A slender guy in a suit with no tie nursed his drink Wednesday afternoon at the Erickson Alumni Center and gave a little grin.
“They said they wanted to ‘do something,’ Jack Britton mused. “I didn’t know that this is what they meant.”
That’s what he gets for doing a good job.
The Kennedy Club Room at Erickson, the one on the second floor with all those windows looking out over all that bustle on Patteson Drive, was full of people whose outreach organizations have benefited from Britton’s stewardship over the years.
Everyone was there to honor Britton, who, for 34 years, served on the board of trustees of the George D. Hott Family Foundation and John Matthew Gray Brown Foundation.
Working in tandem over the decades, the two foundations have given countless dollars to altruistic efforts in Morgantown and the region.
It wasn’t big, flashy money — but the $5,000 here and the $10,000 there buoyed many a floundering budget, at just the right time.
With his occasional turns as trustee chair during his tenure, it was Britton who often gave the final yes to the outlay request.
He got there because he himself couldn’t say no.
Britton was born in Ritchie County and grew up in Baltimore, where his father, who was 41 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, moved to build ships for the war effort.
The younger Britton enlisted in the military at the height of the Korean War, and after his service, came to Morgantown. He enrolled in West Virginia University and earned a civil engineering degree.
He parlayed that into a job in real estate, where he kept acquiring friends, contacts and all kinds of institutional knowledge.
The mantra, “Call Jack, he knows this stuff,” rang out anytime someone puzzled over a grant or a zoning ordinance.
It wasn’t long before he found himself a trustee with the two foundations that honored him Wednesday.
He already liked the philosophies of the two founders.
George D. Hott was an attorney and councilman born with withered legs that he refused to give in to. Oftentimes, he could be seen dragging himself on two canes to his law office in the Monongahela Building on High Street.
Mary Brown (her foundation was named in honor of her brother) was an unabashed character with a Cadillac, mink coat — and checkbook always open to a worthy cause.
Britton never said no to a request for help on a project, he said, because it never occurred to him.
“That’s just being a citizen of Morgantown,” he said.
He’s stepping aside because he’s turning 90 in June and wanted to get some of his personal affairs in order.
Britton’s fellow trustees, though, didn’t want to let him go gently. Hence, the party.
Roark Sizemore, both in contrast and to compare, recently turned 21, a WVU student who co-founded a humming food pantry while still in high school.
Britton, he said, is a role model for unselfishness.
“His is a life well-lived,” he said.
And, as it turned out, the honoree wasn’t done Wednesday.
In his final act as trustee, he presented a $10,000 check to Morgantown Area Meals on Wheels, the organization in Star City that delivers around 100 nutritional offerings a day to seniors and others who might not otherwise get a meal.
The check was his sole decision — that’s how it was set up by the trustees.
“I did my research,” he said.
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