Sometimes
stories and photos still dazzle with age and bear repeating. Such as the fascinating
stories behind the Monongah Christmas street lights.
Including
a heartwarming tale behind the new Monongah Christmas street light where the
Dairy Kone used to be.
Mari Lisa
Johnson purchased light in memory of her mother, Lavinia Rose
Prezioso Edmond, Class of 1960.
It is
where Lavinia worked at Dairy Mart till her retirement. Every time Mari Lisa
sees her mom’s light lit up, it will be like seeing her mother’s star in
Heaven.
Lavinia
graduated in the top 10 of her 1960 class. She was in the National
Honor Society, a cheerleader, on the Black Diamond yearbook staff, in the
junior play cast, in the Homecoming court, on the prom committee and attended
the State Journalism Convention. Busy person at Monongah High, huh?
Lavinia’s
parents were Ruth Kanavy Prezioso Huskelhus and Arthur Prezioso.
Mari
Lisa’s siblings are Dr. Michael Edmond, a legendary doctor married to Dr.
Laurie Lyckholm and the chief medical officer at WVU Medicine in Morgantown,
and Steve and Amy Edmond of Fairmont. Another sibling, Mark Patrick Edmond, is
deceased.
Steve
Edmond is the West Virginia Health & Human Resources Bureau for Public
Health’s Office of Emergency Medical Services’ trauma designation coordinator
under OEMS medical director Michael Mill. Steve also is a Registered
Nurse.
WVU School of Medicine graduate Dr. Edmond
is an internal medicine doctor who has been practicing for 31 years. He is
affiliated with University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics. He went from chief
resident at WVU to a fellowship in infectious diseases as the University of
Pittsburgh and a fellowship in hospital epidemiology at the University of Iowa.
That was followed by a stint as chief of quality at the University of Iowa
Hospitals and Clinics and in Richmond, Virginia before landing in Morgantown.
Dr. Edmond has been published 350 times and
been named in U.S. News & World Report’s top doctors in America and the top
20 people in Health Leaders Magazine. He is a leader in setting guidelines to
avoid patient infections in hospitals, including disposing of doctors’ white
coats because the sleeves collect harmful pathogens to pass on to patients.
Physicians wore black coats till the 1800s when German doctors changed the garb
to the now-familiar white coats.
Dr. Edmond also was a pioneer in fecal
transplants, putting fecies from healthy patients into those suffering from
C.diff (Clostridium Difficle), a common infection for hospital patients, until
Food and Drug Administration policies made the time-consumering paperwork and
redtape overwhelming.
Dr. Edmond would take a healthy stool
sample from a donor, usually a family member, mix it in a blender, pass it
through coffee filters and put it into a syringe. The result was inserted
through a tube in the patient’s nose, down their throat and into their stomach.
It sounds gross, but Dr. Edmond’s procedure was five times more efficient than
antibiotics in eliminating C.diff.
Now those who can afford it go to
Australia, Europe, Argentina, Brazil, the United Kingdom and India where the
procedure is being done regularly. The United States and Canada are more
restrictive about allowing the procedure.
Dr. Niti Armistead, a native of India who
had her residency in Richmond and came under the wing of Dr. Edmond, is vice
president of quality and patient safety at WVU Hospitals in Morgantown, West
Virginia.
Dr. Edmond’s wife, Dr. Laurie Lyckholm, is
a Creighton University (Omaha, Nebraska) Medical School graduate who was on the
Virginia Commonwealth University faculty staff for 18 years, focusing on care
for indigents and prisoners.
Lavinia’s
sister is Barbara Jean Prezioso Vozniak, who married Mitch Vozniak. Both are
Class of 1953 and deceased. I
went to school and caddied at Fairmont Field Club with Mitch, who was on the
1952 Monongah High state football championship team and an auto racing
mechanic.
Barbara’s aunt, the late Amelia Ann Yerace
Prezioso (The Canned Peppers Lady), ran Prezioso Grocery at the top of Jackson
Street with her husband, Roman Prezioso, Sr.
Amelia and Roman, Sr. are the parents of
State Sen. Roman Prezioso, Jr., Class of 1967, who lives in Fairmont with wife
Deborah.
Nearly every Christmas street light in Monongah
has a worthwhile story behind its purchase and/or installation.
The deer light near Main Street was
bought by Sheila Womack for Warren Sloan, the late Monongah councilman and
police chief, who originated the Christmas in Monongah Toy Giveaway in the
1970s. Warren would leave packages on
doorsteps with a note that said "Robin Hood was here."
It began with 25 families and in four years
grew to 150 families and morphed into the public Robin Hood Project and
eventually the Christmas in Monongah Toy Giveaway sponsored by Monongah Family Fish Day organizers and brothers
Dave and Warren Sloan, both living in Monongah.
Warren Sloan was the owner of E&M Auto
on Lyndon Avenue. He started the company in 1996.
The
Angel was purchased by Betty Walls Vandetta in memory of her late husband,
former Monongah mayor James Leon Vandetta, who served the town for 10 years
(1990-2001) before passing away in 2002. Jim’s son, Greg Vandetta, also became
a Monongah mayor.
1950
Fairview High graduate Betty also is a graduate of Fairmont General Hospital
School of Nursing.
The
seashell with gold pearl light on Church Street was purchased by me because I
grew up in the house across the street from the light. It was my payback to
Monongah for everyone in town making sure that I didn’t kill myself when I was
out of sight of my parents, John W. Olesky, Sr. and Lena Futten Olesky.
As I
see it the pearl represents Christ and the seashell represents his tomb, my way
of telling the amazing story of the Resurrection.
Hardly
a year goes by that a Lion doesn’t contact me and ask for the meaning behind my
Church Street Christmas light. So here it is . . . again for those who don’t
know it.
Adam
Michna, who graduated from North Marion in 1980 after attending Monongah High
for 3 years, also purchased a light this year in memory of the Michna family
which included his parents, also
Adam Michna and Ethel Stevens Michna, and Sister Rose and Sister Dolores at Sts.
Peter and Paul School. Adam’s light is on Maple Avenue between the former
Monongah High building and the old West Virginia State Police barracks, once
the home of T.J. Pearse.
That
means you might be able to see Adam’s light and my light while standing where
Coach Jim Feltz and wife Betty Lynn Feltz once lived, before the late funeral
director Junior Domico’s family occupied that green house next to Our Lady of
Pompeii Church, which was razed years ago.
The Angel of Light on Shenasky Lane was
placed there by Susan Staron Sanders’ Charge of the Lights Brigade because
Amelia has donated so much to their fundraising that all but paid for that
light.
The
Candle was purchased last year by the Town of Monongah. The Shooting Star was
bought by the Fire Department.
Those
21 Christmas street lights don’t just twinkle and light up the town. They have
stories to tell.
And,
behind the lights is another group, the Angel of Thomas Street Susan Staron
Sanders’ Charge of the Lights Brigade, as I call them.
Susan is Class of 1971.
Their work shines even brighter than the
Christmas street lights that have such brilliant stories behind them.
And so does the story behind the Christmas street lights in Monongah that astronauts probably see when they are way out in space.
