Sen. Robert Byrd remembered in hometown for personal touch, funneling money to West Virginia

Sen. Byrd’s personal touch remembered in W.Va.

SOPHIA, W.Va. — Robert C. Byrd Drive runs through the rolling hills of southern West Virginia, a 17-mile stretch named after the country’s longest-serving senator.

It snakes its way passed shopping centers, hardware stores, pharmacies and utility companies, with stretches of scenic rural woodlands in between. The four-lane state highway named for the senator in 1991 connects his hometown of Sophia to the interstate and to Beckley, the county seat and the region’s largest city.

Like a lot of things in this state, it pays a daily tribute to the man who rose from humble beginnings to become a powerful senator who could be counted on to send home billions of dollars in federal money for his hard-luck state.

Along the winding road, businesses had already begun lowering their flags to half-staff to honor Byrd, who died early Monday at age 92.

At a local coin-operated laundry, Ted Milam recalled Byrd’s legendary status in Washington.

“He brought a lot of things to West Virginia,” said Milam, a 62-year-old retired coal miner. “Recognition, for one thing. Job opportunities.”

Byrd rose from the poverty of West Virginia coal country. He was tireless in steering federal dollars to his state, one of the nation’s poorest, and was crowned by supporters and critics alike as the “King of Pork” for his prowess at delivering federal funds.

His efforts will live on in Robert C. Byrd Drive and almost everywhere else you turn in West Virginia. There are 40 other name-bearing memorials, including a high school, two federal courthouses, four commercial research centers, a radio telescope complex and buildings on at least eight college campuses across the state.

The road bearing Byrd’s name begins in his hometown of Sophia, with a population of 1,200. As a young man here, he cut meat at a butcher shop he later owned, married his wife of nearly 69 years and began his political ascent.

Arriving for her morning shift at Priddy’s Hardware, Peggy McKinney was surprised to hear Byrd died.

“I’ve always dreaded the moment that he would not be in office, because I knew that everything would change here,” said McKinney, 53. “While he was in office, I knew that he would work for our state and do right by us.”

Lois Tolliver staffs the Black Diamond Power Co. where Byrd Road intersects Main Street in small-town Sophia. Byrd had helped her retired father with his claim for black lung benefits.

“My father is 78, and Senator Byrd has been trying to resolve those issues,” said Tolliver, 54. “We’ve been in correspondence with his office. He has been wonderful, to help the people.”

Just down the road, Cathy Birchfield was filling prescriptions at the Crab Orchard Pharmacy.

“My father, my whole family voted for him for many years,” said Birchfield, 57. “I carried that on, and I voted for him. I thought he was the best ever.”

West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, a fellow Democrat, will appoint Byrd’s replacement, though it’s not clear exactly who he will tap or when. Manchin has said he will not appoint himself.

Max Priddy, 60, owns several businesses along Byrd Drive, including the local hardware store and a lumber yard. Byrd was a state legislator in the late 1940s when he enlisted Priddy’s father and his produce truck to drive a Baptist Sunday school class Byrd taught to Washington, D.C.

Besides the hairy ride in the back of the pickup, the junior high school boys were an exasperating handful, Priddy said.

“My dad would get phone calls from him from time to time. They would always laugh about that,” Priddy said. “My dad would say, ‘Robert, we wouldn’t try nothing like that today, would we?’”

Their likely route would’ve been along at least part of what is now Byrd Drive.

Another local business owner, Willard McGraw, remembers meeting Byrd as a schoolboy in the 1950s when the then-congressman visited his grandmother in the hospital.

“My cousin and I were in awe,” said McGraw, 68. “He sent us a Constitution, all framed and in glass.”