In 1958, the graduating class at DuPont High School paid homage to a favorite teacher by dedicating the yearbook to him. Fifty years later, he finds himself back in the school's laudatory limelight.

This weekend, at their annual all-comers reunion, DuPont graduates will honor 83-year-old Bill Gardner with their first Alum of the Year award.

The paint on the new building was barely dry when he started high school there in 1939. He graduated with the first full class in 1942. Nearly a decade later, he returned to those familiar halls as a chemistry and physics teacher.

A better-paying career lured him from teaching, but he remains active in the school even today as ongoing chairman of the class of 1942.

He spent 28 years as a rehabilitation counselor and director with the state Department of Education. His voice still softens with emotion as he recalls the heart-wrenching situations he encountered in the field.

Teaching and counseling produced a meaningful life. Did he really want to be a doctor?

"I was born Feb. 13, 1925, in Dana which is now Port Amherst, where the Turnpike bridge now crosses the Kanawha River. I was born under that bridge where my parents lived in an apartment over a store.

"When I was 6, we moved to Dry Branch, the mouth of Campbells Creek. My dad was a mechanic at DuPont and then became the supervisor of all internal combustion engines for the DuPont Belle plant. My mother was primarily a homemaker.

"I wanted to be a doctor, but I couldn't get in medical school. At that time, it was pretty much a family affair, and we didn't have a physician in the family. I asked our family doctor in Malden to sponsor me at the University of Virginia. He said, 'I'm sorry, but I just registered my son over there and I've used my quota.' His son was about 7 years old. I wouldn't call it nepotism, but it was close.

"I went to Malden Grade School, Roosevelt Junior High School and then DuPont. I started there the year it opened, 1939, and graduated in 1942 with the first full class.

"Belle was very sparsely populated then, a few houses. Most everyone here worked at the DuPont plant at that time. The lots that this house and the apartment next door sit on were empty even when I came back from the military.

"In school, I was pretty good, mainly in the sciences. I had an excellent memory, good recall. I didn't study hard. It wasn't necessary. I went to Marshall right out of high school. I had a full term and a summer term, and then I was drafted.

"I was in the Army Medical Corps for three years. I spent two years in the South Pacific. Our post was a malaria survey unit. More people were sidelined by malaria than by the Japanese.

"I was a medical laboratory technician. We ran surveys and insisted all the men take Atabrin, a malarial suppressant. It didn't kill the germs. It killed the symptoms so soldiers could stay fighting. We stood at the chow line and made sure they didn't eat if they didn't take their Atabrin.

"I was discharged on my 21st birthday. That's when I started my Masonic career. I was state grand master, head of the entire organization, in '93 and '94.

"When the summer term started at Marshall, I went back and got my bachelor's in biological science and a master's in zoology with minors in chemistry. I was doing all the work necessary for pre-med. After I got my master's, I got married immediately.

"We went to a reception for a lady in Belle and the postmistress asked me if I wanted to go work at the post office. I took the job just to have an income and delivered letters for a year in the upper end of Belle.

In 1958, the graduating class at DuPont High School paid homage to a favorite teacher by dedicating the yearbook to him. Fifty years later, he finds himself back in the school's laudatory limelight.

This weekend, at their annual all-comers reunion, DuPont graduates will honor 83-year-old Bill Gardner with their first Alum of the Year award.

The paint on the new building was barely dry when he started high school there in 1939. He graduated with the first full class in 1942. Nearly a decade later, he returned to those familiar halls as a chemistry and physics teacher.

A better-paying career lured him from teaching, but he remains active in the school even today as ongoing chairman of the class of 1942.

He spent 28 years as a rehabilitation counselor and director with the state Department of Education. His voice still softens with emotion as he recalls the heart-wrenching situations he encountered in the field.

Teaching and counseling produced a meaningful life. Did he really want to be a doctor?

"I was born Feb. 13, 1925, in Dana which is now Port Amherst, where the Turnpike bridge now crosses the Kanawha River. I was born under that bridge where my parents lived in an apartment over a store.

"When I was 6, we moved to Dry Branch, the mouth of Campbells Creek. My dad was a mechanic at DuPont and then became the supervisor of all internal combustion engines for the DuPont Belle plant. My mother was primarily a homemaker.

"I wanted to be a doctor, but I couldn't get in medical school. At that time, it was pretty much a family affair, and we didn't have a physician in the family. I asked our family doctor in Malden to sponsor me at the University of Virginia. He said, 'I'm sorry, but I just registered my son over there and I've used my quota.' His son was about 7 years old. I wouldn't call it nepotism, but it was close.

"I went to Malden Grade School, Roosevelt Junior High School and then DuPont. I started there the year it opened, 1939, and graduated in 1942 with the first full class.

