Charles W. “Chuck” Tinney, 82, of Valley Bend and a retired educator and coach, departed this life at 1:30 a.m. Monday, Aug. 20, 2002, at his home.
He was born April 29, 1920, at Weston, the oldest of 10 children, of the late William G. and Blanche Kern Tinney.
He attended Lewis County schools, graduating from Weston High School. While in high school, he enlisted in the National Guard, which was activated in January 1940, and the entire Company E, 201st Infantry was sent to the Aleutian Islands in Alaska after receiving training at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis, Ind. After war was declared, on Dec. 8, 1941, he entered active service as part of the U.S. Army on Jan. 6, 1941, and was sent to Camp Carson, Colo.
He volunteered for Parachute School in Fort Benning, Ga. After completing training, he was sent to the European Theater, serving in England, France and Germany. He was attached to both the 82nd and the 101st Airborne in Europe, and was discharged on Sept. 23, 1945, from Fort George G. Meade in Maryland. He had served a total of five years and 11 months, and more than three years of that time was foreign service.
After his discharge, he returned home to Lewis County, and spent the time until January of 1946, working as a brakeman for the B&O Railroad, when he enrolled under the GI Bill as a freshman at West Virginia Wesleyan College.
While attending Wesleyan, he met and married his wife of 54 years, Elizabeth Victoria Snyder Tinney, who survives in Valley Bend. He graduated from Wesleyan in 1949, and was inducted into the Emeritus Club in 1999. He became a member of the Beta Nu Chapter of Alpha Sigma Phi Fraternity in 1947, serving as chaplain and pledgemaster.
He began teaching in 1950 at a one-room school, Hickory Lick, then at Monterville and Homestead and finally at Tygarts Valley High School, where he retired after 39 years of teaching.
While at Tygarts Valley, he served as head and assistant coach for basketball, assistant coach for football and baseball. While he was assistant coach with Floyd Thomas, Tygarts Valley won two consecutive state baseball championships, the only state titles ever won in athletics at the school.
He was a member of, besides the two mentioned concerning Wesleyan, many other organizations. He was a member of the NEA, WVEA and the RCEA, serving as president of the organization in 1967-68 when sanctions were placed on Randolph County Schools on Sept. 11, 1967. After a special election in December, showing support for teachers, the sanctions were lifted.
He was a member of four masonic bodies: Randolph Chapter 55 AF & AM, Royal Arch Masons, Chapter 23, and was a brother in good standing of the 16th and 32nd degrees in Clarksburg and Wheeling.
He was a life member of the H.W. Daniels Post 29 of the American Legion, and the Elkins Post 3647, Veterans of Foreign Wars.
He was a member of the Tygart Valley Lions Club, where he had served as president from 1974-75, when he was also Lion of the Year. For 29-i, he served as zone chairman from 1975-77, deputy district governor from 1977-78, sight conservation chairman from 1978-79, and chairman of Leo Clubs from 1979-80. He received the Leonard Jarrett Award in 2000.
Besides his wife, he is survived by four daughters, Carol Elizabeth and husband, Bill Forester, of Lexington, Ky., Mary Louise Tinney of San Francisco, Calif., Sarah Beth “Betsy” and husband, Marc Czajkowski, of Champaign, Ill., and Ann Margaret and husband, Clive Watson, of Germantown, Md.; four grandchildren, Brett David Czajkowski, a junior at Miami of Ohio University in Oxford, Ohio, Regan Elizabeth Forester, a sophomore at UCLA, Kathleen Chelsea and Charles Matthew Watson of Germantown, Md.; and two sisters, Eula Rust and Mary Huggins of Winona Lake, Ind.
He was preceded in death by two brothers, Robert and Frank, and five sisters, Evelyn Fisher, Eva Taylor, Leta Blake, Madaline Russell and Zelma Cross.
Friends will be received in the parlor of the First Baptist Church, 412 Randolph Ave., from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday and in the church sanctuary Friday from 10 a.m. until 11 a.m., the funeral hour. Dr. Marvin Parli will officiate, assisted by the Rev. Nancy Stevens. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to either Mountain Hospice Inc., 1410 Crim Ave., Belington, W.Va. 26250, or to the First Baptist Church Vision 2000, 412 Randolph Ave., Elkins, W.Va. 26241. Interment will take place in Little Arlington Cemetery, where full military honors will be accorded by members of the H.W. Daniels Post 29, American Legion and Tygarts Valley Post 3647, Veterans of Foreign Wars. The Lohr & Barb Funeral Home of Elkins is in charge of arrangements.
