| At the 2019 Vandalia Gathering honored post-humorously was George Daugherty.
George Daugherty was born in Mannington, grew up in Elkview, and was an entertainer, toastmaster, songwriter, wit and musician. He was beloved by many as the Earl of Elkview, and he traveled around the world singing and talking about West Virginia and the values of Appalachian culture. Daugherty logged more than 3,000 performances across West Virginia and most of the United States, as well as numerous performances in Ireland.
By Bob Weaver
2019 - My longtime friend George "Earl of Elkview" Daugherty has died at 86.
He was a a Kanawha County attorney, troubadour, actor and entertainer, but foremost he was a resurrected alcoholic, whose life as a recovering person he joyfully extolled these past 40 years.
We shared those same forty years in recovery.
I first met George in a quick drying out emporium known as the Valley Clinic in St. Albans in the 1970s, a three day detox (cash up front) that still used diminishing doses of cheap liquor to being one down, avoiding the DTs. It was at the end of my career as a mortician and funeral home owner.
Over the years we laughingly recalled our more than once detoxes at the facility, George often saying we were in pretty good company, a newspaper editor, a brick manufacturer, a doctor, with an assortment of West Virginia politicians.
One man, which we both knew, would save up his detox liquor cups to swallow a big drink to get a high. Only a good alkie could think that way.
Those detoxes were barely feeble efforts to get sober, mostly allowing us to get back to work and get our wives off our backs.
They did count as "countless vain attempts" toward accepting our powerlessness of trying to control the substance. In the recovering world it is called "surrender."
During the past 40 years, besides many accomplishments, he passed the message of recovery to thousands of West Virginia and around the world.
Perhaps in a 1991 interview, Daugherty described a the resurrection he experienced after engaging the recovery process.
"I can sum it up best this way," he said. "If God had said to me when I was 46, 'I'm going to take you at noon today,' I would think, 'God, you gave me a dirty deal. Things were so tough. You didn't treat me right.' But if He were to take me this morning, I would say, 'It's been a wonderful trip, God. Thank you!' "
Go rest high George. It was a great run.
See complete obituary George A. Daugherty
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