripps-Howard Akron Times Press. Very quickly he acquired control of the Detroit Free Press and the Chicago Daily News. Despite the rapid growth of his newspaper group, Knight was firmly opposed to the centralized management characteristic of the large Hearst newspaper chain. The Akron editor and publisher was an ardent advocate of preserving the uniqueness of a region. The Beacon Journal claimed to be nonpartisan during a time when newspapers generally stated political preferences forthrightly. Knight expressed his personal views and critical acceptance of Akron in "The Editor's Notebook," a weekly column he wrote for almost 40 years. His major journalistic concern was editorial integrity and the preservation of a free press in the United States and abroad. As the 1944 President of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, he sent representatives on a worldwide tour, interviewing editors and governmental officials in the interest of journalistic freedom. Observations and final reports disclosed that in practically all cases the press was used as an instrument of government propaganda and social control. Knight believed that a free and honest press would help to reduce the chances for future wars.

During World War II, Knight temporarily departed from the newspaper circuit to become director of the United States Office of Censorship in London, where he served for one year as liaison for Great Britain and North Africa. Representing Akron's journalistic link to the war, Knight witnessed Japan's capitulation and was present with the first occupation troops in the country. His eldest son, John Shively, a lieutenant in the paratroopers, was killed in a March, 1945, ambush in Germany.

 Upon returning to the United States and the world of professional journalism, Knight's weekly "Editor's Notebook," along with the Detroit Free Press and the Charlotte Observer, won Pulitzer Prizes in 1968, making him the first publisher to be granted three such awards in a single year. By 1973, Knight owned 15 newspapers, including the Tallahassee Democrat, the Springfield Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News. In the following year the Knight Newspapers merged with the California-based Ridder Publications.

Personal tragedy struck Knight again as he was widowed for a second time in 1974 and his grandson, John Shively III, was stabbed to death during a robbery the following year. In 1976, Knight married Mary Elizabeth Augustus and retired as editorial chairman of Knight-Ridder Newspapers, Inc., having accumulated 26 Pulitzer Prizes altogether. During his retirement, Knight concentrated his efforts on raising thoroughbred race horses at his Fourth Estate Stables in Miami. He also excelled in golf, winning links championships at his many golf clubs. In honor of his father, Knight established the Knight Foundation (1940), which continues to provide major funding for worthy projects.

On June 16, 1981, Knight succumbed to a heart attack at the age of 86, only 7 months after his third wife had passed away. At the time of his death, Knight-Ridder Newspapers, Inc., consisted of 32 newspapers and four television stations, and had been estimated to be valued at $245 million, the bulk of which went to the Knight Foundation.

Knight belonged to many organizations and societies, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Legion, and the American Society of Newspaper Editors, where he twice served as president. He also held the positions of committee chairman, executive committee member, director of finance and vice president (1956) of the Associated Press.

In addition to the Pulitzer Prizes, Knight received numerous awards and honors, including the Elija Parish Lovejoy Award for journalistic achievement, the John Peter Zenger Award, the William Allen White Foundation Award, the National Press Award, the Poor Richard Gold Medal of Achievement Award, and honorary doctorates from The University of Akron, Northwestern, Kent State, Ohio State, University of Michigan, Oberlin, and Colby College.

Don Knotts actor, Morgantown, 1925-2006

Peter Marshall TV host, Huntington

Peter Marshall (born Ralph Pierre LaCock on March 30, c 1927), in Huntington, West Virginia, is an actor, singer and television personality. Although he has almost fifty television, movie, and Broadway credits, he is best known as the original host and "The Master" of The Hollywood Squares from 1966 to 1981. His stage name, Marshall, came from the name of the college in his home town (Marshall College became Marshall University in 1961).

Marshall came from a show business family, moving to New York City at the age of 12 after his father's death to be with his mother, an aspiring costume designer and later the president of the Motion Picture Mothers.

His elder sister, Joanne Dru, was a successful actress who made a number of westerns in the 1950s.

Marshall started his career at 15 as a singer with big bands. In the 1950s, Marshall earned his living as part of a comedy act with Tommy Noonan, and they appeared in night clubs and on television variety shows. Although Marshall occasionally worked in film and television, he could not find regular work in the industry until his friend Morey Amsterdam recommended him to Bert Parks to host the game show Hollywood Squares in 1966.

The show had a long run on daytime TV and in syndication, making Marshall as familiar to viewers as the celebrities who appeared on the show. The easy-going and unflappable Marshall was a perfect foil for the wicked wit of such panelists as Amsterdam and his Dick Van Dyke Show castmate Rose Marie, Paul Lynde, Jan Murray, and Wally Cox. The Hollywood Squares was cancelled by NBC in 1980, but daily production continued for syndication into 1981.

Interestingly, Marshall grew tired of hosting the show after several years and wanted to leave. Toward that end, he would make outrageous salary demands whenever his contract was up for renewal, hoping that he would be fired for doing so, but much to his surprise, his demands were always met.

After the demise of Hollywood Squares, Marshall continued to work on the game shows Fantasy (with cohost Leslie Uggams), All Star Blitz, Yahtzee, and The Reel to Reel Picture Show. However, none of these met with the success of the original Squares. He stayed in television and movies playing character parts. One of his memorable post-Squares roles was a cameo in the 1981 musical Annie playing radio personality Bert Healy.

His last film credit was the 1993 film Sista Dansen (The Last Dance), but he continued to work in television after that. He wrote a book about his experience, Backstage with the Original Hollywood Square.

Marshall's Broadway credits include Skyscraper and La Cage aux Folles.

In the quarter century since Marshall hosted the original Hollywood Squares the program has refused to leave the public consciousness. Two attempts to revive it in the 1980s (the first, a short-lived version hosted by Jon "Bowzer" Bauman from Sha-Na-Na; the second, a better-received edition emceed by John Davidson), met with mixed results, but a parody version in In Living Color hosted by Marshall showed a glimpse of the magic displayed in the original (since then, another attempt at reviving the game show, this time emceed by Tom Bergeron, reflected the success rate of the Davidson edition). Despite the various different versions between 1980 and 2004, Hollywood Squares remains most strongly identified with Marshall.

As of 2000, Marshall was back on the travelling circuit, this time as a singer with big bands. His website actively promotes his CDs.

In 2002, Marshall came back to the show as a panelist during a Game Show Week on the Tom Bergeron version, even hosting it for one day.

He is currently married to his third wife, Laurie Stewart, and has four children and two stepchildren from his previous marriages. He is also currently a host on the Music Of Your Life radio network.

His son, Pete LaCock, is a former Major League Baseball player. The retired first baseman spent nine years playing for the Kansas City Royals and Chicago Cubs before finishing up his career in Japan.

In 2006, Peter Marshall, who had already won an Emmy for Best Game Show Host, was the recipient of the annual Bill Cullen Award for Lifetime Achievement, from the non-profit organization, Game Show Congress.

Kathy Mattea country music, South Charleston

Kathy Mattea, full name Kathleen Alice Mattea (born June 21, 1959 in South Charleston, West Virginia), is a female country music and bluegrass performer who often brings celtic sounds to her music, particularly with her release of Love Travels, one of her most critically popular albums.

She was born in South Charleston because it had the nearest hospital to her parents' home in Cross Lanes, where she grew up, graduating from nearby Nitro High School. In 1976, while in college, she joined the bluegrass band Pennsboro, and two years later dropped out of school to move to Nashville. She worked as a tour guide at the Country Music Hall of Fame, did backup vocal work for Bobby Goldsboro , and sang demos for several Nashville songwriters and publishers including Nashville songwriter/producer Byron Hill, who brought her to the attention of Frank Jones (then head of Mercury Records), who signed her to her first record deal in 1983.

Mattea's third album, 1986's folky Walk the Way the Wind Blows, proved to be her breakthrough both critically and commercially. Her cover of Nanci Griffith's "Love at the Five and Dime" was her first major hit, reaching #3 (and in addition, earned Griffith notice as a songwriter); and the album produced three other top ten songs: "Walk the Way the Wind Blows" (#10), "You're the Power (#5), and "Train of Memories" (#6).

Further hit songs include her first #1, "Goin' Gone"; the truck-driving song "Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses" (1988); "Come From the Heart" and "Burnin' Old Memories" (both #1 hits in 1989); "She Came From Fort Worth" (1990); "Lonesome Standard Time" (1992); "Walking Away a Winner" (1994); "Nobody's Gonna Rain on Our Parade" (1994); "Maybe She's Human" (1994); and "455 Rocket" (1997). "Eighteen Wheels," in late May 1988, became the first single by a solo female to spend multiple weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard country singles chart since Dolly Parton's "You're the Only One" in August 1979; both singles were on top of that chart for two weeks.

The heart-wrenching "Where've You Been," which Mattea's husband Jon Vezner co-wrote with singer/songwriter Don Henry, reached #2 on the country chart and won her a 1990 Grammy for Best Female Country Vocal. Mattea is a repeat winner of the County Music Associations Female Vocalist of the Year, which she won on the success of "Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses" and "Where've You Been."

The following year, Mattea took part in Voices That Care, a multi-artist project that featured other top names in music for a one-off single to raise money for the allied troops in the Gulf War. The project included fellow country singers Garth Brooks, Kenny Rogers and Randy Travis. She has also been heavily involved in HIV/AIDS-related charities beginning in the early 1990s, and is often credited with leading the country music community, commonly regarded as the last segment of the entertainment industry to address the AIDS epidemic, to finally do so. She performed with Mary Chapin Carpenter on VH1's very first Save The Music concert, which also starred Bette Midler.

Mattea won another Grammy in 1993 for her gospel-oriented Christmas album Good News. Her first single from the album, "Mary, Did You Know?" went on to be covered by Kenny Rogers with Wynonna, as well as Reba McEntire.

Mattea subsequently moved to MCA and, in 2000, released the ballad-heavy The Innocent Years, a heartfelt tribute to her ailing father. Wanting to explore her taste for Celtic folk, Mattea hopped labels to Narada, for whom she debuted in 2002 with the eclectic Roses.

With her social activism and her taste for songs with introspective lyrics, it has been often said that Mattea owes as much to the traditions of folk music as mainstream country.

Though her recent work has failed to make the country charts, Mattea continued to enjoy a strong following throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s; her albums are critically well received, and she continues to tour and perform. She continues to have strong support from a very active fan club, whose members refer to themselves as MatteaHeads.

Arch Alfred Moore jurist, Moundsville

Arch Alfred Moore, Jr. (born April 16, 1923) was the Governor of West Virginia from 1969 until 1977 and from 1985 until 1989. He was a Congressman from 1957 until entering the governor's office. He is a member of the United States Republican Party. He ran for reelection in 1988 but was defeated by Gaston Caperton. Allegations of corruption were a major reason for his defeat. He was eventually prosecuted for corruption and pled guilty to five felony charges. He was sentenced to five years and ten months in prison in 1990. He served over three years before his release. As a result of his conviction, Moore was disbarred and forfeited his state pension. In 1995, he paid a settlement of $750,000 to the state.

Moore was born in Moundsville, West Virginia in the state's industrial northern panhandle. He briefly attended Easton College in Easton, Pennsylvania before joining the United States Army during World War II. He received a disfiguring wound in the jaw during fighting in Germany. Moore was left for dead for two days in a German farmer's beet field after 33 of the 36 members of his platoon died in battle.

He then entered West Virginia University graduating in 1948 and then from its law school in 1951. While at WVU he was involved with student government and founded "Mountaineer Week" a celebration of West Virginia culture in response to his perception that the growing number of out-of-state students at the school were changing its character. The event has become a permanent part of the school's calendar. He was also a member of the Beta Psi chapter of Beta Theta Pi at West Virginia University and is a recipient of the fraternity's Oxford Cup.

Moore was elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates in 1952. In 1954, Moore made his first run for Congress, challlenging incumbent Democratic Congressman Robert Mollohan. Moore lost. In 1956, Mollohan vacated the seat to run for Governor of West Virginia, a race he lost to Republican Cecil Underwood. In 1956, Moore ran for the open congressional seat, winning by a margin of just 762 votes. Moore would subsequently be re-elected through the 1966 election, before seeking the governor's office in 1968. His terms in the House were marked by strong support for public works projects and for civil rights.

The state's Constitution, which had formerly had a one-term term limit and provided for a weak governor system, was amended in 1968 to strengthen the powers of the Governor and in 1970 to provide for a two-term limit. Moore became the first person re-elected governor in 1972, defeating Jay Rockefeller. Moore's first two terms as governor are best remembered for improvements in the state's highway system and for the Buffalo Creek Flood disaster. During Moore's first two terms as Governor, West Virginia built over 225 miles of interstate highways through mountainous terrain and the New River Gorge Bridge, once the world's longest steel arch bridge.

In 1976 Moore was term limited from seeking a third term and declined to challenge Robert C. Byrd for a seat in the United States Senate. He rather began a two-year campaign for the state's other Senate seat, which was expected to be vacated by the aging Jennings Randolph in 1978. To the surprise of almost all observers, the obviously declining Randolph stood for re-election. His campaign was entirely financed by then-governor Rockefeller, as Randolph's six-year term as Senator and a theoretical second Rockefeller term as governor would both expire in 1984, permitting Rockefeller to run for an open seat. Moore was outspent by 5 to 1 in this election, and lost by 4717 votes.

In 1980 Moore sought his third term as governor. Rockefeller outspent him by a figure of 20 to 1, and Moore again lost a close race.

In 1984 Moore again ran for governor and was returned by a very large margin, becoming the only West Virginia governor to be elected to three terms in office. He again turned his attention to highways, and saw the completion of last major section of interstate highway in the country, which had been left unbuilt during the Rockefeller terms, in 1988. He was defeated for re-election in 1988 and subsequently pled guilty to receiving a bribe relative to a refund of a workers compensation tax from a coal executive and served over three years in federal prison. Moore has always maintained that his plea was a part of a legal strategy and his attempts to withdraw it and stand trial on the matter were denied. As of 2005 he continues to maintain his innocence.

Moore now lives in Glen Dale.

His daughter Shelley Moore Capito is currently a member of the United States House of Representatives from West Virginia's 2nd Congressional district.

