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PARKERSBURG -- Ravenswood High School graduate Joe Burton, a longtime coach in Wirt County, will be honored alongside six others during Sunday's 21st annual National Wrestling Hall of Fame West Virginia Chapter banquet in Charleston.
"I got a call from Bill Archer and he said I had been selected," said Burton, who coached wrestling for three decades, which included 10 years as an assistant coach for Wirt County and one season as the head man of the Tigers in 1998. "I didn't say a whole lot.
"I knew Mike Stump had nominated me. He sent my wife a text and asked me if we had heard anything and he died two weeks later. It's an honor for me because I've been around this sport since I was a little boy. It is a big honor for me."
During his time at Wirt County, Burton helped the orange and black to 19 individual state champs, which included state crowns by Dave Drennen (Class AA/A, 160) and Mike Miller (Class AA/A, 125) in 1998.
The 1969 Ravenswood graduate was actually the first grappler to have a match in school history.
"Ravenswood started wrestling in 1965 and there was an ex-basketball coach for the (Parkersburg) Big Reds, he was all-state. Bob Maxwell started wrestling down there in 1965," Burton said. "I was the first wrestler to ever wrestle for Ravenswood.
"I weighed 85 pounds when I was a freshman. We had a full team. The lowest weight was 95 and I weighed 85, so I didn't have to cut any weight."
The four-year letterman, who went to the National Guard after high school, qualified for state during his junior and senior campaigns.
"I was the first guy to ever win a regional title and I placed at state both my junior and senior years," Burton said. "That's back when they only had one class.
"I helped start the pee wee program in Wirt County (1971). Floyd Cline and I helped start that program. He was a wrestler for Wirt County back in the day."
Joining Burton in this year's class, which will be permanently enshrined at the National Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum in Stillwater, Oklahoma, are former Brooke grappler and official Chris Diserio, Dr. David Greathouse, Richard Bailey, Phil Bartram, Alan Fell and Ron Trowbridge, who coached three state champions at Cameron.
Bailey was a 1970 Charleston High graduate who spent six years in the Navy. Fell coached his son Ryan to the 2007 Class AA/A 215-pound state title, which was the first-ever in Oak Hill history. Bartram coached his lone state champ Matt Callahan (Class AAA, 140) back in 1999 for Woodrow Wilson.
The banquet is set for 1 p.m. Sunday at the Embassy Suites.
"Outside folks would never believe the kind of conditioning the wrestlers went through," Burton added. "I mean it's discipline. For me, it defined my whole life because it just made me tougher. There wasn't nothing out there work-wise I couldn't do because wrestling is way harder than that."
Contact Jay Bennett at jbennett@newsandsentinel.com