Melanie Ann Pagliaro, policy analyst for the Majority Leader in the West Virginia House of Delegates, is the daughter of Rosemary Raymond Pagliaro and Carmen Pagliaro, who live in Fairmont.

Melanie, originally from Monongah, got her master’s in education administration at Marshall University after graduating from North Marion High and Fairmont State. She lives in Charleston. She resided in Fairmont 2003-2007.

Rosemary, Class of 1958, is the daughter of Mary Dudiak Raymond and Angelo Raymond and the brother of the late Bob Raymond, Class of 1951, of Fairmont.

Melanie remembers Bob, who played football, basketball and baseball at Monongah High, quite well. Wrote Melanie: “I used to hear a few stories about my Uncle Bob. He was an adventurous young man. I think of him every time the power goes out in Monongah.”

Bob was a U.S. Navy veteran of the Korean conflict, a former employee of Fairmont Box Factory and retired from Creative Labeling.

Bob’s widow, Susan Russell Raymond, still lives in White Hall.  

Bob and Susan have daughters Paula, married to Sam Adkins and living in Idamay, whose children are Aaron and Derek Hale, Robin Long of Colfax and her children, Mallory, Nathan and Spencer Long, and Mary Harr of Pleasant Valley and her children Phillip, Colton and Jared Harr. 

They have a son, also named Bob Raymond, married to Susie and living in Fairmont, and their children are Sydney and Emma Raymond.

Bob once bit my upper lip nearly completely off, but only because his mouth was bigger than mine when I was trying to bite his lip. My mom, Lena Futten Olesky, was furious and confronted Bob’s mom, Mary Raymond, over the situation. The moms were still fuming a few days later when Bob and I went back to playing with each other.

We so close that, when I started first grade (no kindergarten back then) at Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic School on Church Street, Bobby wasn’t enrolled because he wasn’t old enough.

So Bobby ran away from home to join me in school. The nuns took him back home to Mary.

Bob’s uncle, John Dudiak, Mary Raymond’s brother, would give Bob and I boxing gloves, and paid a quarter to the one who made the other one cry. We whaled the daylights out of each other to get those quarters.

At that age, with me being several months older, we were a similar size. Bobby kept growing into football-playing hulkhood while I was a 99-pound freshman at Monongah High. No amount of quarters could have convinced me to take on Bob by that time.

The Olesky family rented on Thomas Street, last house before Church Street. When Consolidation Coal sold its houses to the miners, knowing that Consol would shut down the Monongah mine in three years, my parents bought the house that Mary and Angelo Raymond were renting on Church Street & U.S. 19 (Camden Avenue) because it had indoor plumbing and our rental only had a two-holer outhouse.

The Raymond family bought a house in Frogtown, south of Monongah where Swisher Hill begins, and ran a tavern on U.S. 19 just below their new home.

And I met another friend, from Frogtown, when I entered first grade at Sts. Peter and Paul: Bob Kasper, son of Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Kasper, and brother of Evelyn Kasper, Class of 1953. Bob’s wife, Pat, passed away. They married in 1959 and have a son, Steven, and a daughter, Judith, and five grandchildren, all adopted. Bob, his children and grandchildren all live in Michigan.

When you lose one friend, life has a way of finding you another one.