Monongah High Lions

       JOHN OLESKY, CLASS OF 1950, AND SUSAN SANDERS, CLASS OF 1971, WITH JOHN'S LADY, JOAN, AT 100TH (MAYBE LAST?) MONONGAH HIGH ALUMNI BANQUET  Your Monongah class having a reunion? Contact John Olesky! I have publicized the May 27 reunion of the Class of 1974 at Ellis’s Restaurant outside Shinnston at 5 p.m. Sheila Mobley McCutcheon  and Sabrina Haught are organizing the reunion. What about your class? If your class has set up a Class of ??? reunion, email me at jo4wvu@neo.rr.com  and I’ll publicize it so that more of your classmates will know. I get 3,000 hits a month on the Monongah High Lions blog, from California to Maine to Florida, so I’d be happy to encourage more of your class to show up. So far, no DEFINITE date and venue for an all-class reunion after a CENTURY of annual Monongah High Alumni Banquets in Fairmont or Morgantown, starting with Greta Mike beginning the longest-running high school reunion in West Virginia in 1922. It sure would be a shame to NOT

          FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: JOE MARTIN, BILL McCOMBS, HARLESS McCOMBS 50-year awards for 3 Monongah firefighters   Bill McCombs, Class of 1956, and Joe “Buck” Martin received 50-year service awards from West Virginia State Fire Commission for being fire department volunteers for the town of Monongah.   Chief Harless McCombs will soon be recognized for 50 years of service.   Bill joined the Monongah Fire Department in 1971, Buck in 1972.   Bill also was Monongah Water Plant chief operator, retired but came back to train his water plant replacement, who bailed out after a few months.   Bill’s wife is Monongah Town Recorder Patty Steele McCombs, a Fairmont East graduate deeply involved in promoting the annual Monongahfest Festival. They’ve been married about half a century. She moved to Monongah in her 20s, around the time she married Bill. Patty has been Town Recorder for a few decades. Bill has served on Monongah’s Town Council, off and on, for more than 20 years. And put in 23 years

                 ROBERT LYNN HEARN Bob Hern, Class of 1966, passed away   Bob Hearn, Class of 1966, passed away February 23, 2024. R. Jaybird Murphy just notified me. I missed it. Another example of Lions helping Lions to keep track of Lions.   Bob’s parents were Clarence Monroe Hearn and Virginia Lee Anderson Hearn. His widow, after 53 years of marriage, is Phyllis Jean Rohanna Hearn. Their children are Brigitte Amanda Lynch and Chance Hearn, both of Mannington. They have 5 grandchildren. Bob’s siblings are Jimmy Hearn of Logan, Utah, and Clarence Hearn Jr. of Columbia, South Carolina,   and sister Sharon Dennison and Sandra Wimer, both deceased. After MHS, Bob graduated from Fairmont State University in 1970 with a business administration degree. Bob’s funeral and burial took place March 2. I’m sorry I missed this till Jaybird tipped me off. Bob’s obituary: Robert Lynn "Bob" Hearn, age 75 of Mannington, WV passed away unexpectedly on Friday, February 23,

            LORRAINE MARIE DeFAZIO BARTH Lorraine DeFazio Barth funeral Saturday, March 16   Funeral services for Lorraine Marie DeFazio Barth, Class of 1951, will be Saturday, March 16 at 2 p.m. Calling hours at Ford Funeral Home in Bridgeport, at 215 East Main Street, will be noon to 2 p.m. Saturday. A private burial for family members will be at Mount Calvary Cemetery in Monongah, which I often visit because my favorite Monongah High teacher, Mary Turkovich, and my dad’s sister, Frances Olesky Fazio, and her husband, Renzy Fazio, are buried there. Her husband for 60 years, Walter L. Barth, passed away in 2016. He was prominent in community activities in Buckhannon and then Bridgeport. Lorraine’s obituary: Lorraine Marie (DeFazio) Barth, 91, passed away peacefully on March 9, 2024 at the Bridgeport Healthcare Center. She was born on February 14, 1933 in Monongah, a daughter of the late Cosimo and Guiseppina (Josephine) Ribera DeFazio who had immigrated from Naples and Sic

        COLLECTING THE ITEMS ABOVE IS JUST THE START OF THE WORK . . . THEN COMES THE BUNDLING AND DISTRIBUTION BOTTOM PHOTO: JACKIE IN GREEN DRESS WITH, LEFT TO RIGHT, DAUGHTERS, LEA ANN, BELINDA AND RENEE AND JACKIE'S BROTHER, JOHN, AND, BEHIND THEM JACKIE'S GRANDSONS           JACKIE OLESKY STRAIGHT AND DAUGHTER BELINDA STRAIGHT MORRIS WITH PACKAGES FOR UNION MISSION  Jackie Olesky Straight still being an angel on Earth for those in need   Jackie Olesky Straight, Class of 1955, who lives in Rivesville, has been providing food, clothing and toys for families and children for more than two decades. Her daughter, Belinda Straight Morris, as usual, helps with the lifting. Mom and daughter have been doing this for 24 years. The latest helping hands on their part with Jackie as outreach coordinator of Fairmont’s St. Peter the Fisherman Catholic Church delivered 50 Easter baskets that benefits the residents of the Fairmont Union Mission. Jackie raised $1,500 to help other

  Notes on Class of 1955 I gathered over the years Time for Catching Up With the Class of 1955 since they graduated from Monongah High: Ann Marie Mascak Davis, Class of 1955, of Shinnston is the widow of Jimmie Lee Davis, who was born in Miletus, Doddridge County. Jimmie passed away in 2007. They were married for 46 years.   They have two daughters, Lee Ann van Egmond of Pittsburgh and Sabrina Jo Plachta of Plum Run in Rachel, a Mannington High grad.   Jimmie Lee played with bluegrass musicians for years. He rode motorcyles and drove cars at Eldora Raceway. Ann Marie’s parents were  Veronica Mozuke Mascak and John Mascak, Jr. of Hutchinson, where Ann Marie lived when she attended Monongah High. Veronica worked at St. Barbara’s Nursing Home just south of Monongah and was a member of the Hutchinson Improvement Association.  Monongah High Alumni Association vice president Dolores Edwards, also in the Class of 1955 with Ann Marie, describes her as "a very nice lady. Had