ROBERT SCHRAMM

Born in 1934, in Wheeling, WV, he was the son of George W. and Gladys Palmer Schramm of Wheeling Island.

Bob was a graduate of the Linsly Military Institute (now The Linsly School). He attended Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) and graduated from West Liberty State College (now University) in 1958.

He received his graduate degree in nuclear physics from West Virginia University in 1959 and joined the faculty of West Liberty State College that same year.

During his tenure at the college, he served as the head of the Department of Physics, Mathematics and Industrial Technology. He co-founded and served for 30 years as director of the West Liberty State College Regional Science Fair.

He created the WLSC Archives and Museum and served as volunteer Archivist for 32 years. Following his retirement from the faculty, he worked part-time as the college staff photographer and taught fine art photography.

He was a recipient of one of only four distinguished-service medals awarded by the college, was designated an “Emeritus Professor” in 1997, and was selected for the Alumni Wall of Honor in 2002.

He wrote the words and composed the music for the “Hilltoppers’ Fight Song,” which received official approval from both the Student Government and the Alumni Association in 1994. Bob explained that he felt compelled to create a fight song for the institution, because he was tired of hearing the college band play “On Wisconsin.”

Following his retirement from WLSC, Bob continued his contributions to The Linsly School, co-founding their Archives and Museum, and serving as Archivist and Museum curator.

He authored four pictorial histories: West Liberty State College (2001), The Linsly School (2003), Moundsville (2004), and Wheeling Island (2006). A fifth book, a pictorial history of radio station WWVA, is currently in production. A work of fiction, The Apocryphal Tales of Sherlock Holmes (written under the pen name R. Wolfgang Schramm) was published in 2010. At the time of his passing, he was working on a pictorial history of the town of West Liberty.

One of only 40 Daguerreotypists in the U.S, he hand-built and assembled all of the equipment needed to create Daguerreotypes, a photographic process invented in the mid 1830’s by Louis Daguerre. In addition, he was skilled in making platinotypes, chrysotypes, cyanotypes and uranotypes. (SchrammStudio.net)

In 1990, he designed and constructed a women’s history museum “on wheels,” housed inside a refurbished school bus. His exhibits later became the first permanently installed collection in the National Women’s History Museum in Alexandria, VA.

As a young man, Bob seemed to be a permanent part of the landscape of Oglebay Park. He helped man the concession stands, he worked at the zoo, and he danced with Oglebay Institute’s exhibition folk dance group, “The Oglebay Folksters.” He conducted astronomy programs at the Park observatory and spent many a clear summer evening, exploring and explaining the heavens to Park visitors and area residents.

While a student at Carnegie Tech, Bob worked as a cameraman on a new children’s program created and hosted by Rev. Frederick McFeely Rogers. That show later evolved into “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.”

Beginning in 1967, and on every Memorial Day since, Bob and his family have placed flags on the graves of the soldiers buried in the Old West Liberty Cemetery. Bob would then play “Taps,” using the same bugle he had used when he was a Linsly cadet and was the official school bugler.

He is survived by his wife, Jeanne; daughter, Adriane, and partner, Nandor Nevai; granddaughter, Love Schramm Nevai, of Averill Park, NY; son, Darian, and partner, Leslie Camille Saunders, of San Diego, CA; and mother-in-law, Louise Willis Vannoy, of Kemblesville, PA. He is also survived by a brother, George P. Schramm, of Wheeling; a sister, Sharon L. Moser, of Martinsburg, WV; and several nieces and nephews.

In accordance with his wishes, his ashes will be scattered on the campuses of his two favorite schools, The Linsly School and West Liberty University, on the grounds of Notre Dame Cathedral in his favorite city to visit, and amongst the daffodil beds in Schramms’ woods in West Liberty, in his favorite place to be.

In a recent message to his family, he stated: “If, after death, my spirit is anywhere, it will be there in the annual blooming of the daffodils. If there is life after death, it is there that, if possible, I will come to you in the spring.”

In lieu of flowers, the family would welcome contributions to the Robert W. Schramm West Liberty Science Fair Fund (in care of the Community Foundation for the Upper Ohio Valley, P.O. Box 670, Wheeling, WV 26003.)