The setting was Fridays, a night club on Morgantown Avenue in Fairmont.

Like a scene out of “South Pacific” it was “Some Exchanted Evening.”

The date: Friday, November 2, 1985.

Ron Sanders saw a stranger across a crowded room. It was Susan Staron.

And somehow he knew, he knew even then, that he would meet her again.

Ron flew to her side, but it took more than three years before Susan said “Yes!” They have never let each other go for 30 years of marriage, as of June 17, 1989.

Susan recalls:

“He asked me four times to dance that night I met him and I turned him down. Till finally he said you will dance one song with me and that dance never ended.


"It was my second marriage. I was scared to death. He asked me many times. So I accepted.

“My Dad (Stanley Staron) always wanted me married in the Catholic Church and I Ioved my Dad so much. Ron knew how important that was to me. That's why we renewed our vows in the Catholic Church on August 17, 2003.

Susan retired in 2016 after 13 years as administrative assistant at Personnel.

Susan and Ron live on Thomas Street, I think in the former Catania house, which was two doors down from the Olesky rental in the early 1940s before my parents bought the Church Street house just off Thomas Street from Consolidation Coal Company.

The Mangino family lived between the Oleskys and Catanias, who moved en masse to California: Alex Catania, Class of 1944; Mary Catania Heywood, Class of 1945; Josephine Catania, Class of 1952; and their father, Mandala, joined Angelo, Class of 1943, who had been stationed nearby in the military, in the expedition to a new state and a new life. For Mandala, widower of Schiro Catania, it was a reminder of his native Italy.

Angelo married a Monongah girl, Pauline Layne Catania, who passed away in 2001. Mary is the widow of Arthur Heywood, who passed away in 2015.

 

Angelo’s sister, Carmella Catania Allard, Class of 1947, wound up in San Antonio because her husband, Omer, still was in the Air Force when the Catania migration took place. Omer retired after two decades in The Wild Sky Yonder.

Mary and Carmella are the surviving siblings.

As for the enchanted couple, Susan and Ron’s son, Tommy Sanders, is a WVU computer engineering graduate.

 

Ron is a Vietnam veteran. Susan’s brother, the late Bob Staron, Class of 1967, served in Vietnam.

Susan grew up with Becky Urish Anderson, who today lives in Clarksburg, and went to Monongah High with Becky. They are both Class of 1971.

Not only did Susan light up Ron’s life. She also lights up Monongah, with 26 Christmas street lights and tons of fundraisers to get them and to pay for the electricity to turn on the town for the holiday season.

I call Susan the angel of Thomas Street and her committee The Charge of the Lights Brigade.

Susan’s lights helpers over the years have included Connie Warash, Valerie Vandetta Aldridge, Class of 1973, Linda McCauley, Mary Kitty Ahouse Morrison, Class of 1968, Shelly Yankie, Mareca Savonarola, Tina Stevens and Chris Martin, Class of 1970.

The current committee includes Shelly Yankie, Linda McCauley, Janet Bailey and Kitty Morrison.

I don’t know if it’s the same Fridays, but Friday’s of Fairmont at 1869 Morgantown Avenue filed as a domestic voluntary association in 1988 with Jacqueline Rae Brandimarte and Robert K. Kisner as its principals. This Friday’s dissolved in 2001.

Other Starons and Sanders at Monongah High and near Monongah include Diane Minardi Staron, Class of 1967; Dorothy Staron Saunders, Class of 1971; Thomas Staron, Class of 1965; Zana Kay Sanders Nesselrotte, widow of Roger Lee “Butch” Nesselrotte, who lives on Swisher Hill; Timothy “Tim” Sanders and wife Janet, who live on Plum Run; Shirley Sanders, who lives in Farmington’s Number Nine community; and the late Harold Eugene “Gene” Sanders, Sr., Ann Christie “Chris” Harley Sanders, Elva Ann Sanders Cox, Richard L. Cox and Harold Eugene “Skip” Sanders, Jr.