Mary Lou Retton gymnast, Fairmont

Born: 24 January 1968, Fairmont, West Virginia, Best Known As: Gold medalist in the 1984 Olympics 

In 1984 Mary Lou Retton became the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal for the all-around competition in gymnastics. The Summer Olympics were held that year in Los Angeles, California, with the Soviet Union boycotting the competition in retaliation for a United States boycott of the Moscow Olympics four years earlier. Besides her gold in the all-around competition, Retton also won 2 silver medals and 2 bronze, making her the single biggest medal winner of any athlete at that year's competition. Her Olympic success made her an instant celebrity, launching her career on the lecture circuit and getting her a few small roles in movies such as Scrooged and Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult. She also has appeared frequently as a gymnastics commentator on TV.

Walter Reuther labor leader, Wheeling, 1946-1970

Walter Reuther was president of the United Automobile Workers (UAW) from 1946 until his death in 1970. Under his leadership, the UAW grew to more than 1.5 million members, becoming one of the largest unions in the United States. Reuther was widely admired as the model of a reform-minded, liberal, responsible trade unionist—the leading labor intellectual of his age, a champion of industrial democracy and civil rights who used the collective bargaining process and labor's political influence to advance the cause of social justice for all Americans.

Walter Reuther was born in Wheeling, W.V., on Sept. 1, 1907, the son of Valentine Reuther, a German socialist, and his wife, Anna Stocker. Reuther received an early education in socialism and union politics from his father. A visit to the prison where Socialist Party leader Eugene V. Debs was being held for his resistance to World War I made an indelible impression on the young Reuther, who became a committed Debsian socialist. Bored with his studies, Reuther dropped out of Wheeling High School at 16 and eventually became an apprentice tool-and-die maker. Fired for trying to organize a union, Reuther moved to Detroit in 1927, drawn by the Ford Motor Company's promise of high wages and a shorter workweek. He quickly established himself as one of the most skilled and respected mechanics at Ford's River Rouge plant. Working nights, Reuther earned his high school diploma at the age of 22 and took classes at Detroit City College (now Wayne State University), where he was joined by his younger brothers Victor and Roy.

The Great Depression consolidated the political and social activism of the Reuther brothers. Together with friends, they formed a Social Problems Club on campus and affiliated with the Socialist League of Industrial Democracy. They organized protests against establishing a Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) unit on campus and against the segregationist policies of a local swimming pool leased by the college. In 1932, Walter campaigned for Socialist Party presidential candidate Norman Thomas. The following year, Walter and Victor began a nine-nation tour of Europe in Nazi Germany, ending it with a two-year stay in the Soviet Union, where the Reuther brothers worked at a massive automobile factory.

Reuther returned in 1935 and eventually decided to stay in Detroit, where he had fallen in love with May Wolf, a physical education teacher, Socialist Party activist and devotee of modern dance. Reuther and Wolf married in March 1936 after a brief courtship and raised two daughters together in the modest Detroit home they purchased in 1941.

Reuther began organizing for the UAW, the new auto workers union under the auspices of the Committee on Industrial Organization. Eager to make his mark in the labor movement, Reuther joined the fledgling UAW Local 86, representing employees at GM's Ternstadt parts plant, even though he was not employed by the company. Reuther was elected a delegate to the 1936 UAW national convention. His credentials were challenged daily by conservative delegates and, as a result, his name was constantly before the assembly.

Never shy and already an accomplished public speaker, Reuther emerged as the floor leader of the Michigan delegation and was elected to the UAW's national Executive Board.

Returning to Detroit a paid UAW official, Reuther set out to organize an amalgamated local on the city's west side. Within eight months, UAW Local 174, of which Reuther was the president, represented 30,000 workers and 76 shops. Reuther played a key role in planning the successful 1937 sit-down strike against GM in Flint, Mich., then joined others in the effort to secure similar UAW recognition from Ford. Reuther's organizing at Ford brought him national attention when newspaper photographers captured him being beaten bloody by Ford security men as he passed out leaflets outside Ford's River Rouge plant.

In 1939, Reuther became director of the UAW's General Motors department, and in 1942 he was elected the union's first vice president. During World War II, Reuther also served with the Office of Production Management, the War Manpower Commission and the War Production Board. As director of the UAW's GM division, Reuther won the respect of industry executives as well as the loyalty of the rank and file. When a wildcat strike movement swept GM's shops in 1944–1945, Reuther skillfully handled the crisis, championing the cause of the workers without running afoul of the government or the company. Then, in 1946, after the war's end, Reuther led a 116-day strike against GM, calling for a 30 percent wage increase without an increase in the retail price of cars, and he challenged GM to "open its books" to prove the demand impossible. GM refused both demands but did offer an 18 percent wage increase, which Reuther accepted.

In 1946, Reuther was elected president of the UAW. Although his postwar political agenda of national health care, economic redistribution and job security for all met defeat, Reuther continued to press these issues at the bargaining table. In 1948, GM agreed to a historic contract tying wage increases to the general cost-of-living and productivity increases. Over the next two decades, the union negotiated model grievance procedures, safety and health provisions, pensions, health benefits and "supplemental unemployment benefits" that enabled UAW members to earn up to 95 percent of their regular paycheck even if they were laid off.

An ally of the Communist Party in the 1930s, Reuther turned against the Communists in the 1940s, in part because he believed they subordinated the interests of the union and its members to that of the party and its Soviet sponsors. He supported the anti-communist provisions of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act and in 1948 was a founding member of the staunchly anti-communist Americans for Democratic Action. Reuther became president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations in 1952 after the death of Philip Murray; he immediately joined with George Meany, president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), to negotiate a merger between the two groups, which took effect in 1955.

Unwilling to surrender the presidency of the UAW to become an elected AFL-CIO official, Reuther instead opted to be director of the federation's Industrial Union Department (IUD). As head of the IUD, Reuther called for large-scale 1930s-style organizing drives and broad-based grassroots political action committees. He fought tirelessly for civil rights protections and an enhanced welfare state that would benefit all Americans. Reuther stood beside Martin Luther King Jr. when he delivered his famous "I have a dream" speech at the 1963 March on Washington, and he met weekly with President Lyndon Johnson throughout 1964–1965 to discuss legislative and political initiatives.

In 1968, frustrated at what he perceived to be an unwillingness or an inability to seize opportunities for action, Reuther pulled the UAW out of the AFL-CIO. He formed a short-lived Alliance for Labor Action with the Teamsters, which had been expelled from the AFL-CIO for corruption in the 1950s. Before the new group could launch any initiatives, however, Reuther; his wife, May; and two others were killed in a private plane crash. Reuther left a legacy of reform-minded unionism, civil rights activism and social justice idealism upon which the labor movement continues to draw.

Eleanor Steber soprano, Wheeling, 1916-1990

Born: July 17, 1916 - Wheeling, West Virginia, USA
Died: October 3, 1990 - Langhorne, Pennsylvania, USA

The eminent American soprano, Eleanor Steber, grew up in a musical family. Her mother was an accomplished amateur singer and taught her voice and piano, took her to concerts, arranged for coaching, and strongly encouraged her to study and to sing in school and community shows. Eleanor later studied at the New England Conservatory in Boston, originally intending to major in piano, but her voice teacher, William Whitney, persuaded her to focus on singing, instead. She received Bachelor of Music in 1938. At the beginning she did a lot of radio, oratorio, and church work. Steber’s opera debut was in 1936, appearing as Senta with the Commonwealth Opera in a WPA production of Wagner's The Flying Dutchman, a demanding role indeed for a 21-year-old. In 1939, she went to New York to study with Paul Althouse who had a great influence on her. In 1940 she won first prize at the Metropolitan Opera Auditions of the Air, earning a Met contract.

Eleanor Steber's first role at the Met was Sophie in Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier in October 1940. During the next years she benefited from conductors such as Bruno Walter, Sir Thomas Beecham, Erich Leinsdorf and George Szell. She was a versatile artist and appeared in Italian, French and German operas. Things began to change for her at the Met when Rudolf Bing took over the company in 1950. By this time, her career extended well beyond New York (San Francisco, Chicago and Europe). At the Met, though, she began to feel that she was being passed over for mainstream Italian roles in favour of Tebaldi and Callas. Altogether she appeared 286 times in New York and 118 times on tour. She sang 28 leading roles in an extremely large repertoire. Her easy upper range, coupled with a rich, smoothly produced lower voice made her a natural for Mozart roles. Which she sang brilliantly, such as the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, and even Konstanze in the Abduction from the Seraglio, with its vocal pyrotechnics, as well as in other Mozart operas. As her voice matured, she sang some of the spinto roles in both the German and Italian repertoire. Her roles in this repertoire included Violetta, Elisabetta, Desdemona, Marguerite, Manon Lescaut, Mimi, and Tosca, and the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier. In Wagner’s operas she sang Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Elsa in Lohengrin. She was also the company’s first Arabella in 1955, and in 1959 was the first to perform at the Met the challenging part of Marie in Berg’s opera Wozzeck. Steber was perhaps most famous for her creation of in January 1958 of the title role in Samuel Barber’s opera Vanessa (but it was first offered to Maria Callas and Sena Jurinac who both declined), and for commissioning his Knoxville: Summer of 1915. Steber was one of the most important sopranos in the USA during the 1940’s and 1950’s, with a sweet and yet full voice, and outstanding versatility (her recitals were practically vocal pentathlons for their wide range of styles and vocal demands, and the day she sang Desdemona in Verdi's Otello for a Met matinee and Fiordiligi in Mozart's Così fan tutte that evening is still a legend). Her European engagements included appearances at Edinburgh (1947), Vienna (1953), and Glyndebourne. In 1953 she was the first American to appear at the Bayreuth Festival after the Second World War.

In addition to opera and recitals, Eleanor Steber was a frequent guest on The Voice of Firestone's television broadcasts. However, her career outlasted her voice, and most of her later appearances and recordings were gravely technically flawed.

Eleanor Steber's relationship with the Met was not an easy one, for many reasons on both sides. In 1961, when Bing offered her a contract that only provided “covering” roles, she declined. After several years of absence from the Metropolitan Opera, she took part in the final gala performance of the old opera building in April 1966.

Eleanor Steber was not very happy in private life either, two marriages had fallen apart and she got into problems with alcohol and asthma. After partial retirement in 1962, she turned her attention more and more towards recitals and concerts. She made some appearances on Broadway, mostly in supporting parts, and also gave one of the notorious bathhouse concerts in New York in 1973. She and her husband opened and managed a record label, ST/AND (combining their names), but when they attempted to expand, it was a dismal flop.

Eleanor Steber was head of the voice department at the Cleveland Institute of Music from 1963 to 1972. She taught at the Juilliard School in New York, and at the New England Conservatory of Music (both from 1971), also at the American Institute of Music Studies in Graz (1978-1980; 1988). She established the Eleanor Steber Music Foundation in 1875 to assist young professional singers. With R. Beatie, she published study ‘Mozart Operatic Arias’ (New York, 1988). Her autobiography, written in collaboration with M. Sloat was published posthumously (New Jersey 1992).

Thomas Stonewall Jackson Confederate general, Clarksburg, 1824-1863

Next to Robert E. Lee himself, Thomas J. Jackson is the most revered of all Confederate commanders. A graduate of West Point (1846), he had served in the artillery in the Mexican War, earning two brevets, before resigning to accept a professorship at the Virginia Military Institute. Thought strange by the cadets, he earned "Tom Fool Jackson" and "Old Blue Light" as nicknames.
        Upon the outbreak of the Civil War he was commissioned a colonel in the Virginia forces and dispatched to Harpers Ferry where he was active in organizing the raw recruits until relieved by Joe Johnston. His later assignments included: commanding lst Brigade, Army of the Shenandoah (May - July 20, 1861); brigadier general, CSA June 17, 1861); commanding 1st Brigade, 2nd Corps, Army of the Potomac July 20 - October 1861); major general, CSA (October 7, 1861); commanding Valley District, Department of Northern Virginia (November 4, 1861 - June 26, 1862); commanding 2nd Corps, Army of Northern Virginia June 26, 1862-May 2, 1863); and lieutenant general, CSA (October 10, 1862).
        Leaving Harpers Ferry, his brigade moved with Johnston to join Beauregard at Manassas. In the fight at 1st Bull Run they were so distinguished that both the brigade and its commander were dubbed "Stonewall" by General Barnard Bee. (However, Bee may have been complaining that Jackson was not coming to his support). The 1st Brigade was the only Confederate brigade to have its nickname become its official designation. That fall Jackson was given command of the Valley with a promotion to major general.
        That winter he launched a dismal campaign into the western part of the state that resulted in a long feud with General William Loring and caused Jackson to submit his resignation, which he was talked out of. In March he launched an attack on what he thought was a Union rear guard at Kernstown. Faulty intelligence from his cavalry chief, Turner Ashby, led to a defeat. A religious man, Jackson always regretted having fought on a Sunday. But the defeat had the desired result, halting reinforcements being sent to McClellan's army from the Valley. In May Jackson defeated Fremont's advance at McDowell and later that month launched a brilliant campaign that kept several Union commanders in the area off balance. He won victories at Front Royal, 1st Winchester, Cross Keys, and Port Republic. He then joined Lee in the defense of Richmond but displayed a lack of vigor during the Seven Days.
        Detached from Lee, he swung off to the north to face John Pope's army and after a slipshod battle at Cedar Mountain, slipped behind Pope and captured his Manassas junction supply base. He then hid along an incomplete branch railroad and awaited Lee and Longstreet. Attacked before they arrived, he held on until Longstreet could launch a devastating attack which brought a second Bull Run victory.
        In the invasion of Maryland, Jackson was detached to capture Harpers Ferry and was afterwards distinguished at Antietam with Lee. He was promoted after this and given command of the now-official 2nd Corps. It had been known as a wing or command before this. He was disappointed with the victory at Fredericksburg because it could not be followed up. In his greatest day he led his corps around the Union right flank at Chancellorsville and routed the 11th Corps. Reconnoitering that night, he was returning to his own lines when he was mortally wounded by some of his own men.
        Following the amputation of his arm, he died eight days later on May 10, 1863, from pneumonia. Lee wrote of him with deep feeling: " He has lost his left arm; but I have lost my right arm." A superb commander, he had several faults. Personnel problems haunted him, as in the feuds with Loring and with Garnett after Kernstown. His choices for promotion were often not first rate. He did not give his subordinates enough latitude, which denied them the training for higher positions under Lee's loose command style. This was especially devastating in the case of his immediate successor, Richard Ewell. Although he was sometimes balky when in a subordinate position, Jackson was supreme on his own hook. Stonewall Jackson is buried in Lexington, Virginia.

