Logan City Councilman Howard Jemerison died Tuesday night.
Jemerison was first appointed to the Logan City Council in 2013 following the resignation of Mike Allie. He was elected to council in 2015 and re-elected in 2019.
Mayor Serafino Nolletti says Jemerison will be missed by not just the council but the city as well.
“A great human being,” Nolletti said. “A great loss for the city of Logan."
A 1973 graduate of Logan High School, Jemerison was a basketball standout for the Wildcats before playing a year of collegiate ball for Glenville State College.
Former WVOW station manager Speedy Bevins recalls Howard the basketball player.
“Now let me be very clear about this,” Bevins said, “Howard Jemerison was an excellent basketball player for Logan High School. Incredible quickness. Incredible jumping ability.”
Bevins said a knee injury in Jemerison’s first year at Glenville sidelined a promising career for the young Jemerison.
“In 1973, a knee injury was pretty much career ending,” Bevins said.
Jemerison also was a board operator for WVOW AM 1290. Bevins explained that Jemerison was essentially with the station from the beginning of the programming split between WVOW AM and FM.
“His relationship with WVOW spans nearly fifty years,” Bevins said. “He was a custodian at the station back in the early seventies while still a student in high school.”
Jemerison operated the AM 1290 for WVOW for nearly twenty years.
Howard also coached youth basketball.
“He recognized how much basketball meant to him,” Bevins said. “and how much that sport allowed him to go to college on a scholarship.”
Nolletti said the sport was still with Jemerison even after arriving at the city council.
“He wanted to have things for kids to do,” Nolletti said. “He mentioned to me that he would love to see a basketball park in the city. I’m going to try to do that because I know he would have wanted that.”
“I knew him as a co-worker, I knew him as a classmate and I knew him as a basketball player. Most of all, since 1968, I knew him as a friend,” Bevins said. “That’s what Howard will always be to me above everything else. A friend.”
He was 67.