There’s a great story about WVU graduate Don Knotts, who Barney Fife character on “The Andy Griffith Show” got its name from Morgantown’s Fife street, in the Clarksburg Exponent-Telegram.

While Don’s father Willie Jesse languished with physical and mental ailments, his mother Elsie took in boarders to keep the family going.

And he entertained her with his humor.

One of his famous lines, for me, was: “Nervous? Who, me? Nope!”

He played nervous to perfection on “The Andy Griffith Show.”

Some of the Floyd’s Barber Shop scenes were taken from Don’s life in his uncles’ barber shop.

Don’s most well-known WVU character, the nervous football player, gave birth to the voice of Windy Wales on the “Bobby Benson & the B Bar B Riders” radio show. That caught the attention of Andy Griffith and a beautiful acting and personal friendship began.

Don starred in seven TV series and 25 movies.

His biography by Daniel de Vise, “Andy & Don: The Making of a Friendship and a Classic American TV Show,” was published Nov. 3.

There’s a Don Knotts Boulevard in Morgantown. JoAnn Peterson’s Mountaineer Country Tours has a Don Knotts Hometown Tour that stops at key spots in his life in Morgantown.

To read Ivy Smith Guiler’s excellent article about Don Knotts in the Exponent Telegram, click on http://www.theet.com/ncwvlife/don-knotts/article_19bfa202-619a-5e39-b29d-35f9d4e1d749.html#.VkNrltukqWI.facebook