Lewis L. Strauss naval officer and scientist, Charleston, 1896-1974

Admiral Lewis Lichtenstein Strauss (1896-1974)

Lewis Lichtenstein Strauss (b. January 31, 1896, Charleston, West Virginia – d. January 21, 1974, Culpeper, Virginia) was a wealthy businessman who later became a U.S. administrator. He was the chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission between 1953 and 1958. He was Acting Secretary of Commerce between 1958 and 1959; then-President Eisenhower nominated him for the permanent position, but his nomination was narrowly rejected (by a 49-46 vote).

Strauss is perhaps most remembered as the driving force in the McCarthy-era hearings in which J. Robert Oppenheimer's security clearance was revoked. Strauss' failure to be confirmed as Secretary of Commerce was largely due to his role in the Oppenheimer matter.

Cyrus Vance government official, Clarksburg, 1917-2002

Cyrus Roberts Vance (Clarksburg, West Virginia, March 27, 1917 – January 12, 2002) was the United States Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1980. He approached foreign policy with an emphasis on negotiation over conflict and a special interest in arms reduction. In April of 1980, Vance resigned in protest of Operation Eagle Claw, the secret mission to rescue American hostages in Iran.

Vance was the nephew (and adoptive son) of 1924 Democratic Presidential Candidate and noted lawyer John W. Davis.

Military and legal career

Vance graduated from Kent School in 1935 and received a bachelor's degree in 1939 from Yale University, where he was a member of the secret society, Scroll and Key. After graduating from Yale Law School in 1942, Vance served in the Navy as a gunnery officer on the destroyer USS Hale until 1946 and then joined the prestigious law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in New York City before entering the government.

Political career

Vance was the Secretary of the Army in the Kennedy administration. He worked on sending United States Army units into Northern Mississippi in 1962 to protect James Meredith and put down the resistance to the court ordered integration of the University of Mississippi. As Deputy Secretary of Defense under President Lyndon Johnson, he at first supported the Vietnam War but changed his views by the late 1960s, advising the president to pull out of South Vietnam. In 1968 he served as a delegate to peace talks in Paris. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969.

As Secretary of State in the Carter administration, Vance pushed for negotiations and economic ties with the Soviet Union and clashed frequently with the more hawkish National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. Vance tried to advance arms limitations by working on the SALT II agreement with Russia, which he saw as the central diplomatic issue of the time. He was heavily instrumental in Carter's decision to return the Canal Zone to Panama and in the Camp David Accords agreement between Israel and Egypt.

After the Accords, Vance's influence in the administration began to wane as Brzezinski's rose. His role in talks with People's Republic of China was marginalized and his advice for a response to the Shah of Iran's collapsing regime was ignored. Shortly thereafter, when fifty-three American hostages were held in Iran, he worked actively in negotiations but to no avail. Finally, when Carter ordered a secret military rescue, Vance resigned in opposition. The rescue attempt failed.

Later life and death

Vance returned to his law practice at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in 1980, but was repeatedly called back to public service throughout the 1980s and 1990s, participating in diplomatic missions to Bosnia, Croatia, and South Africa.

In 1993, he was awarded the prestigious United States Military Academy's Sylvanus Thayer Award.

He died aged 84 after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease and was interred at Arlington National Cemetery.

Vance also was a member of the Trilateral Commission.

Cyrus Vance was Secretary of State under U.S. president Jimmy Carter, holding the office from 1977 until he resigned in 1980. Vance resigned his post because he disagreed with a military plan to rescue U.S. citizens being held hostage in Tehran, Iran (the plan was carried out and failed). A lawyer, Vance had also been a long-time official in the Department of Defense, a veteran of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations (1960-68). After leaving Carter's cabinet, Vance returned to his law practice, but in the early 1990s he again participated in diplomatic missions in Croatia and Bosnia. Before his death he suffered from Alzheimer's Disease.

Steve Yeager baseball player, Huntington

Stephen Wayne Yeager (born November 24, 1948 in Huntington, West Virginia) is an American baseball player; catcher. Yeager spent 14 of 15 seasons of his Major League Baseball career, from 1972 through 1985, with the Los Angeles Dodgers. His last year, in 1986, was with the Seattle Mariners.

Minor League Career

Yeager, who was Jewish, was drafted by Los Angeles on 6 June 1967, in the 4th round of the 1967 amateur draft.

After one game with Ogden, Utah (in the Rookie League-Pioneer Division), Yeager was sent to Dubuque (Iowa - Single-A league-Midwest Division), for 14 games.

The following season, 1968, he played 59 games in Daytona Beach (Florida - Single-A Florida Southern League).

In 1969 he played 22 games in Bakersfield (California - Single-A - California League), and 1 game in Albuquerque (New Mexico - Double-A - Texas League).

He spent the next two seasons in Albuquerque. 1970 & 1971 in "AA" - Texas League, for 162 games, were he batted .276, with 77 RBIs in 490 at bats. For 1971 he was named to the All Star team as a member of the Texas League, or Dixie Association - Western Division, catching for the Albuquerque Dukes (67-75), along with teammates Lee Lacy (2B) and Paul Johnston (OF).

The following season, 1972, he played 82 games in Albuquerque (Triple-AAA - Pacific Coast League), with 45 RBIs in 257 at bats, while hitting .280.

Major League Career

In the beginning of August, 1972, he would get "the call" to the majors, and make his major league debut on the 2^nd. In that first-third of a season he would make 106 plate appearances in 35 games, batt .274, and drive in 15 runs on 29 hits, while scoring 18 total runs. He contributed to four World Series appearances with the Dodgers, in 1974, 1977, 1978 and 1981. In the latter, Yeager shared the World Series Most Valuable Player award with Dodger teammates Pedro Guerrero and Ron Cey.

Lou Brock called Yeager "the best-throwing catcher in the game." Steve's specialty was defense and his command of the game on the field. He was very good at controlling the game defensively, especially with young pitchers. His batting, however, was not spectacular; in his best year, 1974, he batted .266 in fewer than 100 games. Yeager is famous for having invented the catcher's throat protector flap, which he began wearing after a life-threatening incident in which a shattered bat pierced his neck and he needed added protection.

In 1999, Yeager was the hitting coach for the Dodgers’ Single-A San Bernardino club, which won the California League championship. Steve is currently coaching for the Dodgers at Double-A Jacksonville. In 2006, Steve was named the hitting instructor/coach for the Dodgers AAA farm club, Las Vegas 51's. Currently, he serves as the hitting coach for the Inland Empire 66ers.

Outside baseball

Yeager is the nephew of pilot Chuck Yeager. When Steve got married, then Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley was best man at his wedding. Yeager was infamous for having posed nude for Playgirl magazine in their October 1982 issue.

The Yeager family once appeared as contestants on the television game show Family Feud.

Yeager served as technical advisor and also had a small role, as a pitcher/coach named "Duke", in three movies: Major League, Major League II and Major League: Back to the Minors.

Stats

• Height: 6 ft 0 in (1.83 m)
• Weight: 190 lb (86 kg)
• Bats: Right
• Throws: Right
• Uniform number: 7
• World Series teams: 1974, 1977, 1978 & 1981 Dodgers (.298 in 21 games, 17 for 57, 10 RBI's)
• MLB Career
  • 15 Seasons
  • Debut: 2 August 1972 (LA)
  • Final Game: 29 August 1986 (Seattle)
  • Games: 1269 batting; 1230 catching
  • Putouts: 6110
  • Assists: 674
  • Errors: 88 (catching)
  • Double Plays: 75 (catching)
  • Fielding Percentage: .987
  • Batting average: .228
  • Hits: 816
  • RBI's: 410
  • Home runs: 102

Transactions

• 6 June 1967: Drafted by Dodgers in the 4th round, 80th pick, of the amateur draft
• 12 November 1985: Granted Free Agency
• 26 November 1985: Signed as a Free Agent with the Los Angeles Dodgers
• 11 December 1985: Traded by the Los Angeles Dodgers to the Seattle Mariners for Ed Vande Berg
• 12 November 1986: Granted Free Agency

Charlie McCoy, country musician and singer, Oak Hill

b. Charles Ray McCoy, 28 March 1941, Oak Hill, West Virginia, USA. When McCoy was eight years old, he ordered a harmonica for 50 cents and a box-top, but he was more interested in the guitar. He played in rock 'n' roll bands in Miami, where Mel Tillis heard him and suggested that he visit Nashville to work as a singer. Although his singing career did not take off, he played drums for US hitmakers Johnny Ferguson and Stonewall Jackson. In 1961, McCoy recorded as a singer for US Cadence Records and entered the charts with "Cherry Berry Wine". He then formed a rock 'n' roll band, Charlie McCoy And The Escorts, which played in Nashville clubs for several years. During this period, McCoy played harmonica on Ann-Margret's "I Just Don't Understand" and Roy Orbison's "Candy Man", and the success of the two records led to further offers of session work. McCoy became the top harmonica player in Nashville, playing up to 400 sessions a year, and was a regular on Elvis Presley recordings. He worked with Bob Dylan at the infamous Blonde On Blonde sessions, playing harmonica on "Obviously Five Believers", trumpet on "Rainy Day Women Nos 12 & 35', and bass on several other tracks. The success of Dylan and other rock musicians in Nashville prompted McCoy and other sessionmen to form the critically acclaimed Area Code 615. McCoy later joined Area Code 615"s successor Barefoot Jerry and was featured on the band's 1974 US country hit, "Boogie Woogie".

McCoy revived his recording career in the late 60s and had a US chart hit in 1972 with a revival of "Today I Started Loving You Again", but, considering his love of blues harmonica player Little Walter, his records are comparatively unadventurous and middle-of-the-road. Nevertheless, he has often reached the US country charts with instrumental interpretations of overworn country songs, and has won a Grammy Award and several country music accolades. After his contract with Monument Records ended in 1982, McCoy recorded freely for a number of different labels, releasing a number of European only albums. He later limited his session appearances, largely because of his work as musical director of the television series Hee-Haw, an association that lasted 19 years. However, he did appear with other Nashville session men on US indie band Ween's oddball 1996 recording, 12 Golden Country Greats. Two years later he was elected to the German-American Country Music Federation Hall Of Fame.

Jon A. McBride (Captain, USN, Ret.) NASA former Astronaut, Charleston

PERSONAL DATA: Born August 14, 1943, in Charleston, West Virginia, but considers Beckley, West Virginia, to be his hometown. Four children (one deceased). Married to the former Sharon Lynne White of Nacogdoches, Texas. Recreational interests include flying, basketball, golf, softball, racquetball, gourmet cooking, numismatics, gardening, carpentry.

EDUCATION: Graduated from Woodrow High School, Beckley, West Virginia in 1960; attended West Virginia University 1960-1964; received a bachelor of science degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in 1971. Graduate work in Human Resource Management at Pepperdine University.

ORGANIZATIONS: Member of the Association of Naval Aviation; Veterans of Foreign Wars; the American Legion; and the Society of Experimental Test Pilots. Life member of Phi Delta Theta; the National Honor Society; the Golden Key National Honor Society. Member of the West Virginia University Engineering Visiting Committee (Chairman 1990-92) and member of the University System of West Virginia Board of Trustees (1992-1995); Co-Chairman (with wife), American Cancer Society fund-raising (State of West Virginia) 1990; Executive Committee, Boy Scouts of America; Spokesperson for March of Dimes; American Red Cross Disaster Relief; and Shawnee Hills Mental Health Group. Member of the Executive Committee, Association of Space Explorers (Co-President 1995-1996). President, Association of Space Explorers (USA) (1997-1998).

SPECIAL HONORS: Awarded the Legion of Merit (LOM); the Defense Superior Service Medal (DSSM); 3 Air Medals; the Navy Commendation Medal with Combat V; a Navy Unit Commendation; the National Defense Medal; the Vietnamese Service Medal; and the NASA Space Flight Medal. Recipient of West Virginia Secretary of State's "State Medallion" and appointed "West Virginia Ambassador of Good Will Among All Men" (1980). Received Honorary Doctorate in Aerospace Engineering from Salem College (1984); Honorary Doctorate of Science from West Virginia University (1985); Honorary Doctorate of Science from University of Charleston (1987); Honorary Doctorate of Science from West Virginia Institute of Technology (1987); West Virginia Society's "Son-of-the-Year" (1988), City of Beckley; West Virginia "Hall of Fame"; Distinguished Alumni; West Virginia University (1988); West Virginia's "Honorary Italian-American" (1988); Kanawha County West Virginia's "Famous Person Award" (1988); West Virginia Broadcasters' "Man-of-the-Year" (1989); City of Hope's "Spirit of Life Award Winner" (1991); DAR "Medal of Honor" (1993).

EXPERIENCE: McBride's naval service began in 1965 with flight training at Pensacola, Florida. After winning his wings as a naval aviator, he was assigned to Fighter Squadron 101 based at Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia, for training in the F-4 "Phantom II" aircraft. He was subsequently assigned to Fighter Squadron 41 where he served 3 years as a fighter pilot and division officer. He has also served tours with Fighter Squadrons 11 and 103. While deployed to Southeast Asia, McBride flew 64 combat missions.

He attended the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base prior to reporting to Air Test and Development Squadron Four at Point Mugu, California, where he served as maintenance officer and Sidewinder project officer. He has flown over 40 different types of military and civilian aircraft and piloted the Navy "Spirit of '76" bicentennial-painted F-4J "Phantom in various air shows during 1976, 1977, and 1978. He holds current FAA ratings which include commercial pilot (multi-engine), instrument, and glider; and he previously served as a Certified Flight Instructor (CFI).

He has logged more than 8,800 hours flying time--including 4,700 hours in jet aircraft. 1979.

NASA EXPERIENCE: Selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in January 1978, McBride became an astronaut in August 1979. His NASA assignments have included lead chase pilot for the maiden voyage of Columbia; software verification in the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL); capsule communicator (CAPCOM) for STS-5, STS-6, and STS-7; Flight Data File (FDF) Manager, and orbital rendezvous procedures development.

