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A lifetime member of the Mineral County Historical Society, Carl D. "Denny" Avers tirelessly helps those seeking to learn about their family or community histories and has given several presentations to both the historical society and a local genealogical society. He helped instigate and provided financial support for a newspaper digitization project at Potomac State College, led a fundraiser for a World War II memorial at Keyser High School, and made a detailed study and analysis of early surveys and land grants in the New Creek and North Branch of the Potomac area. Avers is the author of a family history and a 2019 history of Trinity Lutheran Church in Keyser.
Nominated by Mineral County Historical Society
More than seven years ago, Jack Bowers and Cynthia Mowery Bowers assumed responsibility for the Pendleton County Historical Society's grave register project and completed collecting data and editing the 2013 volume. They then began work on the updated and expanded 2020 volume that contains more than 16,000 records. The couple also have hosted and boarded a team of researchers who were tree-ring dating some of the county's oldest log structures. Jack Bowers has been a member of the board of directors since 2012, co-chaired a committee that purchased and installed a flagpole memorial to Charles Boggs Jr., and assisted with the transfer of a collection of early farm implements.
Nominated by Pendleton County Historical Society
William "Skip" Deegans has spent countless hours in the Old Stone Cemetery cleaning stones, as well as helping host cemetery preservation workshops, raising money for improvements, and guarding the cemetery at Halloween to prevent damage. Deeply committed to preservation of the cemetery, he recently shared information about a family plot and the refurbished antique fence that will be placed around it through a storyboard presentation to the local garden club. He also has helped raise awareness about cemetery preservation and other historical topics in the Greenbrier Valley through the publication of regular newspaper articles. Deegans also is a member of the Lewisburg Historic Landmarks Commission.
Nominated by Friends of the Old Stone Cemetery
Helen Edmunds was the treasurer of the Rowlesburg Area Historical Society for more than ten years. She was the driving force for the annual quilt show during the society's World War II re-enactment events and spent endless hours working on quilts that were raffled off to raise funds for preservation of the old Rowlesburg High School building. She has made many desserts for the annual spring dinner, worked at the dinners and at the museum, and donated baked goods for sale. Edmunds has brought a great work ethic and dedication to the society and has been a great inspiration to others.
Nominated by Rowlesburg Area Historical Society
Wendy Kay Elswick has assumed a leadership role in the Wheeling Area Genealogical Society as newsletter editor since 2018 and vice president pro tempore since late 2019. She provides program and research information in the newsletter and through the website, promotes local historical information, and participates in period costume at events throughout the Wheeling area, including cemetery tours and genealogical meetings. Elswick made a concerted effort in 2018 to save the 240-year-old former Ohio County Courthouse building in West Liberty that would have included moving the building to Wheeling and establishing a Revolutionary Era park. Though ultimately unsuccessful, her effort raised awareness about the history of the building.
Nominated by Wheeling Area Genealogical Society
Eleanor Finn is a former vice president and president of the Historic Shepherdstown Commission and served on the board of directors from 2011-2017. Under her leadership, membership and donations grew and the organization developed its first 5-year plan. She worked to diversify exhibits at the Historic Shepherdstown Museum to represent the contributions of African Americans. In addition to a major museum exhibit, Finn oversaw the collection of African American oral histories that are now part of the permanent archives. She also presided over the commission's commitment to improvement and maintenance of the Shepherd Cemetery and secured grants for repair of the stone walls and wrought iron railings.
Nominated by Historic Shepherdstown Commission
In 2020, Phillip A. Hayes prepared a detailed and insightful analysis of the Big Beaver Creek Ancient Fortification Site, purportedly Raleigh County's oldest manmade structure. Using engineering techniques and contemporary reports to analyze earlier data and the supposed physical site, Hayes has suggested that the case for an "ancient Indian fortification" has not been made. His work resulted in a monograph titled "The Ancient Fortification Legend: A Reevaluation, Big Beaver Creek Site (46RG1), June 6, 2020."
Nominated by Raleigh County Historical Society
Paul C. Hoblitzel III is president of the Oil, Gas and Industrial Historical Association, of which he was a co-founder in 1989. His efforts have dramatically increased public interest, historical tourism, and preservation concerning oil and gas history in Wood and Wirt counties and around the state. With the creation of the Oil and Gas Museum in Parkersburg and later the Burning Springs Park in Wirt County, as well as the addition of Henderson Hall in Boaz, Hoblitzel has helped make the association a multi-site historical concern dedicated to serving into the future.
Nominated by Wood County Historical and Preservation Society, Inc.
