While there will be plenty of joy at the annual Mononongah High Alumni Banquets, the longest continuous high school reunion in West Virginia, there will be sadness for Lions who are no longer with us.
On the In Memoriam list compiled by
Monongah High Alumni Association president Linda Lopez Gandy, Class of 1965, is
one of the greatest athletes in Monongah High history, Kerry Marbury, Class of
1969, the speed demon on the 1968 West
Virginia high school champion football team.
Alabama football coach Nick Saban,
also Class of 1969, was the quarterback. Brother and Kerry remained friends and
saw each other often. Kerry also starred for WVU.
Also on the list is Nick Fiori, Class
of 1948, who was at the 2005 Banquet because I
got Nick’s son, Mike Fiori, to prod Nick into attending. Nick lived at
the Walnut Street/Camden Avenue intersection. Nick and I caddied together at
Fairmont Field Club.
My favorite Nick Fiori story involves playing “Marines and
Japanese” during World War II while we were caddies at Fairmont Field Club, and
waiting for someone to show up to play golf and pay us to carry their clubs.
Nick volunteered to be a “Japanese” soldier, and was fairly high
up on a tree limb when one of the “Marines” “shot” him. Nick did a great
shot/dying pose and dropped out of the tree – and into unconsciousness. The
fall just knocked the breath out of him, though.
Evelyn Kasper Boggess, Class of 1953, also is on the list. Her
brother is Bob “Satch” Kasper, my life-long friend, who lives in South Lyon,
Michigah. Her son, John Boggess, owns the former P.P. Shenasky building.
Also at the 2005 Banquet was Mildred “Hazel” Stafford Frost,
Class of 1960, who used “Hazel” to avoid confusion over the name of her mother,
Mildred Gaye Stone Stafford.
Hazel was born in Hutchinson but moved to Carolina by the time
she attended Monongah High.
1989 North Marion grad Jeffrey Lee Frost, who did his pre-med at
Auburn University in Alabama, is her son. Her
sisters are Sandra Sue Ashcraft, Class of 1964, and Marion Faye Stafford
Pirkheim, Class of 1948.
Dorothy Koon Ice, Class of 1947, also was at the 2005 Banquet.
The Koon family practically owned Swisher Hill. Lois
Florence Koon Lee, who worked at the Monongah National Bank for 27 years,
married George Lee, Class of 1941. Lois
and George’s sons David Lee, Class of 1967, who married Nancy Levelle Lee,
Class of 1969, and Curtis Lee, Class of 1970, continue to live on Swisher Hill.
Weaden Koon, Class of 1929, had a farm on Swisher Hill. Bob
Kasper, Class of 1950, who lives in South Lyon, Michigan, remembers working on
Weaden’s baling hay and slinging manure for Weaden. Bob aka “Satch” and I have
been friends since 1st grade at Sts. Peter and Paul School.
There’s hardly a month goes back that we don’t phone each other
and we had reunions in Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia and Florida during our
83-year friendship and have exchanged the same two Christmas cards since 1955
that tell of births, deaths, marriages and grandchildren, much like a family
Bible.
Bob and I will get together again next at his Michigah home. My
daughter, LaQuita, and her husband, Tom, will go with me. Then LaQuita, Tom and
I will spend the next day wheeling around Put-In-Bay island on Lake Eries
before I return home to Tallmadge, which borders Akron, Ohio.
Shirley Smith Halpenny,
Class of 1955, was married to John Halpenny, Class
of 1952, brother of Donald “Jake” Halpenny, Class of 1950, who lives in
Fairmont. You may remember her for her years of work at Sweet William’s
Restaurant.
Her parents were Clifford Smith and Dorothy
Ashcraft Smith. Her siblings were James Smith, William “Butch” Smith and Julie
Ann Sheets.
There are two Cameons on the In Memoriam list, son
and mother Joseph Cameon, Jr., Class of 1974, and Frances Ann King Cameon,
Class of 1941, whose parents were Dorothea Anna Tekaucic and George Kralj
(family name later changed to King). Frances met her husband and Joe, Jr.’s
father, Joe Cameon, Sr., at the Consolidation Store and Recreation Center. They
had another son, George Claudius Cameon.
Tina Virginia “Peaches” Aldridge DeMary, Class
of 1945, married Frank DeMary, Jr., Class of 1947. They had a grocery store on
Bridge Street in Monongah before they moved to Rivesville. DeMarys Market in
Rivesville, run by the late John June DeMary, Class of 1937, sometimes gets
confused with the DeMary Grocery in Monongah. Previously, Peaches and Frank
owned a grocery store in Pennsylvania.
I can’t find a family connection in obituaries
but Cheryl “Sherry” Diana McIntire Sheets, Class of 1975, married to Randy
Sheets, also is on the 2021 In Memoriam list. Her parents were Edgar Warren
McIntire and Roberta Jean Martin McIntire.
Edmond Kanios, Sr., Class of 1948, passed away August
23, 2019. His parents were John and
Leokadia Piekutowski Kanios.
Edmund was married to Dorotha
Lee Sayre Kanios. Their children are Edmund
John Kanios, Jr., Melanie Kanios Taylor and Mitchell Stalnaker.
Edmund’s
siblings are Mary Kanios Vanet, Albina Kanios Lemanski, Class of 1941, Gertrude
Kanios Senchina, Class of 1948, Frank Kanios, Vac Kanios, Janina Kanios
Bernardo, Class of 1949, Stanislaus Kanios, Class of 1954, and Kasmier Kanios,
who died in infancy.