McBride was pilot of STS 41-G, which launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on October 5, 1984, aboard the Orbiter Challenger. This was the first crew of seven. During their eight day mission, crew members deployed the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite, conducted scientific observations of the earth with the OSTA-3 pallet and Large Format Camera, and demonstrated potential satellite refueling with an EVA and associated hydrazine transfer. Mission duration was 197 hours and concluded with a landing at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on October 13, 1984.

McBride was scheduled to fly next in March 1986, as the commander of STS 61-E crew. This flight was one of several deferred by NASA in the wake of the Challenger accident in January 1986.

On July 30, 1987, McBride was assigned to NASA Headquarters to serve as Assistant Administrator for Congressional Relations, with responsibility for NASA's relationship with Congress, and for providing coordination and direction to all Headquarters and Field Center communications with Congressional support organizations. He held this post from September 1987 through March 1989. In 1988 McBride was named to command the crew of the STS-35 (ASTRO-1) mission, scheduled for launch in March 1990.

In May 1989, Captain McBride retired from NASA and the Navy, in order to pursue a business career. He is currently President and Chief Executive Officer of the Flying Eagle Corporation in Lewisburg, West Virginia; and President of the Constructors’ Labor Council of West Virginia (heavy/highway construction contractors).

David Selby, Actor, Morgantown

(born February 5, 1941 in Morgantown, West Virginia) is an American character actor, best known for playing Quentin Collins from 1968-1971 on the ABC-TV cult serial Dark Shadows, and as Jane Wyman's evil and compassionate TV son, Richard Channing, on the long-running, primetime CBS soap opera Falcon Crest (from 1982 to 1990).

Biography

The son of Clyde Ira Selby and Sarah E. McIntyre Selby, he attended West Virginia University in his hometown, earning Bachelor of Science and Master's degrees in theater, followed by a Ph.D. from Southern Illinois University. He would eventually bring his Dark Shadows character to film with the second Dark Shadows movie, Night of Dark Shadows, released in 1971 after the TV series' cancellation. A year before joining Falcon Crest in 1982, he played the villainous Michael Tyronne on the final season of the NBC primetime serial Flamingo Road. Selby's movie credits include co-starring roles with Barbra Streisand in Up the Sandbox (1972) and with Ron Leibman in The Super Cops (1974),White Squall, D3: The Mighty Ducks, Raise the Titanic, and Surviving Christmas (2004). He has recently reprised the role of Quentin Collins for a new series of Dark Shadows audio dramas from Big Finish Productions.

His writing includes the plays Lincoln and James and Final Assault as well as the poetry collections My Mother's Autumn and Happenstance.

Awards

West Virginia University in 1998 awarded Selby its the first Life Achievement Award from the College of Creative Arts, and an honorary doctorate in 2004.

Jerry West, Pro Basketball Player and Manager, Chelyan

Curt Warner, Pro Baseball Player, Pineville

(born March 18, 1961 in Pineville, West Virginia) was the Seattle Seahawks first-round draft pick in 1983. A running back out of Penn State University, Warner led the AFC in rushing yards his rookie season, helping his team to the franchise's first Conference Championship game which they lost to the Los Angeles Raiders. The following year Warner suffered a torn ACL in the season opener against Cleveland and was sidelined for the rest of the year. He came back in 1985 and had a number of successful seasons before ending his career with the Los Angeles Rams.

Warner finished his 8 NFL seasons with 6,844 rushing yards, 193 receptions for 1,467 yards, and 63 touchdowns. He made the pro bowl 3 times (1983, 1986, 1987).

Warner was raised in Pineville, West Virginia, a small town of less than 1,000. He helped his high school football team to several state championship games. He was a multisport athlete, perhaps excelling in baseball more than football. He was predicted as an early first-round draft pick out of high school but was convinced by coach Joe Paterno of Penn State University to play college football rather than play professional baseball.

He currently owns a car dealership named Curt Warner Chevrolet in Vancouver, Washington.

Selva Lewis Burdette, Jr., Pro Baseball Player, Nitro. 1926-2006

b. November 22, 1926 d. February 6, 2007) was an American right-handed starting pitcher in Major League Baseball who played primarily for the Boston and Milwaukee Braves. The team's top righthander during its years in Milwaukee, he was the Most Valuable Player of the 1957 World Series, leading the franchise to its first championship in 43 years, and the only title in Milwaukee history. An outstanding control pitcher, his career average of 1.84 walks per nine innings pitched places him behind only Robin Roberts (1.73), Carl Hubbell (1.82) and Juan Marichal (1.82) among pitchers with at least 3000 innings since 1920.

Born in Nitro, West Virginia, Burdette was signed by the New York Yankees in 1947, and after making two relief appearances for the team in September 1950, he was traded to the Braves in August 1951 for four-time 20-game winner Johnny Sain. Along with left-hander Warren Spahn and hardworking Bob Buhl, he gave the Braves one of the best starting rotations in the majors during the 1950s, winning 15 or more games eight times between 1953 and 1961. When Milwaukee won the 1957 World Series against the Yankees, Burdette became the first pitcher in 37 years to win three complete games in a Series, and the first since Christy Mathewson in 1905 to pitch two shutouts (Games 5 and 7). In the 1958 Series, however, the Yankees defeated Burdette twice in three starts. In addition to winning 20 games in 1958 and 21 in 1959, Burdette won 19 in 1956 and 1960, 18 in 1961, and 17 in 1957. In two All-Star games, he allowed only one run in seven innings pitched, and in 1956 he topped National League pitchers with a 2.70 earned run average. He also led the NL in shutouts twice, and in wins, innings and complete games once each.

Burdette was the winning pitcher on May 26, 1959 when the Pittsburgh Pirates' Harvey Haddix pitched a perfect game against the Braves for 12 innings, only to lose in the 13th. Burdette threw a 1-0 shutout, scattering 12 hits. In the ensuing offseason, he joked, "I'm the greatest pitcher that ever lived. The greatest game that was ever pitched in baseball wasn't good enough to beat me, so I've got to be the greatest!" The next year, facing the minimum 27 batters, Burdette pitched a 1–0 no-hitter against the Philadelphia Phillies on August 18, 1960. Tony González, the only opposing batter to reach base after being hit by a pitch in the fifth inning, was retired on a double play. Burdette helped himself by scoring the only run of the game. Following up his no-hitter, five days later he pitched his third shutout in a row.

As a hitter, he compiled a .183 batting average with 75 RBI and 12 home runs; his first two home runs came in the same 1957 game, and he later had two more two-homer games.

In 1963 Burdette was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals (1963-64), and was later sent to the Chicago Cubs (1964-65) and Phillies (1965). Signing with the California Angels, he pitched exclusively in relief for the team in 1966-67 before retiring. In an 18-year career, Burdette posted a 203-144 record with 1074 strikeouts and a 3.66 ERA in 3067.1 innings, compiling 158 complete games and 33 shutouts. His totals of wins, games and innings with the Braves ranked behind only Spahn and Kid Nichols in franchise history.

Burdette also cut a record in the 1950s entitled "Three Strikes and Then You're Out".

Burdette died of lung cancer at age 80 at his home in Winter Garden, Florida.

Rod Thorn, NBA Basketball Player, Coach, President and General Manager. Princeton

Rod Hundley, NBA Basketball Player and Broadcaster, Charleston

Lonnie Warwick, Pro Football Player

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Dennis Harrah, Pro Football Player

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Sam Huff, Pro Football Player, Farmington

Booker Taliaferro Washington, Educator, Lost Creek

(April 5, 1856, – November 14, 1915) was an American educator, author and leader of the African American community.

Washington was born into slavery to a white father and a black slave mother on a rural farm in southwestern Virginia. After the slaves were freed there in 1865, he worked in West Virginia in a variety of menial labor jobs for several years before making his way to Hampton Roads seeking an education. He worked his way through the school which is now Hampton University and attended college at Wayland Seminary. After returning to Hampton as a teacher, upon recommendation of Hampton's president, Sam Armstrong, he was named in 1881 as the first leader of the new normal school which became Tuskegee University in Alabama.

Washington was the most dominant figure in the African American community in the United States from 1890 to 1915, especially after he achieved prominence for his Atlanta Address of 1895. To many politicians and the public in general, he was seen as a popular spokesperson for African American citizens. Representing the last generation of black leaders born into slavery, he was credible when speaking publicly and seeking educational improvements for those freedmen who had remained in the New South in an uneasy modus vivendi with the white southerners. Throughout the final 20 years of his life, he maintained this standing through a nationwide network of core supporters in many communities, including educators, ministers, and businessmen, especially those who were black and/or liberal-thinking on social and educational issues. He gained access to top national leaders in politics, philanthropy and education, and was awarded honorary degrees including a doctorate. Critics called his network of supporters the "Tuskegee Machine."

Late in his career, Dr. Washington was criticized by the leaders of the NAACP, which was formed in 1909, especially W.E.B. DuBois, who demanded a harder line on civil rights protests. After being labeled "The Great Accommodator" by DuBois, Dr. Washington replied that confrontation would lead to disaster for the outnumbered blacks, and that cooperation with supportive whites was the only way to overcome pervasive racism in the long run. However, while he did some aggressive civil rights work secretively, such as funding court cases,. in general, he seemed to truly believe in skillful accommodation to many of the social realities of the age of segregation. While apparently resolved to many undesirable social conditions in the short term, he also clearly had his eyes on a better future for blacks. Through his own personal experience, he knew that good educations were a major and powerful tool for individuals to collectively accomplish that.

Washington's philosophy and tireless work on education issues helped him enlist both the moral and substantial financial support of many philanthropists. He became friends with such self-made men from modest beginnings as Standard Oil magnate Henry Huttleston Rogers and Sears, Roebuck and Company Chairman Julius Rosenwald. These individuals and many other wealthy men and women funded his causes, such as supporting the institutions of higher education at Hampton and Tuskegee. Each school was originally founded to produce teachers. However, many had often gone back to their local communities to find precious few schools and educational resources to work with in the largely impoverished South. To address those needs, through provision of millions of dollars and innovative matching funds programs, Dr. Washington and his philanthropic network stimulated local community contributions to build small community schools. Together, these efforts eventually established and operated over 5,000 schools and supporting resources for the betterment of blacks throughout the South in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The local schools were a source of much community pride and were of priceless value to African-American families during those troubled times in public education. This work was a major part of his legacy and was continued (and expanded through the Rosenwald Fund and others) for many years after Washington's death in 1915.

In addition to his substantial contributions in the field of education, Dr. Washington did much to improve the overall friendship and working relationship between the races in the United States. His autobiography, Up From Slavery, first published in 1901, is still widely read today.

Brad Paisley, Country Music Performer, Glen Dale

 (born October 28, 1972) is an American country music singer, virtuoso guitarist, and songwriter from Glen Dale, West Virginia.

Biography

Brad Paisley has stated that his love of country music stems from his maternal grandfather, who gave Paisley his first guitar at age 8 and taught him how to play. At age 12, Paisley wrote his first song, and by 13 he was the opening act for country singers such as Ricky Skaggs and George Jones.

Paisley graduated from John Marshall High School in Glendale, WV, and was rewarded a full-paid ASCAP scholarship to Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee (from 1993 to 1995). While in college, he met Frank Rogers, a fellow student who went on to serve as his producer. Paisley also met Kelley Lovelace, who became his songwriting partner.

After graduating from Belmont, Paisley signed a songwriting contract with EMI Music Publishing and he wrote David Kersh's top 5 hit, "Another You", as well as cuts by Tracy Byrd and David Ball. His debut as a singer was with the label Arista Nashville, with the song, "Who Needs Pictures" (released February 22, 1999). In May of that same year, he made his first appearance on the Grand Ole Opry. Seven months later he had his first #1 hit with, "He Didn't Have To Be", which detailed the story of Lovelace and Lovelace's stepson.

In 2000, Paisley was exposed to his first national non-country music oriented audience when producer, Todd Baker, tapped him to appear on the TLC special, "Route 66: Main Street America". This show featured Brad and band doing rare live and acoustic versions of Route 66 (song). The international and home video versions of this program end with a full, un-cut acoustic rendition of the piece, which was performed live on Rainbow Bridge in Riverton, KS.

Later in 2000 Paisley won the Country Music Association's (CMA) Horizon Award and the Academy of Country Music's best new male vocalist trophy. He received his first Grammy Award nomination a year later. On February 17, 2001, after forty appearances on the show, he was inducted into the Opry Hall of Fame.

In 2002, he won the CMA Music Video of the Year for "I'm Gonna Miss Her (The Fishin' Song)." Several celebrities made notable guest appearances in the video, including Little Jimmy Dickens, Kimberly Williams, Dan Patrick, and Jerry Springer.

Paisley released his third album, Mud on the Tires (2003), following Who Needs Pictures and Part II. The album features the hit song "Celebrity," the video of which parodies reality shows such as Fear Factor and American Idol and included such celebrities as Jason Alexander, Jim Belushi, Little Jimmy Dickens, Trista Rehn, and William Shatner. The album's title track, "Mud on the Tires," reached Billboard #1 in 2004.

In 2005, after touring with Reba McEntire and Terri Clark on the critically acclaimed "Two Hats and a Redhead Tour," he released Time Well Wasted, containing 15 tracks, including "Alcohol", a duet ("When I Get Where I'm Going") with Dolly Parton, another ("Out in the Parking Lot") with Alan Jackson, and a bonus track, "Cornography". On November 6, 2006, the album "Time Well Wasted won the Country Music Association CMA Award for Best Album.

Gear: Paisley uses custom made Crook Telecaster Guitars and Dr. Z Amplifiers for his signature twang sound.

Paisley contributed two original songs to the Disney film Cars. These can be found on the film's soundtrack. This was in recognition of his contribution to the "Route 66: Main Street America" television special.

Personal Life

Paisley began dating actress Kimberly Williams in 2001, who he'd had a crush on since watching the movie Father of the Bride which, ironically enough, had been the inspiration of his "Part II' song and album since it was the movie he'd seen with an ex-girlfriend. The two married on March 15, 2003. They live in Franklin, Tennessee with another home in Los Angeles.

