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Bob Weaver 2024
Boone Waldo, Jr. (1925-1989) was a Calhoun boy who did good, becoming an exemplary teacher, football coach and principal.
"Boone grew up by the hardest in Grantsville, sometimes hand-to-mouth," said longtime friend Don Weaver, who attended Glenville State College with the man.
Weaver recalled they had one tie between them for dress-up. "It had hand-painted ducks," he said.
Weaver and Waldo, after college, went to Walton to be coaches in 1955. Waldo remained as the school's principal. He briefly taught social studies at Calhoun County High School.
Later, Waldo was a principal at Weston, Weirton and Martinsburg, where he was named WV's High School Princpal of the Year."
At the time of his retirement, the school erected a permanent plaque in his honor.
A US Army veteran, "The GI Bill opened doors for Boone, which he could never have imagined," recalled classmate David B. Hathaway, who passed in 2009. Hathaway said Waldo was a member of the class of 1943, playing center on the
football team.
"I spent an afternoon with him at his Martinsburg WV school where he was principal just a few years before he died. It will
always be a special memory for me," Hathaway recalled.
"He was much loved by his staff
and the people of Martinsburg. Sadly he died just a few years after he retired," Hathaway said.
Boone married Dr. Karen Raines Waldo in 1952. Both are buried in the Veterans National Cemetery at Grafton.
Boone's wife, Karen Raines Waldo, said "One of the government's greatest programs was the GI bill," locally allowing dozens of Calhoun soliders get a college education. "Boone was one of them."
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