Albina
was typist for the 1941 Monongah Black Diamond yearbook staff.
I met
Stanley and his sisters in Akron, Ohio when I paid my respects at the funeral
home calling hours for their older brother, Wenceslaus. Stanley and another
older brother, Frank, who caddied at Fairmont Field Club when I was doing the
same thing in my teen years.
Janina's
late daughter, Janina Maria Bernardo, a 1975 Fairmont West High and 1980 WVU
graduate, was engaged to Adam F. Michna II of Monongah, son of 1939 St.
Peter's High graduate Adam Michna, when she passed away.
Doris Menear Basnett, Class of 1938, also
is on the In Memorial list for 2021. Her son, Dennis Basnett, came across
50-year anniversary reunion photos of his parents, Doris and Roy Basnett, Class
of 1932, which he promised to mail to me for a possible future blog article.
Roy graduated with names familiar to me and
others in Monongah: Helen Olesky Kerekes, sister of my father, John W. Olesky,
Sr. who married Steve Kerkes of Carolina and lived in the house on Pike Street
at the Walnut Street intersection that is the current residence of Mary Chris
Ramsey, daughter of my dad’s other sister, Frances Olesky Fazio, who married
Renzy Fazio. Mary Chris is married to Tom Ramsey and attended the July 17
J&J&Lions Get-Together in the Monongah Town Hall.
Also in the Class of 1932 were Frank
Bombard, George Shelosky, Jim Meredith, Paula Calabrase Hewitt, Mary Monzo
Hinerman, Dorothy Rogers Wilson, Josephine Smolanovich Jurasko, Catherine Teano
Fabian, Julia Urban and Louise Shroyer Trader. Some might strike a bell in your
memory tower.
Ireta
Jean Fortner Levine, whose brother Harold C. Fortner, Jr. is Class of 1967,
passed away October 30, 2019 in Spartansburg, South Carolina. Jean was born in
Monongah to Harold “Bud” Campbell Fortner, Sr., who helped his brother, Jim
Fortner, who owned the pool hall across from Monongah High in the same building
as Carlot’s Grille. Jean’s mother was Winifred Grace Fleming Fortner, whose
Fleming family settled in Marion County centuries ago.
Bud
Fortner passed away in 1999. Bud’s widow, Bernice Evangeline Fortner, passed
away in 2017.
We had
played hooky from Monongah High and went across the street (yes!) to the
Fortner pool hall in the same building as the Carlot Grille and put us in detention
for being that stupid. It didn't take long for Monongah High principal Paul
Michael to show up and take us back to school. We weren't very smart at that
age.
Anthony
Pulice, Jr., Class of 1945, married Barbara Jean Shaffer Pulice. Tony worked at
Fairmont Wall Plaster, Federal Civil Service
and WVARNG Retired Reserve, State of West Virginia Department of Health and
Human Resources and Fairmont General Hospital as the Medicaid Liaison. His nephew, Jim Pulice,
Class of 1969, was principal of Monongah Middle School.
Jim Shamrock is not on the In Memoriam list
even though he passed away in November 2, 2020 in Cortland, Ohio. He attended
Monongah High but did not graduate, his sister Christina Shamrock Hennig, Class
of 1955, informed me even though James T. Shamrock’s obituary credited him with
being a Monongah High graduate. I could not find Jim’s name on any of the 1960s
Monongah High graduation lists that Ramona Fullen Michalski sent me years ago.
So I’m siding with Christina on this one.
Pat Kiehl Williams, Class of 1950, got her
GED after she moved to New Mexico and had the certification sent to Monongah
High, which put her on the Class of 1950 graduation list retroactively. Pat
passed away in Edgewood, New Mexico in 2017.
Christina, who lives in Abilene, Texas, is married
to college professor Charles Hennig, on the faculty at Salem College in West
Virginia and McMurry University in Abilene.
Jim and Chris were among the 7 children of
Mary Ann Jurasko Shamrock and John Steve Shamrock.
His sister, Cecelia Shamrock Eller, Class
of 1955, who passed away in 2003 was married to Robert Eller of Francis Mines. Other Shamrock siblings were John,
Class of 1947; Joe; Paul, Class of 1962; and Mike, Class of 1966.
The annual Monongah High Alumni Banquet will be Saturday,
September 4 at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Fairmont. Dinner at 6 p.m. Group
photos of the honor classes at 5:30 p.m. at $15 per photo.
Stepping Stone will provide the dancing music till 11
p.m. There’s a story behind that Bridgeport “band” of father and son.
Pop Ron Poole began playing in 1961, giving his guitar
its money’s worth. Todd Poole joined his father in 1976, at the age of 3 for a
local Lions Club chapter.
Their first album was recorded by Wedge Records in 1989.
In 1991 the named themselves Stepping Stone. They list their address as 421
Worthington Drive, Bridgeport, West Virginia and phone number as (304) 842-3697
in case you want to line them up for a gig. They have become a fixture at
Monongah High Alumni Banquets.
Mail Reservations by August 26 deadline and a check made
out to
Monongah High Alumni Association
for $30 per person
to
Donna Davis
858 Park Avenue
Monongah, WV
26554-1143
If you have any questions call Donna Davis at (304) 534-5636.
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