Paisley and Williams welcomed their first child, a son named William Huckleberry Paisley, on February 22, 2007.

Hal Greer, NBA Basketball Player, Hunington

born on February 19, 1943, the second son of Homer and Elsie Hickam, and was raised in Coalwood, West Virginia. He graduated from Big Creek High School in 1960 and from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute (Virginia Tech) in 1964 with a BS degree in Industrial Engineering. A U.S. Army veteran, Mr. Hickam served as a First Lieutenant in the Fourth Infantry Division in Vietnam in 1967-1968 where he won the Army Commendation and Bronze Star medals. He served six years on active duty, leaving the service with the rank of Captain.

 Hickam has been a writer since 1969 after his return from Vietnam. At first, he mostly wrote about his scuba diving adventures for a variety of different magazines. Then, after diving on many of the wrecks involved, he branched off into writing about the battle against the U-boats along the American east coast during World War II. This resulted in his first book, Torpedo Junction (1989), a military history best-seller published in 1989 by the Naval Institute Press.

In 1998, Delacorte Press published Hickam's second book, Rocket Boys: A Memoir, the story of his life in the little town of Coalwood, West Virginia. It became an instant classic. Rocket Boys has since been translated into eight languages and also released as an abridged audio book and electronic book. Among it's many honors, it was selected by the New York Times as one of its "Great Books of 1998" and was an alternate "Book-of-the-Month" selection for both the Literary Guild and Doubleday book clubs. Rocket Boys was also nominated by the National Book Critics Circle as Best Biography of 1998. In February, 1999, Universal Studios released its critically-acclaimed film October Sky, based on Rocket Boys (The title October Sky is an anagram of Rocket Boys). Delacorte subsequently released a mass market paperback of Rocket Boys, re-titled October Sky. October Sky reached the New York Times # 1 position on their best-seller list.

 Mr. Hickam's first fiction novel was Back to the Moon (1999) which was also simultaneously released as a hardcover, audio book, and eBook. It has also been translated into Chinese.

The Coalwood Way (2000), a memoir of Homer's hometown he calls "not a sequel but an equal," was published by Delacorte Press and is available in abridged audio, eBook, large print and Japanese. It was an alternate "Book-of-the-Month" selection for Doubleday book club. His third Coalwood memoir, a true sequel, was published in October 2001. It is titled Sky of Stone (2001). Sky of Stone is presently under development as a television movie. His final book about Coalwood was published in 2002, a self help/inspirational tome titled We Are Not Afraid: Strength and Courage from the Town That Inspired the #1 Bestseller and Award-Winning Movie October Sky.

 His latest work is The Ambassador's Son (2005), published by St. Martin's Press. It is the second of his series of popular novels about Josh Thurlow, a Coast Guard officer during World War II. The series began with The Keeper's Son (2003), and will continue with The Far Reaches in 2007.

While working on his writing career, Mr. Hickam was employed as an engineer for the U.S. Army Missile Command from 1971 to 1981 assigned to Huntsville, Alabama, and Germany. He began employment with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration at Marshall Space Flight Center in 1981 as an aerospace engineer. During his NASA career, Mr. Hickam worked in spacecraft design and crew training. His specialties at NASA included training astronauts on science payloads, and extravehicular activities (EVA). He also trained astronaut crews for many Spacelab and Space Shuttle missions, including the Hubble Space Telescope deployment mission, the first two Hubble repair missions, Spacelab-J (the first Japanese astronauts), and the Solar Max repair mission. Prior to his retirement in 1998, Mr. Hickam was the Payload Training Manager for the International Space Station Program.

 In 1984, Mr. Hickam was presented with Alabama's Distinguished Service Award for heroism shown during a rescue effort of the crew and passengers of a sunken paddleboat in the Tennessee River. Because of this award, Mr. Hickam was honored in 1996 by the United States Olympic Committee to carry the Olympic Torch through Huntsville, Alabama, on its way to Atlanta.

In 1999, the governor of the state of West Virginia issued a proclamation in honor of Mr. Hickam for his support of his home state and his distinguished career as both an engineer and author and declared an annual "Rocket Boys Day."

For recreation, Mr. Hickam still loves to SCUBA dive. He also jogs nearly every day. A new avocation is amateur paleontology. He works with Dr. Jack Horner in Montana every summer. Most of all, however, he loves to write.

 Mr. Hickam is married to Linda Terry Hickam, an artist and his first editor and assistant. They love their cats and share their time between homes in Alabama and the Virgin Islands.
 

John C. Norman, Surgeon, Charleston

Noted thoracic and cardiovascular surgeon and researcher John C. Norman Jr. was born May 11, 1930, in Charleston, West Virginia. His mother Ruth Stephenson Norman was a longtime educator in Kanawha County; his father John Norman Sr. was an architect and structural engineer. After graduating valedictorian from Garnet High School in 1946, John Norman entered Howard University. He later transferred to Harvard and graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1950.

John Norman received his M. D. from Harvard Medical School in 1954. Following an internship and residency in New York, he served aboard the aircraft carrier Saratoga in 1957 and 1958 before completing his cardiac surgical training at the University of Michigan. In 1962, Norman was a National Institutes of Health fellow at the University of Birmingham, England.

Norman became an associate professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and joined the surgical staff at Boston City Hospital in 1964. In addition to his teaching and surgical duties, Norman undertook several medical research projects involving organ transplants. In 1967, he successfully transplanted the spleen of a healthy dog into a hemophiliac beagle. As a result of their research on the liver, Norman and his associates were able to use a pig's liver to keep a patient alive for eighteen days.

It was while in Boston that Norman also began important research into a left ventricular assist device for cardiac patients. This research took him to the prestigious Texas Heart Institute in 1972. For the next several years, Norman worked on development of the first abdominal left ventricular assist device (ALVAD), which could be implanted temporarily in patients suffering cardiac failure after open-heart surgery. Between 1975 and 1978, Norman and institute founder Dr. Denton Cooley implanted a number of these devices. Norman also researched potential power sources and materials for artificial hearts.

Norman later worked as a surgeon at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center in New Jersey before returning to West Virginia in 1986 to serve for several years as chairman of the surgery department at Marshall University School of Medicine. For his work in medical research, Norman was awarded the 1985 Congressional High Technology Award. He previously was honored as the Charleston Gazette-Mail's West Virginian of the Year for 1971.

David Adair, Rocket Scientist and UFO Researcher

David Adair tells the story of the U.S. space program through the eyes of a child prodigy turned top rocket scientist. Building his first rocket at the age of 11, David soon had progressed to the point that he was drawing attention to his exploits by people such as General Curtis LeMay and Werner Von Braun.

His complicated mathematical formulas found their way to the eminent scientist, Dr. Stephen Hawking, who at that time had just received his Ph.D. in Theoretical Astrophysics and was at the beginning of his own career. When they met and David was asked for the source of his formulas, he sheepishly replied that many came to him in dreams. To that Stephen Hawking replied, "I get a lot of my ideas through dreams also. We dream on the same wavelength; therefore, that makes us brothers."

David Adair is an internationally recognized expert in space technology spinoff applications for industry and commercial use. At age 11 he built his first of hundreds of rockets which he designed and test flew. At 17 he won "The Most Outstanding in the Field of Engineering Sciences" from the US Air Force. At 19 he designed and fabricated a state-of-the-art mechanical system for changing jet turbine engines for the US Navy that set world record turnaround times that still stand today.

He is a world class presenter and keynote speaker, seminar and workshop leader and consultant. David is not only knowledgeable, he is a lot of fun. His charismatic style and down-to-earth humour, make David a speaker that is intriguing, informative, entertaining and memorable.

His presentations include little known facts and anecdotes from his involvement with the space program, commercial technology development, films and "the things he has seen" at Area 51.

His presentations have inspired many organisations and his list of clients include the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Carolina Power & Light Company, Clemson University, Consolidated Freightways, Edison Electric, Georgia Power Company, Hades Corporation, Hoechst-Salines Corporation, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Reynolds Aluminium, R.J. Reynolds, Thomasville Furniture Industries, Union Electric Company, and the United States Army, Air Force and Navy to name but a few.

Bob Adkins, Pro Football Player, Point Pleasant 

Hasil Adkins, Entertainer, Boone County. 1937-2005

 (pronounced "Hassil," not "Haysil") (April 29, 1937 - April 26, 2005), One-man band, was an Appalachian country, rock and roll, blues musician though frequently considered rockabilly and sometimes primitive jazz.

Hasil was born desolate in Boone County, West Virginia, where he lived throughout his life. He was the youngest of 10 children, and was both severely depressive and hyperactive.

Nicknamed "The Haze", Adkins, claimed a repertoire of over 9000 songs including over 7000 original compositions, recorded scores of small, micro-label 45s and is responsible for the birth of Norton Records, Psychobilly and a dance called "The Hunch".

His music can be sad, humorous and/or frantic. He was well known for shrieking certain catchphrases, such as "commodity meat", "I want your head", and "AaaaaaaaaaaaaHeeeeeeeeeeee-Wooo!!!!"

Recurring themes in Adkins' work include love, heartbreak, hunchin', police, death, decapitation, commodity meat, aliens, and chicken. Adkins' often noted in many interviews that his primary heros and influences were Hank Williams, Sr., Jimmie Rodgers, Little Richard and Col. Harlan Sanders the inventor of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Some of his best known songs are "She Said," "No More Hot Dogs," "My Blue Star," "The Hunch," "Beautiful Hills," "We Got A Date," and "Chicken Walk".

Adkins recorded an entire album devoted to chickens entitled Poultry in Motion also including such songs as "Chicken Run," "Chicken Hop," "Chicken Flop," "Chicken Wobble," and "Chicken On The Bone".

After the mid-1990s, he began performing less though remained dear to music critics and celebrants of all things outsiderish, such as Joe Coleman, and John Zorn. Hasil Adkins is a very strong influence on the band The Cramps. Adkins's cult status is kept alive to the present day by the growing appreciation of, and demand for the work of mavericks and misfits. He retains a fan base, particularly amongst followers of outsider music.

Daniel Boone, Frontiersman

he lived near Point Pleasant from 1788 to1798

Sara Alexander, Actress, Wheeling

(c. 1839-1926) was an actress who appeared in several silent films from 1916 to 1919. She was born in Wheeling.

Date of birth

24 December 1926, New York, New York, USA.

Michael Ammar, Magician, Logan

(b. June 25, 1956) is one of America's best-known close-up magicians, and is famous within the worldwide magical community.

Ammar was born in Logan, West Virginia, and is the youngest of four children.

His interest in magic began when he read a comic book and noticed an advertisement which read "500 tricks for 25 cents!". Ammar sent his quarter and received a catalog. He began ordering tricks and practicing. Before long, he had a full magic show, complete with doves and a teenage assistant. The community, small as it was, supported him and booked him for local shows for schools and birthdays.

While in college at West Virginia University, Ammar developed friendships with others involved in magic. He began to publish his ideas in the early 1980s, and performed for Johnny Carson, as well as at the Magic Castle.

In 1983, Ammar entered the FISM magic competition and was awarded the Gold Medal for Close-Up Magic. In doing so, he became the second American in the history of the competition to do so.

After winning at FISM, Ammar travelled west and became friends with the great Dai Vernon who became Ammar's mentor throughout the following years.

He has produced over forty video titles, also books and magazines. In 1999 The Magic Magazine named him one of 100 most influential magicians of the century.

Earl E. Anderson, USMC General, Morgantown

(1919- ) was named a member of the American Bar Association Board of Governors in 2001. He was formerly the assistant commandant of the U. S. Marine Corps. At the time of his appointment to four-star rank, he was the youngest active-duty Marine and first aviator promoted to that rank. Following his retirement from the military, Anderson served several years with the State Department and United Nations. He was born in Morgantown and graduated from Morgantown High School and WVU.

John James Abert, Topographical Engineer, Shepherdstown  1788-1863

John James Abert was born in Shepherdstown, Virginia, 17 September 1788, and died in Washington. District of Columbia, 27 September 1863. He was the son of John Abert, who came to this country with Rochambeau in 1780. Young Abert was graduated at West Point in 1811, but at once resigned, and was then employed in the War Office. Meanwhile he studied law, and was admitted to the bar in the District of Columbia in 1813. in the War of 1812 he volunteered as a private soldier for the defense of the capital. He was reappointed to the army in 1814 as topographical engineer, with the rank of major.  In 1829 he became Chief of the Topographical Bureau at Washington, and in 1838 became colonel in command of that branch of the engineers. He was retired in 1861 after "long and faithful service." Col. Abert was associated in the supervision of many of the earlier national works of engineering, and his reports prepared for the government are standards of authority. He was a member of several scientific societies, and was one of the organizers of the national institute of science, which was subsequently merged into the Smithsonian Institute. His son, James W. Abert, served with distinction in the Corps of Topographical Engineers from 1843 through the Civil War.

George H. Anderson, Oil Pioneer, Williamstown. 1852-1921 

(1852-1921) was a pioneer in the oil business in New York State and Canada and later in northern West Virginia. He is credited with creating several innovative devices used in drilling for oil, including a new type of sand pump, for which he received a patent in 1914. He sold the rights for the pump to a New York syndicate for $30,000. He is said to have been a boyhood friend of Thomas Edison. Anderson was living in Williamstown, West Virginia, at the time of his death.

David Anthony, Author, Weirton. 1930-1986

He wrote the novel which was made into the 1974 movie The Midnight Man. He was born William Dale Smith in Weirton.

Tony Anthony, Actor, Clarksburg

Allen Appel, Author, Parkersburg

Jodi Applegate News Commentator, Wheeling

She joined NBC News in 1996 as co-anchor of Weekend Today. In January 1999 she was named host of NBC's Later Today. In 2001 she was employed by WFXT in Boston. "I enjoyed NBC, but I had been getting up at 3 a.m. for years and was ready for a change," she said. In 2006 she was a co-anchor of Good Day New York on WNYW-TV, the Fox affiliate in New York. Applegate was born in Wheeling, but grew up in Pittsburgh.

Karen Austin, Actress, Welch

(born 1954) is an American actress from Welch, West Virginia. Austin has made many TV appearances since the mid 1970s. Played Carrie Welby on the TV series The Quest (1982) and played court clerk Lana Wagner on the TV series Night Court (1984). She has also appeared in over 25 films. She was born in Welch.