Mary Ellen Howe turned her fascination with her family history into a lifelong defining moment. Not content to rely on online computer research with its inherent risk of unsubstantiated information, she travelled to the sources in West Virginia and Virginia to locate original records on the Bailey lineage. The result has been four books on the ancestors and descendants of Richard Bailey, one of the first settlers in the area. Howe has donated the proceeds of her latest book to the mortgage fund of the Mercer County Historical Society.
Nominated by Mercer County Historical Society
Ron Kirk has been vice president of the Greenbrier Historical Society for ten years and has been involved in a variety of activities. For several years, he served on the personnel committee and was especially useful for interviews and checking references. A retired engineer, he has provided valuable information and assistance in upgrading electrical, heating and cooling, and technology systems. He also created videos for the local public access station that promote home tour events. In the past year, Kirk developed a training program for new board members to ensure that they understand the organization and their duties and responsibilities.
Nominated by Greenbrier Historical Society
Kevin Andrew Pruitt represented the Gen. Hugh Mercer Chapter, Sons of the American Revolution, at the dedication of the Gold Star Families Monument in Princeton in the Fall of 2020. In addition, he has been an historical interpreter and educator for the SAR at various events, served as honor guard, and striven to preserve local, state, and national history. Pruitt has begun efforts to locate and preserve the grave of Continental militiaman John Peyton Bailey, one of the first settlers in Mercer County.
Nominated by Gen. Hugh Mercer Chapter, Sons of the American Revolution
Ken Sexton has worked tirelessly for the last seven years to preserve structures in Wheeling that were integral to the city's growth at the turn of the 20th century, many built for glass or pottery workers and reflective of the diversity of the people who lived in them. Vacant for many years, these houses were full of debris; had leaking roofs, broken windows, and unlocked doors; and had become hideouts for the drug and transient population before Sexton purchased them and restored, refurbished, and repurposed them for new working class people. His current project is a 4-unit Craftsman Style building in South Wheeling.
Nominated by Friends of Wheeling
A charter member of the Cooney Ricketts Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Rebecca Renee Ramey Spence is chair of the graveyard markers and internments committees. She locates graves of possible Civil War soldiers, researches them for military records and family, cleans tombstones, and prepares paperwork for inclusion in a UDC database. Spence participates in memorial services, presents historical programs, and lectures at re-enactments and other Civil War events as an Appalachian woman educated in using herbs for medicinal purposes and their contribution to the medical field during the Civil War.
Nominated by Cooney Ricketts Chapter 2726, United Daughters of the Confederacy
Garry Stephen has been the chair of the building and maintenance committee of the Brooke County Historical Museum and Culture Center since 2016. He has given more than 400 volunteer hours to get the first floor of the museum up to code, doing electrical, plumbing, and carpentry work and installing fire equipment and security cameras. He also worked on two furnace boilers. In addition, in 2020, Stephen remodeled the meeting/social room and ran wiring to the outside of the building, which made installation of a new museum sign easier.
Nominated by Brooke County Historical Museum and Culture Center
Leslie Thomas founded the Montgomery Historical Committee in 2012 and has been president since that time. He has collected historical artifacts from the Montgomery and Fayette County areas, and helped purchase negatives from the Sonny Glenn Studio, which operated in the town circa 1950s-2000. This past year, Thomas spent more than 50 hours helping with the Montgomery History Mural, a public art project on the GRID building, and provided the scaffolding. Also in 2020, he helped dedicate a marker in Pratt honoring Mother Jones. In addition to leading the Montgomery group, Thomas is president of the Fayette County Historical Society.
Nominated by Montgomery Historical Committee
Sue Fulmer Waggoner is the current secretary of the Pleasants County Historical Society. She has scanned, named, and filed photographs in the genealogy room at the Pleasants County Library. In addition, she spent many hours scanning twelve log books donated to the society, making notebook copies for use at the library, and providing society members with an electronic version. Waggoner has done similar work for another donation—the Pleasants Regular Baptist Church, 1857-1882—, additionally providing a transcription of the handwritten pages. She also helps set up displays in the historical society's trailer for use at special events and is present to discuss the displays with community members.
Nominated by Pleasants County Historical Society
A retired judge, Harry W. White has brought his legal background to several Ohio Valley Civil War Roundtable events in recent years. He portrayed Judge Richard Parker in a reenactment of John Brown's trial at Independence Hall in 2018. The following year, he assumed the part of Judge Daniel Tilden in the play, "The Last Fugitive Slave," about Wheeling slave Lucy Bagby. As part of the roundtable's Civil War Symposium in 2019, White gave a presentation about presidential powers during war and the suspension of habeas corpus on the national level, and he included its application locally to Judge George Thompson and Francis Pierpont.
Nominated by Ohio Valley Civil War Roundtable