CATCHING UP WITH ..... BOB COTTRILL

Bob Cottrill with John Olesky in 2015 in Florida

Bob Cottrill, Class of 1949, the toughest dude on the 1948 Monongah High football team, says he’s “doing fine” these days. He called me a new cell phone that “my daughter got me.”

The best that a broken thigh bone and two knee replacements could do was reduce Bob to using a cane and letting wife Thelma and others drive him wherever he wants to go.

Bob and Thelma have been married for more than 10 years. Thelma was the best friend of Bob’s first wife, Barbara Jean Henderson Cottrill, a 1955 Fairmont Nursing School graduate who was nursing manager for Suburban Cleveland Hospital, which later was absorbed into the Cleveland Clinic system.

 After she passed away in 2007, Bob and Thelma, who was living in North Carolina with Bob living in Melbourne, Florida, eventually married.

Bob made a Labor Day trip to Cottrill’s Mountain, 120 acres near Burnsville, West Virginia that Bob owned in Braxton County, West Virginia till he turned it over to his two grandchildren.

Bob’s grandson, Chris Barnes, is a Kent high school and University of Akron graduate with a title insurance business in Medina County, which borders the Summit County where I live in Tallmadge, Ohio. Chris’ mother is Bob’s daughter, Rhonda. He works for Fidelity Mortgage and Title.

Bob also has sons Rob in Atlanta and Randy in Tampa.

 

Thelma still takes trips to North Carolina to visit family but Bob’s body can’t handle those drives any more. He’s “given up driving” and leaves that to Thelma or friends in a car that Bob still owns.

Bob worked with his father in the coal mines while attending Monongah High School.

And he was the toughest player on the Lions’ football team, knocking out more than one tackler who tried to stop him.

Bob also drove a Marion County school bus to help pay for his Fairmont State education. Bob attended college on the GI Bill after he left the Navy in 1956.

He broke his thigh after a fall while dancing the jitterbug! He tried to slide, but his shoes didn’t slide with him. He has a metal strip and screws to hold the contraption in his body.

Bob still communicates by phone “periodically” with Arlene Marteney Edgell, Class of 1951, who is married to Okey Edgell, Class of 1944, and with Duane Harbert, also Class of 1951. Bob said that Duane is “real busy trying to keep everything together” after Duane’s wife passed away.

Bob also inquired about Frances Wimer Miller, who moved to Tulsa 30 years ago with her husband. Frances’ sister, Phyllis Wimer, passed away about a decade ago.

Bob’s Florida MHS reunions included Delores Vingle Olender, Class of 1951, who was in the Ray Vingle Band long ago. Ted Nagle, Class of 1954, who lived in Vinton, Virginia and Micco, Florida, also had a reunion with Deloris in Micco.

Bob remains friends with Tom Martin, Class of 1951, who winters on Marco Island, Florida with his wife.

 

Bob’s half-sister, Paula Cottrill, passed away in 2016. Paula was a half-sister of Bob Cottrill, Class of 1950, Bill Cottrill and the late Chatta Belle Castro. They all had the same father, who remarried after divorcing his first wife, but different mothers.

Duane lives in Marlinton, New Jersey. Duane’s mother, Goldie, taught at Worthington Grade School. Duane’s father, Frank Harbert, was principal of Thoburn Elementary in Monongah. Duane’s brother, John Harbert, Class of 1955, and his wife, Karen Colvin Harbert, also class of 1955, are deceased.

 

Bob graduated from Fairmont State in three years, began a teaching career in biology and general science and coaching at Ohio's Wapakoneta High School – astronaut Neil Armstrong’s hometown.

If you want to chat with Bob his cellphone number is (321) 432-6683, which he kept when his daughter got him a new cellphone, which I’ll be needing soon because mine is going bonkers and driving me bonkers. The fancier they get the more confused they cause me to be. After all, I’ll be 89 years old on November 5 so these new-fangled gadgets have their drawbacks with me.