98th MONONGAH HIGH ALUMNI BANQUET ANOTHER SMASH HIT!

 

Greta Martin Mike sure started something in 1922.

Class of 1922 graduate Greta, who later married in the Mike brothers barber conglomerate, staged the first annual Monongah High Alumni Banquet.

Saturday in the Knight of Columbus in Fairmont the 98^th Banquet became part of the history of the longest continuous high school reunion in West Virginia history.

I got to a lot of familiar faces and old friends.

Kathren Herndon Loss, Class of 1942, nailed the spotlight again as the oldest Lion in the Pride.

Linda Lopez Gandy, Class of 1965, presided as usual since she’s still the Monongah High Alumni Association president. Linda and husband Jim Gandy, Class of 1964, also on the Alumni Association Board of Directors, came from their home in Alachua, Florida.

Tom Dean, Class of 1949, who never comes to Marion County without visiting long-time close friend Ramona Fullen Michalski, Class of 1949, in Monongah, also attended.

Tom stopped in Lynch, Virginia to visit her daughter, a military veteran, as he drove from his Goldboro, North Carolina home to his mandatory visit in Monongah with Ramona and then to Fairmont for the Monongah Banquet.

And it wouldn’t be a reunion for me unless there’s a Fazio cousin in the mix. This time it was Marietta College (Ohio) professor John Fazio, son of John Fazio, Class of 1947.

Papa John is a brother of Renzy Fazio, Class of 1937, who married Frances Olesky Fazio, Class of 1937, sister of John W. Olesky, Sr., my father.

Renzy Fazio had 12 siblings: John Fazio, the lanky pitcher for Monongah High School who passed away in 2006, survived by widow Dolores Stancheck; Jeanette Fazio DiBiase, who died in 2003; Albert Fazio of New York; Mary Virginia Fazio Pasquale, who died in 2006, and husband Joseph of Fairmont; the late Nick, James, Joseph and Michael; and the Fazio sisters Edith DeCarlo, Elizabeth Domico, Angline Prozzillo and Carmella DePond.

Renzy and Frances’ children are Irene Fazio Preolitti, Class of 1966, who lives in Traction Park, Monongah, with husband Mike Preolitti, Class of 1962; Mary Chris Fazio Ramsey, Class of 1969, married to Tom Ramsey and living on Pike Street in Monongah in the home once owned by Helen and Steve Kerekes, sister of Frances Fazio and John W. Olesky, Sr.; Steve Fazio, Class of 1975, whose wife, Nancy, is deceased; and David Fazio, Class of 1968, married to 1973 Farmington grad Cora, operator of Fazio's Eldercare in Stoney Lonesome.

And there was Monongah Alumni Association Treasurer Donna Davis, Class of 19.., greeting everyone as they entered to check their names off the reservations list. The Banquet just wouldn’t work without Donna’s hard work of keeping track of the about 100 reservations this year, collecting the checks and turning them over to the Alumni Association as she has been doing for decades.

Only two years to go for the Centennial Monongah High Alumni Banquet in 2023. I can’t wait.