My schooling was marked, not only with the passage of a dozen years, but the passage of buildings.

From the time my class "closed" Huntersville School to the condemnation of Marlinton Elementary School to the split schedule of town and country kids while we were schooled in the Marlinton United Methodist Church basement and on to the "temporary" units where students attended after Marlinton High School burned and those students went on to Pocahontas County High School, it was quite the journey.

By the time we got to PCHS-the "new" high school-those of us from Marlinton thought we were in a palace. Everything was clean and relatively new. And as newly minted "Warriors" we got something else.

A Warrior of our own.

In the glory days of Pocahontas County High School, before insurance and liability and litigious natures took over our country, each and every football game was an exciting event because Joe Jonese in full Indian gear rode his Appaloosa horse up and down the sidelines after every PCHS touchdown and presided there on horseback overseeing the action in between.

It was thrilling.

And what was even better, he worked at the school, making sure that we took pride in our new surroundings, just as he did. The uncle of my good friend, Betty Ann Crist, I got to talk to him on a regular basis. He'd offer advice every once in awhile. He'd bark an order or two occasionally. Mostly, he was just another good person to have in our corner.

When the Class of '78 celebrated its 30th reunion at Homecoming, Joe was at the game, dressed in his Warrior gear, without the horse, but with a really big smile and he was genuinely happy to see how we'd turned out. It seemed like he remembered all of us.

Our Warrior died this week and this passage-his passage-left me saddened for the days behind me when his horse kicked up the dust or the mud and his war whoops echoed through the Thorny Creek Valley as PCHS came out the victors in a football game. And it left me saddened for the days to come when there will be no more times to see him genuinely happy to be back at PCHS, an icon of another, more carefree time in our lives.

How proud he was to be our Warrior.

How proud we were to have him.