Filmography

• 1974 - The Ottawa Valley - Lena
• 1979 - Fish Hawk - Mrs. Gideon
• 1983 - The Taming of the Shrew - Katherina
• 1985 - Summer Rental - Sandy Chester
• 1985 - Jagged Edge - Julie Jensen
• 1986 - The Clan of the Cave Bear - Aba
• 1986 - The Ladies Club - Joan Taylor
• 1987 - Housekeeping - Mrs Paterson
• 1989 - Far From Home - Louise
• 1990 - A Girl To Kill For - Karen/Bag Lady
• 1994 - Lazarus - Anne
• 1994 - Lightning Jack - Mama Wheeler (uncredited)
• 1997 - Breast Men - Dr. Tammy (uncredited)

Hugh G. Aynesworth, Author and Journalist, Nutter Fort

(born August 2, 1931 in Nutter Fort, West Virginia) is an American journalist. He was a reporter for the Dallas Morning News at the time of the John F. Kennedy assassination and was the first print reporter to interview the assassin's widow, Marina Oswald. He later co-wrote the book The Only Living Witness about serial killer Ted Bundy.

He co-wrote Ted Bundy: Conversations With A Killer. He has fifty years experience as a reporter, writer, editor, and publisher and currently is Southwest bureau chief for the Washington Times. Aynesworth was the Dallas-Houston correspondent for Newsweek following the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963. He was in Dealey Plaza when Kennedy was killed. Aynesworth grew up in Nutter Fort, W. Va., and graduated from Roosevelt-Wilson High School in 1949.

Nnamdi Azikiwe, president of the Republic of Nigeria

Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe (1904-1996), the first president of the Republic of Nigeria, finished high school and began his college education at Storer College in Harper's Ferry. Azikiwe, popularly known as "Zik," was the father of modern Nigerian nationalism and chief architect of the country's independence.

John "Sheriff" Blake, Pro Baseball Player, Anstead

born in 1899. He was the losing pitcher in the famous game in the 1929 World Series in which his Cubs lost to Philadelphia 10-9 after leading 9-2 after the seventh inning.

Ralph "Joe Meadows, Country Entertainer, Basin 1934-2003

Ralph Joe Meadows was born on the last day of 1934 in the small coal town of Basin in southern West Virginia. As a child growing up listening to WSM's Grand Ole Opry and WCYB's “Farm and Fun Time” radio programs, Joe's ear became attuned to the sounds of the fiddlers who performed with Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs, the Stanley Brothers, and others. At the age of sixteen, Joe began performing with Melvin and Ray, the Goins Brothers, around Bluefield, West Virginia, where he worked until the fall of 1952, when he joined the Stanley Brothers. He stayed until the spring of 1955 and recorded some thirty songs with Carter and Ralph, including “Orange Blossom Special.”  As a child growing up listening to 1955 and recorded some thirty songs with Carter and Ralph, including “Orange Blossom Special.” After leaving the Stanley Brothers, Joe performed briefly with the Lilly Brothers, and then joined Jim and Jesse at the WWVA Wheeling Jamboree, moving with them to Live Oak, Florida. Then in 1956 Bill Monroe asked Joe to become a Blue Grass Boy; “of course that just thrilled me to death,” Joe remembers. He toured with Bill Monroe for about a
year until returning home to West Virginia in 1957. Joe continued to perform closer to home first with Bill and Mary Reed, and then with Buddy Starcher. In 1974 Joe began touring and recording with the Goins Brothers. It wasn't long before Jim and Jesse hired Joe for a second stint, this one lasting from 1974 to1980. After 1983, Joe lived in the Washington, DC area, where he continued to perform until his passing in 2003. Joe was joined by his grandson, Brandon Farley, on mandolin on the album, "Cotton Eyed Joe.".

Wilbur Cooper, Pro Baseball Player, Bearsville. 1892-1973

Cora Sue Collins, Actress, Beckley. 1927

Cora Sue Collins was born April 19, 1927 in Beckley, West Virginia. She was a beautiful child actress who was in very much demand during the thirties. Her first film was at the age of five in THE STRANGE CASE OF CLARA DEANE in 1932. The highly talented little girl appeared in small roles throughout the early part of the decade. One of her roles that stand out was as the illegitimate daughter of Colleen Moore in THE SCARLET LETTER in 1934. She performed well, particularly when she is picked on by the many children in the village where she lived. Cora remained active in films until she played Elinor Randall in 1945's ROUGHLY SPEAKING. She retired from cinema at the age of eighteen.

1. Week-End at the Waldorf (1945) .... Jane Rand
2. Roughly Speaking (1945) (uncredited) .... Elinor Randall as a girl
3. Youth on Trial (1945) .... Cam Chandler
4. Johnny Doughboy (1942) .... Cora Sue
5. Get Hep to Love (1942) .... Elaine Sterling
   ... aka She's My Lovely (UK)
6. Blood and Sand (1941) .... Encarnacíon as a Child
7. All This, and Heaven Too (1940) (uncredited) .... Louise de Rham
   Bad Little Angel (1939) (scenes deleted) .... Clarabella Dodd
8. Stop, Look and Love (1939) .... Dora Haller
9. The Greener Hills (1939) (uncredited) .... Miller Daughter
10. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938) .... Amy Lawrence
11. Three Married Men (1936) .... Sue Cary
12. Devil's Squadron (1936) .... Mary
13. The Harvester (1936) .... Naomi Jameson
14. Magnificent Obsession (1935) .... Ruth
15. Mary Burns, Fugitive (1935) .... Little girl
16. Harmony Lane (1935) .... Marian Foster
17. Two Sinners (1935) .... Sally Pym
    ... aka Two Black Sheep
18. The Dark Angel (1935) .... Kitty Vane, as a Child
19. Anna Karenina (1935) .... Tania
20. Mad Love (1935) (uncredited) .... Gogol's Lame Child Patient
    ... aka The Hands of Orlac (UK)
21. Public Hero #1 (1935) (uncredited) .... Little Girl
22. Without Children (1935) .... Carol Cole as a Child
23. Naughty Marietta (1935) (uncredited) .... Felice
24. Little Men (1934) .... Daisy
25. The World Accuses (1934) .... 'Pat' Collins
26. Evelyn Prentice (1934) .... Dorothy Prentice
27. Caravan (1934/I) (uncredited) .... Child
28. The Spectacle Maker (1934) (uncredited) .... The Little Princess
29. The Scarlet Letter (1934) .... Pearl
30. Treasure Island (1934) (uncredited) .... Young girl at the inn
31. Black Moon (1934) .... Nancy Lane
32. As the Earth Turns (1934) (uncredited) .... Marie
33. Elinor Norton (1934) (uncredited) .... Betty, Little Girl
34. Queen Christina (1933) (uncredited) .... Christina (younger)
35. The Sin of Nora Moran (1933) .... Nora Moran, as a child
    ... aka Voice from the Grave (USA)
36. Torch Singer (1933) .... Sally at 5 Years
    ... aka Broadway Singer
37. Mary Stevens, M.D. (1933) (uncredited) .... Jane Simmons
38. Jennie Gerhardt (1933) (uncredited) .... Vesta at age 6
39. The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933) (uncredited) .... Farmer's Daughter
    ... aka Every Woman's Man
40. Picture Snatcher (1933) (uncredited) .... Jerry's Little Girl
41. Man of Action (1933) (uncredited) .... Maria
42. The Mysterious Rider (1933) .... 'Jo-Jo' Foster
    ... aka The Fighting Phantom (USA: reissue title)
43. They Just Had to Get Married (1933) .... Rosalie
44. Silver Dollar (1932) (uncredited) .... Maryanne Silver-Dollar Echo Honeymoon Martin, as a Girl
45. Smilin' Through (1932) (uncredited) .... Young Kathleen
46. The Strange Case of Clara Deane (1932) .... Nancy (child)
47. The Unexpected Father (1932) .... Judge

Chris Sarandon, Actor, Beckley

Charlie Barnett, actor, Bluefield. 1954-1996

Singer, songwriter ("Mama"), composer, author, educated in high school, then a singer with the dance orchestras of Jan Savitt and Lloyd Huntley. He appeared on radio, in films, on theatre stages and television, and in night clubs, and made many records. Joining ASCAP in 1960, his other song compositions include "I Could Swear It Was You".

Charlie 'Humps" Cowan, Braeholm. 1938-1998 

an offensive lineman for the Los Angeles Rams from 1961 until he retired in 1975. He played in four consecutive Pro Bowl games from 1967 to 1970. Cowan died of kidney failure in Whittier, California, in 1998 at age 59. He was a native of Braeholm, West Virginia, and graduated from Buffalo High School near Accoville in Logan County, where he was a teammate of Lionel Taylor. At home he was known as Little Humps and his dad was "Big Humps." The nickname was applied to his father, a pitcher; pitchers are know to "hump the ball".

Sara Jane Moore, Tried to assassinate President Ford, Charleston.

Robert V. Barron, Actor, Writer and Director. Charleston. 1932-2000

James Jett. Pro Football Player, Charleston

Babe Barna, Pro Baseball Player, Clarksburg. 1915-1972

Sherilyn Wolter, Actress, Clarksburg

Dave Vineyard, Pro Baseball Player. Clay

Dave Vineyard was born on Tuesday, February 25, 1941, in Clay, West Virginia. Vineyard was 23 years old when he broke into the big leagues on July 18, 1964, with the Baltimore Orioles.

Birth Name:	David Kent Vineyard
Nickname:	Dave
Born On:	02-25-1941
Born In:	Clay, West Virginia

College:	None Attended
Bats:	Right
Throws:	Right
Height:	6-03
Weight:	195
First Game:	07-18-1964 (Age 23)
Last Game:	09-20-1964

Jeff Copley, Country Entertainer, Crum

b. 1969, Crum, West Virginia, USA. Copley was raised on country and bluegrass music in the Appalachian Mountains. He has been singing since he was five and he was discovered as a young adult at a talent showcase in Nashville. He is yet another good-looking country singer being marketed with CMT in mind and over 2,000 songs were considered for his debut. Released in late 1995, this proved not to be an evergreen. One of the better songs, "Out Where God Is", reflected his feelings for the great outdoors.

Biographical Information

Novelist Lee Maynard was born and raised in Wayne County, West Virginia, in the small mining town of Crum (population at the time, 219), where his father was a teacher and coach and his warmest memories were of out-of-town football trips (Maynard played offensive tackle). He graduated from Ceredo-Kenova High School and then earned a BA from West Virginia University. He published his first novel, Crum, in 1988. Since then, he has been published many times in periodicals, including Reader's Digest, The Saturday Review, and the Columbia Review of Literature. He has also worked as an editor and screenwriter. In 1995, he received a National Endowment for the Arts Literary Fellowship in Fiction for his yet-unpublished novel Screaming with the Cannibals. Lee Maynard lives in New Mexico.

Critical Responses

Writing about the reprinting of Crum by the West Virginia University Press in the October 21, 2001, Charleston Gazette, Dave Peyton commented that "Lee Maynard and I have something in common. Neither of us in welcome in Crum, WV. If there is ever a Crumfest, we won't be invited to be parade grand marshals."

Originally published in 1988, Crum was received angrily by many residents of the small town who objected to Maynard's depictions of the town and its people, despite a disclaimer from Maynard himself on the first page of the book that "Other than the town of Crum, nothing in this book is real. The people do not exist, the events never happened." As James Casto of the Herald-Dispatch remarked: "[Maynard's disclaimer] didn't stop the people in Crum from seeing themselves and their town in Maynard's book. Many didn't like what they saw." Despite this unfavorable reaction, the book is considered a cult classic by scholars of Appalachian literature. Highly prized by collectors, copies of the originally $6.95 paperback sell for over $100.

Critics have compared the novel to classic coming-of-age tales Tom Sawyer and The Catcher in the Rye. The Charleston Gazette's David Peyton calls the book "brilliantly written, carefully crafted, and downright funny. Most of all, it is real." Meredith Sue Willis, who writes the Introduction to the new edition of the novel from West Virginia University's Vandalia Press, writes "Each time I read Lee Maynard's Crum, I ask myself why this foul-mouthed, sexist, scatological, hillbilly-stereotyping novel is one of my favorites." Her answer to that question explores the honesty of Maynard's prose, the complexity of his thoughts, and the honesty of his portrayals of young people coming of age and growing out of the box where they've been planted.
 

Works Published

Lee Maynard has also published articles in such periodicals as Readers Digest and The Saturday Review.

Fred Reed, Journalist, Crumpler

He was one of the original Keystone Kops.

Foge Fazio, Football Coach, Dawmont

Will Hare, Actor, Elkins. 1916-1997

Marshall Goldberg, Pro Football Player, Elkins. 1917-2006

John McKay, Football Coach, Everettsville. 1923-2001

Johnnie Johnson, Musician, Fairmont. 1924-2005

In late 1959, Sonny Turner replaced Tony Williams as the lead singer of the original Platters.  Chosen out of 100 singers who auditioned, Sonny at the young age of 19, toured the world with "The Platters" bringing their music to people of all nations.

Sonny brought The Platters back to the pop charts in the 1960's with such hits as "I love you 1000 Times", "With this ring" and "Washed Ashore"; as well as re-recording major Platter hits like "Only You", "The Great Pretender" and "The Magic Touch."  You can hear Sonny's voice in various movies such as "The Nutty Professor II" starring Eddie Murphy.  "Hearts in Atlantis" starring Anthony Hopkins and "Prince of the City" starring Robert DiNiro.

There are only three surviving members of The Platters still alive today that can be heard on the hundreds of recordings and hit records that made The Platters one of the most successful vocal groups of all time.  They are Herb Reed who founded the group in 1953 and sang bass.  Zola Taylor, the female vocalist and Sonny Turner.  Sonny remained with The Platters from late 1959 until 1970 when he left to pursue a solo career.

