Judge Warren McGraw, 84, passed away Wednesday

Jun. 15—His name is synonymous with Wyoming County.

Judge Warren McGraw, 84, passed away Wednesday after battling Parkinson's disease and dementia.

McGraw was a charismatic speaker, a familiar face on numerous campaign trails, and a man of the people.

He was proud of his heritage, proud of his humble beginnings, proud of his contributions to both Wyoming County and West Virginia, and proud of his family.

His pedigree, as well as that of his deceased wife, Peggy Shufflebarger McGraw, reads like a "Who's Who" of Wyoming County history.

"What we call history, Judge McGraw lived," emphasized Wyoming County Circuit Judge Micheal Cochrane. "He was a true champion of the people."

Cochrane, a former county prosecutor, was named to fill McGraw's unexpired term as circuit judge of the 27th Judicial District in 2021.

Due to Parkinson's disease, McGraw retired on West Virginia Day in 2021.

During his nearly six-decade career, McGraw also served as a chief justice of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, president of the West Virginia Senate, in the West Virginia House of Delegates, as well as Wyoming County prosecutor, and a county Board of Education member.

"He was a true gentleman," noted Mike Cook, county assessor. "If you spent five minutes with him, you learned something.

"He and his wife were both pillars of the community," Cook emphasized.

"Warren McGraw graduated from law school and almost immediately went south to work in the early days of integrating the United States," said Sen. David "Bugs" Stover, R-Wyoming.

"I first met him while I was in junior high in the '60s at a little store in Pierpoint, when he was running for the West Virginia House of Delegates," Stover recalled.

"He talked to a few of us and, when he drove off in his old car, I thought there goes a great and good man! He is going places.

"He ran for governor and came within a whisker of winning enough votes," Stover said.

"I had the honor and privilege to be the circuit clerk while Warren served as the judge of the 27th Judicial Circuit.

"He was my mentor and friend. I and many, many others loved him and are saddened by his passing," Stover said.

"My first experience with Warren came when I was 17 years old and a senior in high school," recalled Mike Goode, who is the chairman of the Wyoming County Economic Development Authority and was county clerk for many years.

"He had just come back to Wyoming County to establish his law practice and he was running for the House of Delegates," Goode recalled. "He was also in the Jaycees and they had a Safe Driving Rodeo and I won it."

The winner advanced to a state competition in the northern part of the state, Goode said, and McGraw insisted Goode participate and he would serve as his chaperone.

"He took me and it was probably the biggest thrill of my life," Goode noted. "It was the biggest history lesson I ever had."

McGraw also shared his appreciation for West Virginia and other life lessons with Goode.

"He was really a good influence on a young man," Goode said. "When we were both working in the courthouse, I told him that many times.

"You talk about loyalty, he was very loyal to Wyoming County."

Once on the campaign trail, McGraw promised those attending a rally in Lizard Creek Park that, if elected, he would build them a swimming pool.

"They just went crazy," Goode recalled. "They loved him."

The pool was never built, but it didn't matter.

"He went back and they loved him just as much," Goode said with a laugh. "He was so charismatic. He was just a unique person and so enjoyable to be around."

"I've known Warren just about my entire life," recalled Sheriff Brad Ellison. "I grew up with his son Randolph and went to school with his daughter Suzanne.

"I didn't always agree with him, but I always, always respected him — and we were still friends," Ellison said. "He was OK with it — that we didn't always agree."

"Judge Warren McGraw has been a tireless and inspiring public servant in Wyoming County and beyond, for many, many years," noted Deirdre Cline, county schools superintendent. "He served on the Wyoming County Board of Education many years ago and was a force in the service of children and employees. His life of service is certainly a life well lived."

"My heartfelt love and prayers go out to his family during the loss of their father," said Jewell Aguilar, county clerk. "Judge McGraw has spent his lifetime serving the people of Wyoming County and West Virginia.

"He was especially a friend to the coal miners and a great supporter of the UMWA.

"It has been an honor and a privilege to work with him and I'm personally glad to have had him as my friend. He was so kind to me. I will always remember that. I will truly miss him," Aguilar emphasized.

"It was an honor working with Judge McGraw in Wyoming County," noted Jason Mullins, county commission president. "He was a wealth of knowledge and will be missed by all who had the privilege of knowing him."

Wyoming County Prosecutor Gregory Bishop tried many cases before Judge McGraw.

"He was an excellent judge," Bishop emphasized. "But, the one thing that struck me was his life is exemplary.

"He had a genuine concern for the simple, working man," Bishop noted.

Coming from a coal mining family, Bishop said he remembers McGraw was known for supporting the coal miners and the UMWA.

Some coal miners felt that because they may have had a limited education, they didn't have the ear of the government.

"But having men like Judge McGraw to support to them, respect them, and listen to them ... they trusted that," Bishop emphasized.

"You could see it in his courtroom. He always made sure that everybody got a fair and impartial trial in his court.

"I can't say enough good things about him," Bishop emphasized.

"Warren worked for the common folks all his life," Stover emphasized. "We, in Wyoming County and West Virginia, may never see his like again."

----McGraw earned his law degree from Wake Forest University School of Law, in North Carolina, while Peggy taught school to support them.

"There are different responsibilities for different posts — greatly different," McGraw said of the various elected offices he held. "But, they are all matters of public service.

"In fact, I've been elected to more public offices in West Virginia than any other West Virginian — more constitutional offices.

"I've served as chief officer of two branches of state government. I've been second in line (as senate president) to be governor," he said during a 2015 interview.