"Belle was very sparsely populated then, a few houses. Most everyone here worked at the DuPont plant at that time. The lots that this house and the apartment next door sit on were empty even when I came back from the military.

"In school, I was pretty good, mainly in the sciences. I had an excellent memory, good recall. I didn't study hard. It wasn't necessary. I went to Marshall right out of high school. I had a full term and a summer term, and then I was drafted.

"I was in the Army Medical Corps for three years. I spent two years in the South Pacific. Our post was a malaria survey unit. More people were sidelined by malaria than by the Japanese.

"I was a medical laboratory technician. We ran surveys and insisted all the men take Atabrin, a malarial suppressant. It didn't kill the germs. It killed the symptoms so soldiers could stay fighting. We stood at the chow line and made sure they didn't eat if they didn't take their Atabrin.

"I was discharged on my 21st birthday. That's when I started my Masonic career. I was state grand master, head of the entire organization, in '93 and '94.

"When the summer term started at Marshall, I went back and got my bachelor's in biological science and a master's in zoology with minors in chemistry. I was doing all the work necessary for pre-med. After I got my master's, I got married immediately.

"We went to a reception for a lady in Belle and the postmistress asked me if I wanted to go work at the post office. I took the job just to have an income and delivered letters for a year in the upper end of Belle.

"I had put in an application with the Kanawha County school board. I was sorting my mail one day and looked up, and there was a man there. He said, 'Want a job teaching chemistry?'

"The man who taught chemistry and physics at DuPont - this was in October of '51 - was drafted. I took his place and taught there eight years, until 1959. I went to work in the Kanawha County school system for $2,800-plus a year.

"They said I had to have a degree to teach, so I went to Morris Harvey nights and in the summer and became a certified teacher. I loved it and would have kept at it, but I had two boys, and I couldn't see getting them through college on a teacher's salary.

"I saw an ad in the paper for a rehabilitation counselor under the state Board of Education. So I interviewed and was accepted and became a rehab counselor. I was interested in human beings. I'm really a do-gooder, you see.

"My assignment was Lincoln County. I worked with getting handicapped people into employment to get them independent and give them a life. I stayed 29 years and retired in '88.

"I missed teaching, but I found a way to make a better living. It worked out. My oldest son graduated from WVU medical school and my youngest son graduated from the WVU School of Pharmacy. I had great difficulty in organic chemistry. Each of them made an A just to show Dad they could do it.

"When I saw I was going to like counseling, I went back to Marshall and earned a counseling certificate, so I was a certified counselor. I passed through the ranks from chief of services to assistant director in charge of the field, the entire state.

"I never got to be a doctor, but I've helped any number of people in dire situations. We have true poverty in part of our area, and people who are handicapped, unless they come from an affluent family, have little or no opportunities. We gave them opportunities. Whatever their talents and interests, we explored it to where we turned it into a job they could do. We're speaking of amputees, quadriplegics, paraplegics, the deaf and blind, diabetics, heart patients, almost any disability that limits your employment.

"I have stories that will break your heart and some with oh-so-happy endings. One of the ladies I worked with abused alcohol terribly. She eventually straightened out, took mechanical drawing and ended up a teacher at the West Virginia Rehabilitation Center. She still sings the praises of vocational rehabilitation, both as a recipient and a producer.

"I had some really sad stories from places like the Colin Anderson Center where severely mentally retarded children were housed and taken care of. Some hydrocephalic children had heads as large as drum major hats. It was extremely sad. At that time I smoked. I never went in those buildings without smoking a cigarette and steeling myself to go in.

"A young woman in Lincoln County had polio and went to Marmet Crippled Children's Hospital where there were white sheets and showers and floors. When they sent her home, they referred her to me. I went to the house. Terrible squalor, Tijuana type. When I got ready to leave, she got on her knees and put her arms around my legs and begged me to take her back to Marmet. It was terrible. Those things bother me to this day.

 "I helped start Faith Sheltered Workshop with the Kanawha Association of Retarded Children across from Thomas Memorial Hospital in a two-story house they owned. It eventually evolved into Shawnee Hills. From day one through the day it folded, I was on the board.

"I'm chairman of the DuPont High School class of '42 and have been since the reunion started, and my wife is chairman of the class of '44. So we're looking forward to the reunion next weekend. It's really for the entire original DuPont High School, from the first graduating class until 1962 when they built the new DuPont High School, which is now the middle school.

"When they held their meeting this year, they said they wanted to start an Alum of the Year award. I said, 'Who in the world would we pick?' They voted, and here I am.

"I pray every day for a cheerful and happy outlook on life, and I get it most of the time. Happiness is a state of mind. You can look at the half-full or the half-empty glass. I like to look at the best in people. I'm a total optimist. I'm somewhat of a liberal, but I can be conservative when necessary."

To contact staff writer Sandy Wells, call 348-5173 or e-mail san...@wvgazette.com.