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Bob Butcher was a man full of life, engaging people wherever he went, well-known to many Calhoun citizens for auctioneering.
Robert Jackson Butcher, 87, a resident of Glenville, died at home on Nov. 3, 2005, from complications related to heart disease and prostate cancer.
Services will be 2 p.m. Sunday at Ellyson Mortuary in Glenville, with the Rev. David Krum officiating. Burial with Masonic rites will be at Meadow Lane Cemetery, located three miles below Glenville on State Route 5 at the mouth of Leading Creek. The family will receive friends from 5-9 p.m. today at the mortuary.
He attended the public schools of Gilmer County through the 11 grades then offered at Cedarville and was graduated from Sand Fork High School in 1937. He earned a B.A. Degree from Glenville State College in 1941.
Following graduation from college, he taught in the public schools of Nassau County, Fla. He volunteered to serve with the U.S. Navy shortly after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
For 33 consecutive months during World War II, he served aboard ships attached to the Admiral's Division, Task Force 24, that convoyed troops and supplies across combat zones in the North Atlantic Ocean.
Most of his landside duty was in Boston, Mass., and Argentia, Newfoundland, in Canada. In 1945, he was honorably discharge from military service.
After the war, he returned to his native Gilmer County and engaged in a number of different pursuits. He was a teacher and coach at Burnsville High School and at Spencer High School. He took graduate level courses in history at West Virginia University.
He established Gilmer County's first taxi cab business and built it to a fleet of five vehicles. He took up cattle farming and then entered politics.
In 1950, he ran as a Democrat and was elected Circuit Clerk of Gilmer County. He ran unopposed for the same position in 1956 and was re-elected. He worked with the West Virginia Department of Health, where he served as Chief Sanitarian for Gilmer and Calhoun counties. He was recognized by the State Health Department as one of its finest teachers in the field of food handling and as its leading expert on solid waste disposal by the oxidation pond method.
Before retiring from civil service, he worked with the West Virginia Department of Welfare in Spencer.
In 1952, he graduated from the Reppert School of Auctioneering in Decatur, Ind. and was noted as one of West Virginia's leading auctioneers.
He cried hundreds of estate and farm sales all over the state. In 1955, he and John Victor Smith co-founded the Gilmer County Auction Barn located three miles south of Glenville, and for more than 30 years it was operated as a weekly Monday night consignment sale.
Around 1965, he and Harry B. McLaughlin established a Thursday night consignment sale in Gassaway known as Elk Auction. He operated that business on a weekly basis for well over two decades, first with Mr. McLaughlin and later with C.S. Brady and Zampa Brady.
He holds the record on the sale of the Grand Champion ham at the State FFA Ham, Bacon and Egg Show in Charleston. Over the years, he taught several courses of auctioneering through various continuing education programs offered at Glenville State College.
He was affiliated with the following fraternal and professional organizations: Gilmer County Lodge No. 118, AF&AM, Glenville; York Rite Bodies, Spencer/Ravenswood; Scottish Rite Bodies and Nemesis Shrine Temple, Parkersburg; Gilmer County Senior Citizens Association; Glenville State College Alumni Association; Pioneer Athletic Club; West Virginia Auctioneers Association; and National Auctioneers Association. He was a member of the Glenville Presbyterian Church.
He was preceded in death by Mildred Keener Butcher, his first wife, who was killed in a traffic accident during World War II, and by whom he had no children. He was also preceded in death by Marlene Madge Hayhurst Butcher, his second wife, to whom he was married for 46 years; three sisters, Mabel Butcher, Louise Butcher and Teresa Butcher Jarvis; and a brother, Roland Butcher.
He is survived by all three children of his second marriage, R. Terry Butcher and wife, Nasia, and Timothy B. Butcher and wife, Diana, of Glenville and Mary Beth Butcher M.D. of Columbus, Ohio; five grandchildren, Alexis Butcher, Elizabeth Butcher, Andrew Butcher, Matthew Butcher and Catherine Butcher, all of Glenville; one brother, Dr. James A. Butcher of Shepherdstown, W.Va.; one sister, Mary Hazel Lilley of Duluth, Ga.; and several nieces and nephews.
Expressions of sympathy may be made to the Glenville State College Women's basketball team, c/o the Glenville State College Foundation, 200 High Street, Glenville, WV 26351.
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