Above all, Timothy Pahl was a great dad and
husband.
“He was a great example of what it was to be a man and a husband,” his son Andrew said. “So that’s who I want him to be remembered as.”
Andrew, an only child, said that example included teaching him how to treat people you know, people you don’t and your community. Pahl taught Andrew that it’s Ok to cry and it doesn’t make you less of a man.
“Those are things I’ll carry with me,” Andrew said.
Pahl died on April 22, 2018, after being shot during a burglary. His killer is currently serving life in prison.
Pahl was willing to get involved in anything Andrew was interested in and became an assistant baseball coach when Andrew developed an interest in baseball.
“He would stand out there on third base and just, I think, take guesses on waving people home,” Andrew said.
Pahl also had a great sense of humor and passed that on to Andrew.
“We shared humor and that’s something I really miss,” Andrew said. “Almost two years later, there’s times I see something and, ‘Oh, I can’t wait to tell dad about this,’ or I have that joke I know only he could appreciate.”
When Andrew was a child, Pahl would pull Andrew’s leg a lot and at one point Andrew didn’t believe his dad when he was told TV used to not be black and white.
Unfortunately, Pahl never got to meet his granddaughter, five-month-old Kennedy Ann Pahl.
“That’s one thing that bothers me a bunch,” Andrew said. “He would have been a great grandfather.”
Pahl was also a great friend.
Sharon Hayes, who met Pahl and his wife, Ann, in 1976, said Tim had her back and she had his. He was a confidant — someone you could talk to about things you might not want to talk about with a lot
of people.
It wasn’t just friends Pahl could talk to, though. Hayes said Pahl could strike up a conversation with anyone, young or old, rich or poor — it didn’t matter.
“Tim was really the closest thing I ever had to a brother,” childhood friend John McDowell said. “When I think of Tim, I think of integrity. I think of giving. I think of unconditional love. I think about care for his community and for society. And that’s why this is such a tragedy. He had so much more to give.”
Pahl was heavily involved in his community through his church, St. Thomas à Becket Episcopal Church, Empty Bowls and the Mountain Loggers Cooperative Association.
McDowell remembers Pahl and Ann helping those others wouldn’t and recalled them taking food to people with AIDS during the AIDS crisis.
Curt Hassler, board member of the Mountain Loggers Cooperative Association, said he met Pahl in the 80s and later hired him to work at WVU’s Appalachian Hardwood Center.
He said Pahl was very involved in the Log a Load for Kids program, which raises money for WVU Medicine Children’s. Through the years, the program has contributed about $1.8 million, Hassler said.
In Pahl’s memory, the mountain loggers decided to make a $500,000 commitment to the new WVU Medicine Children’s tower, where a cafeteria will be named after Pahl.
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