photo by: Niamh Coomey

Dr. William Mercer poses with the “Joe Nailer Too Cool To Smoke” statue in the lobby of WesBanco Arena.

When Dr. William Mercer was a family medicine resident at Wheeling Hospital, he never imagined that he would become a champion of the anti-smoking movement in the region.

“My duty when we would go read EKGs was to go get the cardiologist the ashtray,” Mercer said. “And we’d sit there and read EKGs and I never thought anything of it.”

Now, Mercer is being honored with the Bruce Adkins Lifetime Achievement award, given by the Coalition for a Tobacco-Free West Virginia to an individual who demonstrates a lifetime commitment to tobacco prevention.

When Mercer was the Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department’s health officer, he got a call one day from Pam Wilson with the American Lung Association who said, “‘hey why don’t you make Ohio County smoke-free?” And Mercer said, “Hey, that sounds easy.”

Mercer described that effort as “defining” for him as a health officer. He learned firsthand how he was able to impact a community with a regulation and educate the public.

“A lot of people didn’t know that secondhand smoke was harmful at the time,” Mercer sid.

Thursday marks 20 years since the Wheeling-Ohio County Health Board passed its local clean air indoor legislation in 2005 – a change that Mercer was instrumental in. The legislation bans smoking in 98% of indoor spaces, excluding only gaming rooms.

“That’s 20 years that our youth or adults have not gone into a restaurant and heard ‘smoking or non smoking?'” he said. “That made a difference. That was something we were pretty proud of.”

Adkins, the namesake of the award and longtime anti-tobacco advocate, was a close colleague of Mercer’s, making the award even more of an honor, Mercer said.

“It’s very special to me because it’s the Bruce Adkins lifetime achievement and he helped me get started with all of the smoke-free policies and trying to educate our kids not to get started on tobacco, so he had a big influence,” Mercer said.

Mercer fondly recalled the time the original “Joe Too Cool To Smoke” Snoopy statue, a key part of Mercer’s youth tobacco prevention and education work, was brought to Wheeling University, then Wheeling Jesuit University, for a kick-off event for the anti-smoking campaign.

Adkins asked Mercer who he would like to speak at the event. Mercer shot off then-U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin as a shoo-in for one of the slots, but his dream speaker? Surgeon General Richard Carmona, who had a major hand in spreading awareness on the dangers of smoking and secondhand smoke nationally.

“I thought that would never happen and then one day I can remember being at home and Bruce calls me and says ‘are you sitting?’ and I said ‘no…’ and he said ‘well you better be because Carmona is coming,'” Mercer said. “I said ‘how did you do that?’ and [Adkins] said ‘oh, I have my ways’.”

Mercer is known locally for his years as a family physician, his work with the retirement community, street medicine group Project HOPE, and his massive Peanuts collection. He has tens of thousands of Peanuts memorabilia items, the majority gifts from patients, which is hosted at the Kruger Toy and Train museum.

The Peanuts character Snoopy has become an iconic piece of Mercer’s anti-smoking education work with children over the years.

“Especially when we focus on fifth graders, it’s hard to go into the lung function, the bronchial tree and all that, so bringing Snoopy made it fun,” he said.

Mercer has had a longtime connection with the Schulz family – the late Charles M. Schulz was the creator of the Peanuts – which has allowed him permission on projects like the “Joe Too Cool To Smoke” statue, specially painted with anti-smoking imagery. “Joe Cool’ is one of Snoopy’s many personas in the Peanuts universe.

In 2018, the statue was repainted with a Wheeling Nailers uniform and skates — now known as “Joe Nailer Too Cool To Smoke” — and resides in the lobby of the WesBanco Arena.

“Joe Too Cool To Use Spit Tobacco” was where the Shulzes drew the line, Mercer said jokingly.

Mercer said it can be difficult to measure the positive health impacts from legislation and anti-smoking campaigns. However his students have told Mercer that imagery of healthy lungs in comparison with black, smoker’s lungs stuck with them throughout their lives.

“That’s what they remembered the most: ‘Gee, that’s what your lungs look like?'” he said.

Though Mercer said he has seen smoking decrease in youth in his time educating about smoking, vaping, or e-smoking, quickly took its place.

“We started to see a decrease in our youth doing cigarettes but then vaping came out and so that’s still an issue,” Mercer said.

Mercer credited the many in the healthcare field who have helped support him in his anti-smoking and educational endeavors.

Looking ahead, he said the marketing of flavored tobacco products to youth as well as federal funding cuts to prevention programs will be ongoing challenges.

“That’s where we’re sad to see some of these cuts come, like the West Virginia tobacco prevention program is in jeopardy,” he said. “You have to keep on top of this. I’m disappointed that a lot of this funding for programs for prevention are looked at as not necessary and that’s going to cost more money in the long term.”