Have You Met: Albie Rinehart?
It might be a cold winter day in Waynesburg, but if you happen to see a sprightly grey haired man wearing a big smile and a pair of shorts walking up the street at breakneck speed, you’ve just met Albie Rinehart.
After more than 50 years of being in the thick of many happy, healthy and downright helpful things in and around Greene County, it’s hard to imagine anyone who hasn’t met Albie. Or for that matter, finding anyone who has ever called him Albert.
I met Albie in 1988 when my daughter Elise, a bright-eyed 6-year-old, suddenly ran ahead of me on High Street Waynesburg to hug those bare legs as they jogged towards us. “Mr. Rinehart!” she squealed.
Yes, Mr. Rinehart, the teacher that kids at Graysville Elementary adored, and for good reason. He spoke their language – the happy language of finding fun in learning, of turning numbers into patterns and shapes to help kids make sense out of math, of breaking through learning blocks for 35 years as the kind of teacher every parent is grateful for.
What Rinehart remembers about his own life are the many people who came into it at the “right” time. Memories of those mentors who appeared as if by magic to change the course of his life for the better help explain the smile he wears, along with those shorts, in every kind of weather that life might send his way. “I’ve always found the right people at the right time to make me the person I am. There are people out there who will give you direction if you open your eyes.”
The story of the Rinehart family goes back to the 19th century, when farmers with hundreds of acres of land suddenly found themselves benefiting when gas and oil were discovered and leases were signed. “Great-great grandfather Elisha helped build Hannah Hall in 1849, when he was a teenager,” Rinehart says. “He took his earnings and bought farmland on Delphene Road.”
When the gas and oil boom came, those acres made a big payoff. Great-grandfather George N. built a stately yellow brick home near the now-lost town of Delphene, along Jobs Creek in Jackson Township. His general store and post office were across the road from the house and he became justice of the peace, known as a “Democratis” who cared for his community. But boom times don’t last forever and the Great Depression of 1929 changed the economic landscape everywhere, not just in Greene County.
Rinehart was born in 1943 and by age 6 had left the farm with his family and moved to Waynesburg. The post-World War II era had begin and Waynesburg was ready to welcome the new decade in style.
If Rinehart had but one wish, he admits it would be to bring back the happy days of the 1950s to Greene County and its kids. Waynesburg had ice cream parlors, two movie theaters, a bowling alley, a skating rink and pool halls that weren’t in bars to hang out in. There were plenty of places to dance and meet your friends, and college was affordable for those willing to study and work hard to earn their own tuition.
He remembers the dances that were sandwiched in with schoolwork at Central Greene High School, now the district middle school on Morgan Street.
“We danced in the gym during lunch hour. There was a booth above the gym with a record player and sometimes I was the DJ. We had school dances on Saturday night and after wrestling matches and basketball games. We danced at the Waynesburg Armory and the Fredericktown Youth Center, and I remember seeing the Shufflers at Eagles Hall. We kids always had something to do.”
Disc jockeys like Porky Chedwick – “Pork the Tork” and local DJ Sheb-Abi were the rage and Rinehart threw his upbeat personality into being a teenager with a ready smile. “Everyone was my friend.”
Rinehart’s first car – a 1956 Chevy Bel Air – gave him the incentive to get a job to keep gas in the tank. It also introduced him to his first mentor.
“I worked for Bob Elliot at his Boron Station – it was in that empty lot across Greene Street from the Sunoco station. I was aimless when I was a kid, but he gave me a work ethic and some real lessons in life. I love meeting people so pumping gas was perfect for me.”
Rinehart joined the National Guard while getting his teaching degree at Waynesburg College and found another role model – Paul Huffman, administrator of the Waynesburg Armory who instilled in him the importance of military discipline and camaraderie. Staff Sergeant Rinehart served seven years and then took a discharge, but “found I missed it so much I reenlisted and finished out my 20 years. I took great pride in serving with some of my students, like Paul Walker, who achieved the rank of Command Sergeant Major.”
Serendipity brought Rinehart the love of his life in 1966 when he first laid eyes on freshman Donna Jones at Waynesburg College. “If I would have turned left, I would never have seen her and my life would have been different.” It was Freshman Day and Rinehart was an upperclassman, so he stopped to talk. “We went to the Boron Station that night and washed my car together then we drove around and I showed her the town. That was our first date. Seventy-one days later, we were married.”
Becoming the teacher kids adored for 35 years was another happy coincidence. “Bill Throckmorton (West Greene elementary principal) stopped to get gas and he asked me if I had a teaching degree.” Rinehart had just graduated and was promised a job at Central Greene as soon as their school board met, but Throckmorton saw something he liked in this happy, high-energy kid.
“It was two weeks before school started and I remember driving all over West Greene with him looking for board members to sign off on me,” Rinehart says, laughing. “Bill was a great friend and helped me become a good teacher.”
Three generations of West Greene kids would benefit from Rinehart’s cheerful style and encouraging words and deeds teaching and as a math specialist through Title I programs that showed there’s more than one way to understand numbers.
When Rinehart was 41, he knew it was time to start running for his life.
“I quit smoking and was starting to put on weight. My neighbors Bill Winters and Rick Joseph were running, and they inspired me to do it too. I feel blessed that I meet people who make a difference in my life just as I try to make a difference in theirs.”
For 25 plus years, Rinehart threw himself into running and became a familiar sight around town in those shorts and big smile. He competed in more than 300 races and helped organize local healthy runs like the Dock to Lock race from Greene Cove to Rices Landing.
“I ran to run, not to win, I run to finish and enjoy the camaraderie. I don’t run any more, my hip won’t let me, but I still go to races to see old friends and make new ones.”
In 1995, the Rineharts were ready to leave Greene County behind. In what could have been a permanent sabbatical, they sold their house and headed for Florida.
But within the year, they were back, unable to stay away from the place they call home.
Rinehart went on to teach for five more years, both at West Greene and Waynesburg College, training teachers-to-be how to conduct classes with his cheerful formula of active teaching-active learning.
Retirement in 2002 gave Rinehart more time to get involved in planning committees to help imagine the kind of community development that might bring some of those happy days back to the county. He works with his network of friends, neighbors and officials he grew up with or were his students to make plans for the future of Greene County.
Rinehart now walks briskly and says hello to everyone he meets nearly every Waynesburg morning. It is a five-mile loop that takes him from the Wellness Center on Bonar Avenue down back streets to Waynesburg University campus and past old Hannah Hall. As Rinehart trots by, he always stops to give its worn red bricks a pat.
Life has come full circle. The college that gave young Elisha Rinehart the wages to buy that rich farmland on Delphene Road in 1849 is now getting some of it back.
“I’ve left an educational endowment with Waynesburg University and to the Community Foundation of Greene County for culture and education grants. Donna and I didn’t have children, so this is our way of helping the next generation achieve its dreams.”