WBOY.com

Stonewood 75th Anniversary: A hit with residents

STONEWOOD, W.Va. – The Town of Stonewood celebrated its 75th anniversary, over the July 1-3 weekend.

Between all of the fun activities like, live music, parade, food trucks and fireworks, the scheduled events finally came to an end. Stonewood wrapped up its big celebration on July 3 after having its Community Celebration at the Stonewood Volunteer Fire Department at 12:30 p.m.

The Community Celebration started after a church service. This service combined all six of the churches within’ Stonewood. All of them have participated in one way or another throughout the weekend activities.

A community picnic followed after the service for citizens, but anyone around was welcome to join. Common Independence Day foods like hamburgers, hot dogs, pasta salad, baked beans and more were served along with baked goodies.

The following churches joined the service on Sunday:

Patrick Folio, director of the weekend events, has planned many events like this, but has never seen six churches unite together for a community church service.

When asked what 75 years of the town of Stonewood meant to him, Mayor Jim Terango said, “it, it means everything. It it’s just, uh, I love seeing the reunions of people that come in from out of state. We’ve actually had people that live out of state to volunteer. That actually came in and participated in some of our assistance.. It’s just so amazing and the outpouring of photographs that we’ve got on our 75th social media page is just so over amazing.”

Terango grew up in Stonewood and joined the fire department when he was 16-years-old. This weekend celebration was to also help raise funds for the towns first responders. All donations will be counted within’ the next week, but the mayor mentioned that he is sure they did a fine job in raising the funds.

He also brought up some of Stonewood’s history in overcoming adversity over the years. At one point, they were self sufficient when they had two factories and spin off businesses. Terango said there was a nickel pottery company, and Pittsburgh plate glass company. Both employed large amounts of people, but they closed and moved away. Stonewood eventually diversified and moved to the next level to survive, and here they are.

On the final day, Mayor Jim Terango reminisced on the past couple of days. “The support that we’ve had from our churches, city council, and community, it’s amazing.”