"I was sworn in to the state Legislature 100 years to the day after my great-great-grandfather was in Wheeling to serve. I guess he rode a horse and a boat to get to Wheeling, in 1869.

"It is interesting that a lot of stuff you see going on in government seems to repeat itself — the same issues over and over. They seem to run in cycles."

During his years in law school, it was not in McGraw's mind to become a judge.

"I'll tell you what was in the back of my mind was public service.

"My parents, and the community in those days, used to teach that public service was an honorable calling.

"I grew up in McGraws, at a place called Low Gap. I grew up in the holler where my grandparents, my great-grandparents, and my great-great-grandparents grew up before me.

"Public service — when I was a youngster, a young student — was deemed a high calling," he said during the 2015 interview.

On that day in 2015, McGraw sat in his courthouse office, overlooking the town of Pineville.

He quickly points out, he can only see as far as the mountains, towering over the small county seat.

Those unfamiliar with the topography of the area incorrectly assume that places such as Welch or Beckley or Bluefield are close, he said.

"They don't take our winding roads and mountains into consideration," McGraw notes.

"We are mountain dwellers, who lived on top of our mountains. Our ancestors could see the beauty of the sunrises and the sunsets.

"This caused them to have big, expansive views of the world.

"About the same time as the railroad came here, we moved into the valleys and the hollers.

"I was raised in a holler," McGraw said. "I've never seen a sunrise or a sunset.

"The sun doesn't come up here until 10 o'clock and goes down, behind the mountains, at 2," he joked.

"If you look at our courthouse, it is a reflection of what our ancestors thought — those big, expansive views. It is a masterpiece of architecture," he emphasized.

As president of the state Senate, McGraw appropriated money for the then-new Southern West Virginia Community College facility in Wyoming County.

"I wanted something that reflected our ancestors; I wanted something built on a mountain top. I wanted the students to enjoy the beauty of their surroundings. I wanted them to appreciate that view of the world."

McGraw rubbed elbows with presidents and would-be presidents. Yet, he was content to sit in the judge's chambers of the Wyoming County Courthouse. He had come home.

The walls of his office were lined with photos of McGraw with people who have changed the course of history — Bobby Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Hubert Humphrey, Jesse Jackson, among others.

He briefly met Jimmy Carter at an event and began a conversation.

"I thought I was just talking to another country boy, like myself," McGraw recalled with a laugh.

Someone then asked McGraw if he'd met the governor.

"Governor of what?" McGraw asked.

"The governor of Georgia."

"I'm going to be the next president of the United States," Carter told McGraw.

"Sure you are," McGraw remembers telling him.

"If I'm elected, I'll invite you to the White House," Carter promised McGraw.

"And he did," McGraw said, "twice."

The photos on the wall attest to this story.

"This is our home," McGraw emphasized. "We grew up in that church across the street — the Methodist church. Peggy and I were married in that church. All three of our children were baptized in that church."

—The son of two school teachers, Julia and Darrell V. McGraw Sr., he grew up during the age of innocence — when children could walk home alone, returning safely, without worry.

A dirt road snaked in front of his family's home in McGraws — the community named for one of his ancestors.

"But we had a bus line, Phillips Bus Line. Can you imagine operating a bus line on a dirt road? Boy, those were pleasant days, when we were kids growing up," McGraw recalled during the interview.

The bus ran across the dirt road, from McGraws to Saulsville, to Maben, to Pineville, to Mullens.

"That road is paved now, of course," he noted.

"It was a great time.

"During the war, when I was a child, I remember we would gather around the radio to listen to the latest news on what was happening in the world.

"We all went to John McGraw Elementary School. In fact, all of our teachers came from Pineville, but we were related. Everybody was related, even those whose names weren't McGraw," he joked.

"I guess when I was in the seventh grade, and my brother Darrell (also a former state Supreme Court justice and state attorney general) was in the ninth grade, our parents decided they wanted us to go to school in town. So they built a house and moved to Pineville.

"But, before they had it completed, before we actually moved, we would ride the trade school bus (now known as the Wyoming County Career and Technical Center) to Pineville. Since the trade school people went home at noon then, we didn't have a ride home. So my brother Darrell and I used to walk home, up Bear Hole.

"In the evenings, after school, we would walk from Pineville to Saulsville to McGraws. We never thought of it as anything but kind of fun," he recalled.

"This has been the busiest thing I've ever done — this court," he said of his position as circuit judge. "We have certain days that we schedule certain activities. But, when our plan is nothing pre-set, there is always a flurry of activity here."

It is Southern West Virginia Community and Technical College, the college on the mountain top, and the Itmann Bridge of which McGraw was most proud, he said.

"I call the Itmann Bridge the little New River Bridge," he joked.

"We had a hand in all these bridge replacements — Baileysville, Indian Creek, the Welch/Pineville bridge, Corinne ...," he said of his years in the state Legislature.

"The college has a greater impact on our children and, as a consequence of that, the long-term health of our community. I really get upset when I hear of them doing things that are not conducive to the promotion and the continuation of that college up on that hill.

"My parents were big advocates of education, obviously, because they were school teachers and graduates of Berea College, in Kentucky, giving them a chance to be educated.

"I like to be invited (to the college) to do things. I do have a lot of knowledge about government, about history ..."

Improving the education levels — and, in the long term, the lives — of children was one of McGraw's concerns.

"I think it is important to have people serve in these public offices who have a concern about children and the next generation. That's probably the most important thing that public officials can address," McGraw emphasized.