CATCHING UP WITH

Jerry Moore

If you were at Monongah High in the late 1950's you probably remember Jerry Moore as the tackle who protected quarterback Bill Fleming for the Lions’ unbeaten 1958 and 1959 football teams.

Or the guy who was on the basketball and baseball teams for Monongah High.

After his graduation, Dr. Jerry Moore, Class of 1960, had a role in bringing wild turkey back to the New Jersey Pine Barrens, reverting the Penobscot in Maine to a wild and scenic river, saving the Tinicum Marsh near Philadelphia from being wiped out by planned highway construction and heading an EPA team that got the DDT pesticide taken off the market, plus aldrin, dieldrin, chlordane and heptachlor.

Not bad for a coal miner’s son from Four States.

Jerry was with the EPA for 30 years before starting his own company as a private environmental consultant.

He is married to Lois Carol Harbert Moore, Class of 1962. They began the romance when he was a junior and she was a freshman at Monongah High.

Their son, Jerry A. Moore II, is an artist involved in such movies as “Godzilla” and another son, Timothy, is a pesticide specialist (think maybe he got that from his father?) with a program on Falls Church, Virginia Channel 10.

The family includes three birds and two cats now that the two dogs are deceased.

Jerry’s been trying to re-connect with his former quarterback, Bill Fleming, which led him to me. I’m the unofficial Lions finder for Monongah High graduates.

William Harrison Fleming III, Class of 1960, and Jerry were on the unbeaten Monongah High football teams of 1958 and 1959 which were left out of the state playoffs because they didn’t compile enough points in the ratings system.

As the Black Diamond yearbook photos show, they were near each other even during picture-taking. Two peas in a pod.

Jerry attended Fairmont State and WVU, getting a masters and doctorate in biology.

Jerry and boxer George Foreman partnered in a company that produced Knockout Cleaner, a cleaning liquid that didn’t damage what it cleaned.

When Foreman allowed 100 boxing gloves to be made with his name on the cuff, selling for $10,000 apiece, George gifted Jerry with one pair that hang on Bill’s office wall in Fairfax, Virginia.

Jerry received the Virginia Jaycees Environmental Award in 1972.

He taught at George Washington University, American University and Northern Community College. And, for one year, as a biology and science teacher at Farmington High.

Jerry is grateful to Jim Feltz and Earl Keener, his football coaches at Monongah High.

Says Jerry: “I am fortunate that football gave me my break in life. Coaches Keener and Feltz were the best-ever guys in the business of all sports.

“I played all three sports (football, basketball and baseball) at Monongah High but football was my specialty.”

An automobile wreck on U.S. 250 near Mannington put an end to his chances for a WVU football career. But the out-of-court settlement financed his college education. His attorney, Robert McCandless, later was Nixon White House aide John Dean’s attorney during the Watergate scandal.

Jerry donated more than 1.5 million shares of his oil stock to Fairmont State and WVU to show his appreciation for what both institutions did for his career.

Jerry was born “up the hollow from Four States” where everyone in mom Georgia Moore’s  family -- aunts, uncles, grandparents and great-grandmother -- lived within a mile of each other.

Uncle Troy Dalton had a used car lot across the street from Nick Saban, Sr.’s Gulf Station. Jerry played summer baseball with the fabled Worthington baseball team when Nick, Jr. – called Brother to this day by everyone who knew him at Monongah High – was the batboy.

Jerry’s brother, Tom Moore, worked at the Saban Gulf station where MHS girls later gathered to watch a bare-chested Brother wash cars. There was a lot of oohing and aahing and giggling going on.

Tom was a catcher in baseball and a pulling guard in football at Monongah High.

As for Jerry, “Farming, lifting heavy hay in summer made me very strong and I used all of that strength in football and it paid off.”

His father worked the cat-eye shift at Four States mine, where my father once risked his life to make a living, too. Jerry’s dad was a lampman seven days a week, with his only vacation the two weeks the mines shut down each year for a miners holiday.

“We really appreciated every moment we could get with him,” Jerry wrote.

Sandy Harbert Saunders, Class of 1965, is Lois’ sister. Prudy Tetrick Funk, Class of 1960, is Lois’ cousin. 

Bill Fleming lives in Lynchburg, Virginia with wife Patty Sellers, a Fairmont West grad from Martinsburg. They’ve been married 53 years.

 

They were introduced by the late Bobby DeLorenzo, Bill’s roommate at WVU. Bill and Bobby were in each other’s' weddings.

Previously, Patty had dated Joe Martin, Class of 1957, who lives with his wife Arlene Kitchin Martin, a native of Canada, on Treasure Island, Florida, near St. Petersburg.

Jerry promised to let me know if the much sought-after reunion with Bill Fleming takes place.

That should be a blast from the past.

 

 

If you want to re-connect with Jerry, his phone number is (703) 802-8616 and his email address is Jmoore92@verizon.net