In 2005, Mr. Turner received The Lifetime Excellence  in Entertainment Award here in Las Vegas where he currently resides.  He was also inducted into The Vocal Group Hall Of Fame for his achievements with The Platters.  Today Sonny performs all over the world

The group's lineup has changed many times. The original lineup in 1953 was lead Cornell Gunter, bass Herb Reed, Alex Hodge, Joe Jefferson, and David Lynch. This lineup changed when the group signed with Ram, who built the group around Tony Williams' voice and his ability to bring life to Ram's songs. Within a year, Hodge, Jefferson, and Gunter were out, and Paul Robi, Zola Taylor, and new lead Tony Williams were in. This lineup lasted until 1960. At that time Williams left for a solo career and was replaced by Sonny Turner. Mercury refused to issue further Platters releases without Williams on lead vocals, provoking a lawsuit between the label and manager Ram. The label spent two years releasing old Williams-era material until the group's contract elapsed.

Sonny brought "The Platters" back to the pop charts in the 1960's with such hits as "I love you 1000 times", "With This Ring", and "Washed Ashore" as well as re-recording The Platters major hits like "Only You", "The Great Pretender", "The Magic Touch" (recently heard in the "The Nutty Professor II" starring Eddie Murphy).
Sonny was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame located in Cleveland Ohio, Sonny's home town.
Sonny was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in his own home town, Cleveland Ohio! In late 1959, Sonny Turner replaced Tony Williams as the lead singer of the original Platters. Chosen out of 100 singers to audition, at the young age of 19, Sonny toured the world with "The Platters" bringing their music to people of all nations Sonny brought The Platters back to the pop charts in the 1960's with such hits as "I love you 1000 times", "With This Ring", and "Washed Ashore"; as well as re-recording The Platters major hits like "Only You", "The Great Pretender", "The Magic Touch" (recently heard in the "The Nutty Professor II" starring Eddie Murphy).

Nick Saban, Football Coach, Fairmont

Fielding Yost, Football Coach, Fairview. 1871-1946

Frank Gatski, Pr0 Football Player, Farmington. 1919-2005

Tunney Hunsaker, Pro Boxer, Fayetteville. 1930-2005

Paul Popovich, Pro Baseball Player, Flemington.

Lou Holtz, Football Coach, Follansbee

Dave Augustine, Pro Baseball Player, Follansbee

Dave Augustine was born on Monday, November 28, 1949, in Follansbee, West Virginia. Augustine was 23 years old when he broke into the big leagues on September 3, 1973, with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Birth Name:	David Ralph Augustine
Nickname:	Dave
Born On:	11-28-1949
Born In:	Follansbee, West Virginia

College:	Miami-Dade Community College
Bats:	Right
Throws:	Right
Height:	6-02
Weight:	174
First Game:	09-03-1973 (Age 23)
Last Game:	10-02-1974
Draft:	1968 : 33rd Round (729th)

Andrew Summers Rowan, Army Officer, Gap Mills. 1857-1943

1857–1943, American army officer, b. Monroe co., Va. (now W.Va.). At the outbreak (1898) of the Spanish-American War he was sent to communicate with the Cuban revolutionary leader General García y Iñigues in order to find out the strength of the revolutionary army. His exploit was described in Elbert Hubbard’s essay “A Message to Garcia”; Rowan wrote his own account in How I Carried the Message to Garcia (1923). After the war he served in the Philippines and the United States, retiring in 1909.

Ward Hill Lamon, Attroney and Bodyguard for President Licoln, Gerrardstown. 1828-1893

George Preston Marshall, Former Owner of the Washington Redskins, Grafton. 1896-1969

Tom Wilson, cartoonist, Grant Town

Mel Street, Country Singer, Grundy. 1933-1978

Stoney Cooper, Country Music Preformer, Harmon. 1918-1977

Vern Bickford, Pro Baseball Player, Berwind. 1920-1960

b. 1906 d. November 02, 2001

Singer, songwriter and radio and television personality Buddy Starcher died Friday (Nov. 2, 2001) at a nursing home in Harrisonburg, Va. He was 95.
Starcher had two national country hits, both with his own compositions: "I’ll Still Write Your Name in the Sand," which went to No. 8 in 1949
on the 4 Star label, and "History Repeats Itself," which rose to No. 2 in 1966 on Boone Records. The latter compared the similarities between
the deaths of presidents Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. Fans of the late Keith Whitley may recognize Starcher’s name from the
1991 RCA album Kentucky Bluebird. The opening cut of the album features an undated segment taken from Starcher’s popular morning show on
WCHS-TV, Charleston, W. Va., in which the seven- or eight-year-old Whitley sings "You Win Again." Starcher himself introduces Whitley.

Oby Edgar Starcher was born March 16, 1906, near Ripley, W. Va. He learned to play guitar under the tutelage of his father, an old-time
fiddler. Starcher took his first job as a radio performer in 1928 at station WFBR in Baltimore. He began writing his own songs -- often
about current events -- and over the next several years worked at stations in Washington, D. C., North Carolina, Virginia, Iowa,
Pennsylvania and his home state. Red Sovine, a fellow West Virginian, counted Starcher as one of his influences, as did such other
entertainers as Mac Wiseman, Lee Moore, Sleepy Jeffers and Smiley Sutter.

In the early 1950s, Starcher turned from radio to television, working at outlets in Miami and Harrisonburg. His show on WCHS-TV ran from 1960
to 1966. Following the success of "History Repeats Itself," Starcher moved briefly to Nashville and then on to television work in Florida,
New York and Texas. He retired in 1976, intially settling near Craigsville, W. Va., and then moving back to Harrisonburg in 1993.

Historian Ivan Tribe notes that despite Starcher’s prominence in radio, he did not begin recording until 1946, when he affiliated with 4 Star.
Among the other labels he recorded for were Columbia, Deluxe, Starday, Boone and Bear Family. The artist’s life story, written by Robert Cagle
and aptly titled Buddy Starcher Biography, was published in 1986.Starcher is survived by his wife of 55 years, Mary Ann, a stepson and a
sister. He was buried at Eastlawn Memorial Gardens in Harrisonburg.

Bimbo Coles, Pro Baseball Player, Lewisburg

Willie Clay, Pro Football Player, Wheeling

Shane Burton, Pro Football Player, Logan 

NFL Seasons: 9
Drafted by in 1996 (5/18)
Acquired as a free agent in 2006.

Kansas City Chiefs

William Anderson Hatfield, Hatfied/McCoy Feud, Island Creek, Logan County. 1839-1921

Althea Todd Alderson, Author, Malden

A writer of short stories and poetry. Her best known poem, "The Spirit of Saint Louis," was published in a Doubleday and Doran anthology in the 1930s. She was born in Malden.

David Hunter Strother, Author, Martinsburg. 1816-1888

     He was one of the most widely known U.S. authors of that time, adopting the nom-de-plume of “Port Crayon,” under which he wrote “The Virginia Caanan.” This work was illustrated with crayon, which at once won the public by their charming originality, terseness and grace. Soon, the Porte Crayon name was a household word wherever the monthly Harper's Magazine found its way, from Atlantic to Pacific Shores. One of his first teachers was Samuel F.B. Morse, inventor of the electric telegraph. He studied art with Morse in 1836; for two years in Rome, Italy, 1842-44; and in New York, 1845-49. He served in the Federal Army during the Civil War and rose to the rank of Brigadier-General. He was appointed adjutant-general on McClellan's staff, served on Pope's staff in the Virginia campaign; and was brevetted brigadier-general of volunteers. He was a war correspondent for Harper’s Magazine. After the war, he resumed his literary work, and his "Personal Recollections of the War," written from a notebook kept while at the front, was very popular. President Hayes appointed him Consul-General to Mexico in 1877, a position he filled for seven years. He was the author of "The Blackwater Chronicle" (1853) and "Virginia Illustrated" (1857).

     His sister was Mrs. James L. Randolph, whose husband was James L. Randolph, Chief Civil Engineer for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad for a number of years.

     While traveling in France, David Strother saw a cemetery laid out to suit his artistic taste and, making a sketch of it, he devised plans for the Green Hill Cemetery in Martinsburg, precisely as he saw the one in France. Together with the surveyor, John P. Kearfott, he laid out the grounds with a mausoleum in the center, surrounded by lots, walks and drives arranged in a circular shape.

Isabelle Belle Boyd, Confederate Spy, Martinsburg. 1844-1900

Isabelle (Belle) Boyd, actress and Confederate spy, was born on May 9, 1844, in Martinsburg, Virginia (now West Virginia), to Benjamin Reed and Mary Rebecca (Glenn) Boyd. Her varied career brought her to Texas at least twice–first to perform in Houston and Galveston theaters, and later to settle temporarily in Dallas. She graduated from Mount Washington Female College at the age of sixteen in 1860. The following year, after shooting a Union soldier who broke into her home and gleaning information from the sentries who temporarily guarded her, she began smuggling notes to Confederate officers. Later she served as a courier for generals Pierre G. T. Beauregard and Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson and their subordinates. Belle was apprehended aboard ship in May 1864, while carrying dispatches to Confederate agents in England, and banished to Canada. But she subsequently reached England, where, in August of the same year, she married Samuel Wylde Hardinge, the Union naval ensign assigned to guard her after her capture. In 1865 she published an account of her wartime activities, Belle Boyd in Camp and Prison.

Soon widowed and left with a small daughter, she went on stage in England in 1866. That same year she made her United States debut in St. Louis and soon afterward adopted the stage name Nina Benjamin. In fall 1868 she performed in several plays in Houston, having contracted with Maurice and Henry Greenwall to appear at their stock houses in Houston and Galveston. However, a disagreement between Henry Greenwall and members of the acting company led to cancellation of the bookings. With new manager Thomas P. Ochiltree, Belle proceeded to Austin, where she gave a series of dramatic readings. When the new year arrived, she left the state.

On March 17, 1869, she retired from the stage to marry John Swainston Hammond. They moved to California, where she suffered a mental collapse and gave birth to a son in a Stockton insane asylum. At Mount Hope, near Baltimore, she was treated, recovered, and was discharged in 1870. She had three more children with Hammond, a traveling salesman, and the family moved to various cities around the country before settling in 1883 in Dallas.

The marriage was dissolved on November 1, 1884. Two months later Belle married twenty-four-year-old Nathaniel Rue High of Toledo, Ohio, a stock-company actor, and in order to support her family she returned to the stage with High as her business manager. She debuted in Toledo on February 22, 1886, with a dramatic narrative of her own exploits as a Confederate spy. Until her death she toured the country, performing her show in a Confederate uniform and cavalry-style hat. Belle Boyd died at the Hile House in Kilbourn (now Wisconsin Dells), Wisconsin, on June 11, 1900, and was buried there at Spring Grove Cemetery. Her fashionable house on Pocahontas Street in Dallas, which she sold on July 29, 1887, was razed in 1963.

Scott Bullett, Pro Baseball Player, Martinsburg

Charles Manson, Criminal, Raised in McMechen

Charles Milles Manson (born November 12, 1934 as Charles Milles Maddox) was the founder and leader of the eponymous "family," a hippie cult he began in San Francisco in 1967. He was convicted of having commanded certain members of his "family" to commit the August, 1969, Tate-LaBianca murders in Los Angeles. He is currently an inmate at Corcoran State Prison in California, having been denied parole 10 times.

Manson has spent most of his adult life in prison, initially for offenses such as car theft, forgery, credit card fraud and pimping. In the late 1960s, he migrated to California, wanting to become a musician; instead, he befriended some of the young, disenfranchised people he met and began calling them his "family." He ordered them to carry out several murders, including that of movie actress Sharon Tate (wife of the Polish movie director Roman Polański), who was eight and a half months pregnant at the time. He was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder. He is serving a life sentence but will be up for parole in 2007 at the age of 73. Manson has always maintained his non-involvement in the Tate-LaBianca murders.

Manson was also friends with several notable musicians before the murders were committed, including Dennis Wilson of The Beach Boys, and was a marginally successful musician himself who recorded several albums and whose songs have since been covered by many artists.

Since his trial and conviction, Manson's name and image have been integrated into American pop culture, typically as a symbol of evil.

Charles Manson was a person with an unusual ability to dominate others. He assembled a destructive, doomsday cult around himself, which the media later called The Family. At one time, it numbered in excess of 100 individuals at the Spahn Ranch some 30 miles northwest of Los Angeles CA. Manson was referred to both as "God" and "Satan" by his followers. As the family's guru, he claimed to be a reincarnation of Jesus Christ.

Manson was concerned about damage to the environment and pollution. He once commented: "Your water’s dying. Your life’s in that cup. Your trees are dying. Your wildlife’s locked up in zoos. You’re in the zoo, Man. How do you feel about it?"

Mass murders perpetrated by The Family:

The first murder by the family was of Gary Hinman, a Los Angeles drug dealer and musician. His body was discovered on 1969-JUL-31.

The first series of mass murders, called the "Tate" homicides, occurred at the home of Sharon (Tate) Polanski on 1969-AUG-9. Three victims were shot and/or stabbed multiple times on the grounds of the estate. These were Abigail Folger, Steven Parent and Voiytek Frykowski. Sharon Polanski and Jay Sebring were murdered inside the house. Sharon, 8 months pregnant at the time, died from numerous stab wounds, five of which were by themselves fatal; Jay died of blood loss. Both had their necks loosely attached by a single rope over a rafter.

The next homicides, called the "LaBianca murders," occurred two days later in the home of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. They were found stabbed to death with dozens of wounds.

Finally,  Donald Shea was murdered. He was a former stuntman and hired hand at the Spahn Ranch.

The police appear to have been stunned by the horrific details at the mass murder crime scenes. They badly bungled the task of collecting evidence. They were unable to find the clothing worn by the murderers. A television news crew was able to locate the clothing later.

Although Manson is not believed to have killed anyone directly, he ordered his followers to commit the famous Tate, LaBianca and other murders.

Possible motives for the murders:

The murders were on the surface motiveless and unconnected to Manson, but some key motives were later identified.

• Manson was highly hostile to society, pathologically so, and wanted revenge.
• Manson had been rejected by the music industry and wanted revenge. One suggestion is that he targeted the Tate house because it represented his rejection by the show business community he wanted to enter, and that it was of no interest to him who his actual victims would be.
• Manson got a 'kick' out of death and control. During the trial, one witness commented that "he [Manson] doesn't know about love... love is not his trip. Death is his trip."
• The killers were attempting to clear the blame from their friend, Bobby Beausoleil, by committing a copycat murder.

