Former employees of Marbon, Borg-Warner, GE and Sabic, along with family and friends, gathered in City Park Saturday for the 20th annual Woodmar picnic. (Photo by Douglass Huxley)

PARKERSBURG — Former employees of Marbon, Borg-Warner, GE and Sabic, along with family and friends, gathered in City Park Saturday for the 20th annual Woodmar picnic.

“There’s a lot of memories here,” Picnic Organizer Sharon Lowe said. “I take up a donation, and I buy the chicken, plates, water, things like that, and then everybody else brings a cover dish. Whatever they want to bring,”

Lowe said she has a lot of people who help her get things together every year. She said they help her set things up, get supplies and get the word out about the event.

Borg Warner Chemicals was located at the Woodmar Plant in Washington and produced a hard molded plastic. The plant employed 1,850 in 1989, when it was sold to General Electric. In 2007, GE’s plastics division was sold to SABIC, which announced it would close the local plant in 2013.

Lowe said she worked for the company for 34 and a half years in the cafeteria. She said the company stopped having the picnic and the only time employees would see each other was at someone’s funeral.

Teresa Libert. Ira Kimes and Randall Smith fill their plates Saturday at City Park as former employees of Marbon, Borg-Warner, GE and Sabic, family and friends gathered for the 20th annual Woodmar picnic. (Photo by Douglass Huxley)

“I said at that time that this is not right,” Lowe said. “So I thought, well, I’ll give it try.”

Lowe said the first year was a spur of the moment picnic and she only had five people show up, but it started to gain attention, and at one picnic they had 82 people.

“A lot of our friends have passed away now but Sharon (Lowe) is still keeping this picnic up,” John Hartford, who also worked in the cafeteria said. “Some people can walk okay, some are in wheelchairs, but they still come.”

Hartford said there were roughly 40-50 people at this year’s picnic. He said everyone who worked for the company felt like they were family.

Sandy Sutton, who worked in the marketing and sales department for 34 years, also said everyone who worked there was like family.

Items that belonged to Fred Hunter, a former employee of Marbon, Borg-Warner, GE and Sabic who passed away last year, were on display and available for people to take home. Some of the items are going to be donated to the Oil and Gas Museum here in Parkersburg. (Photo by Douglass Huxley)

“It was a wonderful, wonderful place to work,” Sutton said. “Everyone helped each other, and knew each other, and you knew their kids, and husbands and wives.”

Sutton said this year the ex-wife of Fred Hunter, who was the regional sales manager for the company, donated some of his old work items after he passed away. She said the items were free for people to take home with them and that a few of them were going to be donated to the Oil and Gas Museum here in Parkersburg.

Lowe said she was happy so many came out for the picnic. She said it means a lot to the former employees, and her, and that she would continue doing it for as long as she’s able.

“This is my family, too,” Lowe said. “I enjoy it. In a way it’s not work when I see the older people’s faces, and how much it means to them.”

Douglass Huxley can be reached at dhuxley@newsandsentinel.com