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Eldora Marie Bolyard Nuzum

Journalist Eldora Marie Bolyard Nuzum (May 10, 1926-August 20, 2004) was the first female editor of a daily newspaper in West Virginia. She began her career as a young staff writer at the Grafton Sentinel and was made managing editor in 1946. She joined the Elkins Inter-Mountain in 1953, beginning a long association with the powerful Ogden newspaper chain. While at the Grafton Sentinel, she founded the weekly Preston Independent and was involved in reviving the Mannington Times.

Nuzum was named president of the Association of Newspaper Editors of West Virginia in 1967. She was invited to the White House three times and interviewed Harry S. Truman on a whistle-stop train tour through Grafton. In 1974, the Elkins newspaper building burned to the ground, but Nuzum and her staff never missed an issue. She retired from the Inter-Mountain in 1992 after 32 years as its editor.

Eldora Bolyard Nuzum was the wife of Jack Robert Nuzum, a Randolph County circuit judge who also represented Taylor and Randolph counties in the House of Delegates. She lived her last years as editor emeritus of the Inter-Mountain, dying at her Elkins home.

Written by Cassandra Bolyard Whyte and Jennifer Whyte Onks

Sources

1. Vaughan, Gail. Eldora - Crusading Editor, Working Mother. Morgantown Dominion Post, 6/25/1970.