• Manson had come to believe that Armageddon was imminent, in the form of race war, and believed he was destined to be the ultimate beneficiary of it. Manson viewed race war as imminent, describing it as Helter Skelter, "all the wars that have ever been fought, piled on top of each other." He told his followers that this was imminent, but that there was a secret underground world reached by a hole underneath the desert, where they would wait out the war in bliss. He described this many times, and it was a part of their communal belief, so much so that they stocked up supplies and searched for the hole prior to the crimes. Blacks would win the war, but be unable to run the world through lack of experience, and the Family would therefore emerge and run it for them as a benevolent autocracy with Manson at the head of this new world order. The war would be triggered by "some black people coming out of the ghetto and doing atrocious crimes... killings... writing things in blood." However, by summer 1969, Manson was heard to say that blacks did not know how to start its role in this war, so he would have to show them.

The arrest and trial:

A major break in the case happened in 1969-NOV when thirteen Family members were arrested on a charge of grand theft (auto). Several sources say that it was Susan Atkins alone who was arrested on a charge of prostitution; this appears to be an error. While in prison, she talked to her cellmate about having been involved in the Tate murders.

Charles Manson and three of his followers (Krenwinkel, Atkins, Van Houten) were charged with the Tate/LaBianca murders. The trial was spectacular. Manson spent much of the time with his back to the judge; his actions were repeated by his co-defendants and other followers. He shaved his head and carved an swastika on his forehead; his "family" followed suit. All four were found guilty and sentenced to execution. Manson and other family members later received death sentences for the Hinman and Shea killings. The death penalties were commuted to life imprisonment in the 1970's when California law was changed.

In 1997-AUG, Manson was transferred from Corcoran State Prison to the tougher Pelican Bay State Prison as punishment for a drug bust. He was placed in a segregated Security Housing Unit where he had little contact with other inmates. In 1998-MAR-26, he was returned to Corcoran where he remains today. His address is:  Charles Manson, B-33920, 4A 4R-23, P. O. Box 3476, Corcoran, CA 93212. He is currently eligible for parole, although his chances of being freed are slim.

One source found "at least 100 pages of information from the faithful" on the Internet. ₁ One remarkable web site compares Manson with the Hindu God Shiva. ₂ Another site, Access Manson, appears to be a semi-official Manson web site. ₃ It contains extensive information about ATWA (Air, Trees, Water, Animals) which is Manson's environmental group.

On 2002-JUN-28, Leslie Van Houten was denied parole for the 14th time. She had stabbed Rosemary LaBianca sixteen times as a drug-crazed teen-ager. Since then, she has obtained a bachelor's and master's degree and has been a model prisoner, who has not accumulated a single disciplinary report in the past 25 years. She chairs a drug and alcohol rehabilitation group twice a month. She is now 52. She is not the person she was at age 19 when she participated in the crimes," Van Houten's attorney, Christie Webb said: "She has not taken drugs in three decades. She is much more of a leader than a follower in prison. ... And she has insight into how she could have participated in these crimes and how she can make amends."

George Wallace was born in New York and, at age 13, moved with his mom and her new husband to McMechen, West Virginia, a coal mining town where the 13-year-old began working in the mines. He joined the Navy in 1936, got out in 1940, then went right back in again when World War II started. A chief bosun's mate, he ended up in Los Angeles after a total of eight years in the service. Wallace supported himself with an array of odd jobs, from working for a meat packer ("knockin' steers in the head") to lumberjacking in the High Sierras. A stint as a singing bartender attracted the attention of Hollywood columnist Jimmy Fidler, who helped him get his show-biz start. Wallace enrolled in drama school in the late 1940s, while earning his living tending the greens at MGM. He soon began landing jobs in films and TV, most notably as Commando Cody in the Republic serial _Radar Men From the Moon (1952)_ . He later made his Broadway debut in Richard Rodgers' "Pipe Dreams", replaced John Raitt in "The Pajama Game" and was nominated for a Tony for his leading role in "New Girl in Town" with Gwen Verdon. Other stage roles have included "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" opposite Ginger Rogers, "Jennie" with Mary Martin, "Most Happy Fella" (during production, he met his present wife, actress Jane A. Johnston), "Camelot" (as King Arthur), "Man of La Mancha", "Company" and more. In 1960, his career was stalled when a horse fell on him and broke his back during the making of an episode of TV's _"Swamp Fox" (1959)_ . His painful recovery took seven months. He sometimes bills himself George D.H Wallace, to avoid confusion with comic George Wallace.

Sometimes Credited As George D. Wallace

Filmography

Rich Braham, Pro Football Player, Morgantown

Bob Huggins, Coach, Morgantown

Lawrence Kasdan, movie producer, director and screenwriter, Morgantown

Red Sovine, Country Entertainer, Charleston. 1918-1980

b. Woodrow Wilson Sovine, 17 July 1918, Charleston, West Virginia, USA, d. 4 April 1980, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. Sovine was taught the guitar by his mother and was working professionally by the time he was 17 on WCHS Charleston with Johnny Bailes (Bailes Brothers), and then as part of Jim Pike's Carolina Tarheels. In 1948 Sovine formed his own band, The Echo Valley Boys, and became a regular on The Louisiana Hayride. Sovine acquired the nickname of "The Old Syrup Sopper" following the sponsorship by Johnny Fair Syrup of some radio shows, and the title is apt for such narrations as "Daddy's Girl". Sovine recorded for US Decca Records and first made the country charts with "Are You Mine?", a duet with Goldie Hill. Later that year, a further duet, this time with Webb Pierce, "Why Baby Why", made number 1 on the US country charts. They followed this with the tear-jerking narration "Little Rosa", which became a mainstay of Sovine's act. From 1954 Sovine was a regular at the Grand Ole Opry and, in all, he had 31 US country chart entries. He was particularly successful with maudlin narrations about truck-drivers and his hits include "Giddyup Go" (a US country number 1 about a truck-driver being reunited with his son), "Phantom 309" (a truck-driving ghost story!) and his million-selling saga of a crippled boy and his CB radio, "Teddy Bear" (1976). Sequels and parodies of "Teddy Bear" abound; Sovine refused to record "Teddy Bear's Last Ride", which became a US country hit for Diana Williams. He retaliated with "Little Joe" to indicate that Teddy Bear was not dead after all.

Among his own compositions are "I Didn't Jump The Fence" and "Missing You", which was a UK hit for Jim Reeves. Sovine recorded "The Hero" as a tribute to John Wayne, and his son, Roger Wayne Sovine, was named in his honour. The young Sovine was briefly a country singer, making the lower end of the US country charts with "Culman, Alabam" and "Little Bitty Nitty Gritty Dirt Town". Red Sovine's country music owed nothing to contemporary trends but his sentimentality was popular in UK clubs. He had no big-time image and, while touring the UK, he made a point of visiting specialist country music shops. In 1980 Sovine died of a heart attack at the wheel of his car in Nashville. The following year, as CB radio finally hit the UK, a reissue of "Teddy Bear" reached number 5, his first UK chart entry.

Frank DeVol, Entertainer, Moundsville. 1911-1999

b. Herman Frank De Vol, 20 September 1911, Moundsville, West Virginia, USA, d. 27 October 1999, Lafayette, California, USA. Raised in Canton, Ohio, De Vol's father led a local film theatre pit band in which he played violin and saxophone before graduating from high school in 1929. A planned career in law took him briefly to university, which he abandoned for a musical career. De Vol played in various bands, including those of Emerson Gill, Horace Heidt and Alvino Rey, and toured with the George Olsen-Ethel Shutta troupe. During the 40s, settled in California, he led his own band on radio and later on television. The latter included shows headlined by Rosemary Clooney, Betty White and Dinah Shore. Also active in recording studios, he accompanied Mel Torme on 1949 sessions and most notably Ella Fitzgerald resulting in several albums between 1957 and 1964.

Mostly though, from the mid-50s De Vol was composing scores for films including Kiss Me Deadly (1955), Attack (1956), Pillow Talk (1959, Oscar nominated), Murder, Inc. (1960), What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? (1962), McLintock! (1963), Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964, Oscar nominated), Cat Ballou and The Flight Of The Phoenix (1965, the former Oscar-nominated), The Glass Bottom Boat (1966), The Dirty Dozen and Guess Who's Coming To Dinner? (1967, the latter Oscar-nominated), Krakatoa, East Of Java (1969), Ulzana's Raid (1972), Emperor Of The North Pole (1973), The Longest Yard aka The Mean Machine (1974), The Frisco Kid (1979), Herbie Goes Bananas (1980), and ... All The Marbles (1981). De Vol also composed music for the television shows Family Affair, The Smith Family, My Three Sons and The Brady Bunch. He also acted in television, including the early 60s sitcom I'm Dickens, He's Fenster, and in films, The Parent Trap (1961) and The Big Mouth (1967).

After the death of his first wife, Grayce, to whom he was married for more than 50 years, De Vol married singer Helen O'Connell who predeceased him. As well as film scores, De Vol wrote popular songs, usually in collaboration with others who included Mack David and Bobby Helfer: "I've Written A Letter To Daddy", "What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?", "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte", "I And Claudie", "My Chinese Fair Lady", "The Chaperone". Sometimes during his career, alternative spelling of his name were used: Frank DeVol, Frank Devol and Frank deVol. Sometimes, only his surname was used, this too appearing in alternative spellings: DeVol and De Vol.

Davis Grubb, Author, Moundsville. 1919-1980

(July 23, 1919 - July 24, 1980) was an American novelist and short story writer.

Born in Moundsville, West Virginia, Grubb wanted to combine his creative skills as a painter with writing and as such attended the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. However, his color blindess was a handicap he could not overcome and as such gave up on painting to dedicate himself to writing fiction. He did however do a number of drawings and sketches during the course of his career, some of which were incorporated into his writings.

In 1940, Grubb moved to New York City where he worked at NBC radio as a writer while using his free time to write short stories. In the mid 1940s he was successful in selling several short stories to major magazines and in the early 1950s he starting writing a full length novel. Influenced by accounts of economic hardship by depression-era Americans that his mother had seen first hand as a social worker, Grubb produced a dark tale that mixed the plight of poor children and adults with that of the evil inflicted by others.

His first novel, The Night of the Hunter, became an instant bestseller and was voted a finalist for the 1955 National Book Award. That same year, the book was made into a motion picture that is now regarded as a classic. Deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. Davis Grubb went on to write a further nine novels and several collections of short stories. His 1969 novel Fools' Parade would also be made into a motion picture starring James Stewart. Some of Grubb's short stories were adapted for television by Alfred Hitchcock and by Rod Serling for his Night Gallery series.

Davis Grubb died in New York City in 1980. His novel Ancient Lights was published posthumously in 1982, and St. Martins Press published eighteen of his short stories in a book collection titled You Never Believe Me and Other Stories.

Lonnie Warwick, Pro Football Player, Mount Hope 

Mike D'Antoni, NBA Basketplayer and Coach, Mullins

Robert Lee "Sam" Huff , Football Player, Farmington

(born October 4, 1934, Farmington, West Virginia) is a former American football linebacker who played for the New York Giants and the Washington Redskins after earning All-America honors at West Virginia University. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1982.

Long considered one of the most physical defensive players in the annals of NFL history, Huff ended his professional career with 30 interceptions, hauling in at least one interception during each season he played.

One of six children, Huff was born in a West Virginia mining camp called Edna Gap and watched his family struggle through the depths of the Depression. Motivated by these hurdles, Huff took up football at Farmington High School and earned a scholarship to West Virginia University.

Huff majored in physical education in college, expecting to use his degree in a teaching capacity. However, his skills on the football field helped lead the Mountaineers to a 31-7 record during his collegiate career. On an individual level, Huff garnered not only a berth on the 1955 All-America squad, but a third round draft selection by the New York Giants as well.

When Giants head coach Jim Lee Howell couldn't decide where to play him, Sam almost left the team before he was stopped by assistant coach Vince Lombardi. When middle linebacker Ray Beck was injured in the season's third game, Huff stepped in and excelled, a factor that led to Beck's retirement soon afterwards. Huff's work on defense played a major role in helping the Giants win their first NFL Championship since 1938.

After being dethroned by the Cleveland Browns the following year, the Giants would return to the Championship Game in five of the next six seasons, but came up on the short end of the stick on each occasion.

Those disappointments failed to limit Huff's image in the national spotlight. Playing in the media capital of the world, Huff would be featured on the November 30, 1959 edition of Time Magazine, and was also the subject of an October 31, 1960 CBS special, "The Violent World of Sam Huff." At one point, Huff was making more for his off-the-field duties than on the gridiron. (New York-based comedian Alan King talked about the CBS program in one of his books, in mock wonderment about how the sound in his set was good enough to hear bones crunching).

Huff earned a host of honors during his time with the Giants, including being named Top NFL Linebacker in 1959, four consecutive Pro Bowl selections (1958-1961), and winning a spot on the All-NFL team three times. During his 13-year career, Huff's most memorable on-field duels came against a pair of running backs, Cleveland's Jim Brown, and Green Bay's Jim Taylor

Allie Sherman, who had taken over as Giants head coach for Howell in 1961, traded Huff to the Washington Redskins on April 10, 1964 as part of a five-player deal, one of a series of moves that sent the once-proud Giants into a tailspin. In 1964, Huff went to his fifth, and final, Pro Bowl.

When Huff arrived, the Redskin defense had given up the most points in the NFL in 1963, and had been a perennial also-ran in that category since 1958. After his first season, the Redskins improved to seventh, but after four seasons with the team, he retired from football, primarily due to differences with Washington head coach Otto Graham. When Vince Lombardi returned to coach football in 1969, Huff returned to the Redskins as a player-coach for two seasons.

Upon his final retirement as a player, Huff entered the broadcast booth, spending one season as part of the Giants radio team. He then went on to the Redskins, having spent the last three decades working in the same capacity.

In 1999, he was ranked number 76 on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Football Players.

On November 24, 2005, Huff's uniform number 75 was retired by West Virginia University.

Lew Burdette, Baseball Player, Nitro. 1926-2007

WWII navigator, was born here in 1922. He was the navigator aboard the B-29 which dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan in World War II.
 

George Cafego, Football Player, Whipple. 1915-1998