Robert F. Kidd Library

09/29/2026

Glenville State's 2026 Homecoming is less than a month away on October 23-24. This year's parade is on Friday at 3 p.m. The images below are from 49 years ago during the 1977 Homecoming parade. Do you see anyone you recognize?

09/25/2026

There was so much interest on our post about the distance learning activities of Glenville State that we decided to expand on it. These photos show the inside of the distance learning classroom in the RFK Library as it was in the 1990s and the teacher's view of the Roane County extension to these operations. These specific distance learning off-campus centers included Lewis, Braxton, Roane, and Nicholas counties at one time.

09/22/2026

Did you know that Glenville State had some of the first distance learning courses in the country? While some activities took place even earlier, satellite systems were installed behind the library in 1995, and classes were streamed between locations throughout central West Virginia. This early 'online' education demonstrates how Glenville State has always tried to provide our area with quality education for learners throughout the region.

09/21/2026

The Library staff and student assistants were thrilled to assist with this endeavor!

09/10/2026

While several famous individuals have visited Glenville State over the years, one of the most undocumented instances includes Jerry Reed. This county music award-winning artist and movie star visited Glenville in January of 1973. For some reason, no articles in the campus newspaper or Glenville Democrat mention this visit. However, several negatives of him were found in the Chuck White Mercury Photography Collection. Did any of you see this show and hear him perform "When You're Hot, You're Hot" or listen to his stories about playing himself in Scooby-Doo? He would later go on to star in all 3 Smokey and the Bandit films, along with several other successful movies.

08/20/2026

What do you know about our first Principal?

Thomas Marcellus Marshall was a very eccentric character who has many positive and not-so positive stories about his life. While he is known to have initially volunteered his services to help start the Glenville Normal School and also dug coal by hand to help keep the students warm during winter months, he was also documented as being extremely stubborn and potentially abusive to his animals and family.

His ability to become a stowaway on trains and ships to travel the world was discussed thoroughly.

He also supposedly purchased the first car in Gilmer County, only to refuse operational instructions and end up wrecking it on his farm that day after not being able to figure out how to stop it properly.

He became a missionary in the western regions of the US, and it is said that he botched a eulogy with the end result being an entire tribe holding him down and plucking out every whisker in his beard.

It is said he got caught trying to climb one of the pyramids in Egypt, and when the guards reached the top to catch him, he, somehow, ended up playing a game of tennis there with them.

And... these outrageous stories continue. One story that is definitely true is that he had a 20 foot monument constructed along the river at his burial site. He believed that students would always arrive by Riverboat and thought that his grave would be pointed out. However, roads were constructed shortly after his death, and his rarely-seen monument now stands in a brushy area, over the bank, near Sand Fork.

08/19/2026

Early Glenville Normal School Diplomas and Certificates of Proficiency were very extravagant in nature. These were 16” by 20” documents that included validation that the student had completed a specifically designed course of study. These also included the actual signatures of every faculty member and administrator of the institution with additional signatures of every member of the current governing board. Over our history, the governing board has been a statewide Board of Regents, the statewide Board of Education, and, currently, an institutional Board of Governors.

The archives only has a few of these large format diplomas in our collections. Does anyone recognize who this 1909 diploma was awarded to?

08/17/2026

As public schools in the area start back up, you may want to see how the day played out at the campus' elementary school during a fall day in 1950. The College's Training School provided an elementary school experience for local Glenville children while also serving as a convenient place to provide teacher training experiences at that time.

The Library is thrilled that our Facebook surpassed 1300 followers this past month, with over 63,000 views. If any new followers do not know, this link will also take you to the RFK Library's YouTube account that holds 243 individual videos on numerous subjects.

If clicking the preview does not work on your device, another link is provided in the comments.

This video displays class activities around 1950 associated wi...

08/11/2026

The 2026 Football season is not very far away. Did anyone ever watch or play a game at Rohrbough Field? Glenville State utilized this field for baseball and football from 1921 until 1977.

08/07/2026

As students arrive to campus, we are always reminded of the way people used to primarily travel in and out of town. Today's image is another riverboat that was used for this purpose. This photo specifically shows World War 1 soldiers leaving Glenville to begin their deployment.

This boat was known as the Glenville 1. It was built and operated by the U.S. Army Engineer Department which later became the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It was used for transportation in and out of Glenville from 1912-1917.