Charles Hughes Fletcher, 63, a well-known Elkins businessman of 28 Pinewood Drive, Elkins, died at 8:50 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2002, in Elkins-randolph County Family YMCA. He had been in his usual health and death was attributed to cardiac arrest.
Fletcher was a 1957 graduate of Elkins High School, where he was a football and basketball player.
He was a 1961 graduate of Davis & Elkins College and a 1963 graduate of Penn State University with a master’s degree in education.
After graduation, he joined his father in the Fletcher Insurance Co. and, in 1964, he founded Fletcher Real Estate Brokerage Co., which he operated until his death.
For the past 15 years he was a certified appraiser.
He was inducted into the Randolph County Athletic Hall of Fame.
He was a lifelong member of the Elkins-randolph County Family YMCA, where he served on the board of director’s, where he was honored as director emeritus and was instrumental in starting the YMCA swim team.
He had been honored with the Who’s Who National Business Award.
He was a licensed instrument and rating pilot and a member of the Elkins Pilot’s Club.
He was a member of the board of directors of Davis Trust Co. for 20 years, Elkins Lodge No. 1135, BPOE and Elkins Lodge No. 116, IOOF and a lifelong member of First United Methodist Church.
Fletcher was born Jan. 14, 1939, in Elkins, a son of the late D. Edwin Fletcher and Virginia Mae Puffenbarger Fletcher.
On Dec. 16, 1961, at the First United Methodist Church in Elkins, he married the former Patricia Gillispie, who survives.
Also surviving are three children, Kelly Shuppe and husband, Joseph, Morgantown, Michael Fletcher and wife, Kellie, Hurricane, and Leigh Fletcher, Elkins; three brothers, David E. Fletcher Jr. and wife, Jackie, Sarasota, Fla., James “Jim” Fletcher and wife, Sarah, St. Petersburg, Fla., and Thomas “Tom” Fletcher, Fairmont; a sister, Betty Ruddle and husband, Joe, Annapolis, Md.; two grandchildren, Reece and Oliver Fletcher, both of Hurricane; mother-in-law, Mabel Gillispie, Buckhannon; and a brother-in-law, Michael Gillispie, Buckhannon.
Funeral Arrangements: Friends will be received at Lohr-barb-vance Funeral Home Thursday from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. On Friday, Mr. Fletcher will be moved to First United Methodist Church, where funeral services will be at 11 a.m. with Dr. Ellis E. Conley and the Rev. Dr. Basil A. Hensley officiating. Interment will follow in Maplewood Cemetery in Elkins.
