I’d like to announce and congratulate Sean Watson of Morgantown, W,V. as the November Citizen of the Month. He’s been a coach at Morgantown High School for 15 years and was nominated by Danny Herbert, one of his past players. Sean’s courage and dedication in dealing with the incomprehensible pain of having a spouse diagnosed with cancer struck and inspired me. You can read Danny’s entry about Sean below.
I would like to nominate my high school baseball coach Sean Watson out of Morgantown, W.V. for the Citizen of the Month. Sean was my baseball coach from 1996-1998 at Morgantown High School in Morgantown, WV. He always demonstrated great leadership by instilling hard work ethics backed by strong values exampled not only by his words but also by his actions. Sean has served the community as a great health teacher, football coach, and athletic director at Suncrest Middle School where he helped me as a student teacher in college gain pertinent knowledge and experience that I still use today as a health teacher. He has been the assistant baseball coach at Morgantown High School for 15 years now and recently has had to face the adversity of the disturbing news from doctors that his wife has been diagnosed with cancer. Sean has 2 daughters and 2 sons under the age of 14 and has been a role model for me by demonstrating his outstanding courage during these challenging times. Sean has taken on a lot of responsibilities as a husband and Dad including making long trips to hospitals in Pittsburgh and Cleveland medical centers, staying up sometimes all night to check on his sick wife Jen, transporting their kids to the medical centers, paying for numerous hotel visits and food, taking a lot of sick and annual leave from work, and worst of all enduring the emotional and mental stress that comes from dealing with all the factors surrounding the cancer and serious sickness of a spouse. Coach Watson needs to be commended for his acts of serving the community, serving his family, serving his players, and most importantly to him, serving God and that is why I am submitting his name for consideration of Troy Palomalu’s November’s Citizen of the Month.
Sean will be awarded a gift package sent from me personally as a token of appreciation for who he is as a person.
Thanks so much to everyone who wrote in to nominate someone. It’s always encouraging to read about truly great people.
As with the Student of the Month contest, we’ll be running this contest regularly, so if you wrote in and didn’t get nominated, don’t give up. There will be more opportunities to come so be looking for those in the near future.
God bless,
Troy
Lynn
We make routine trips to Cleveland Clinic and want to extend the offer of assistance to the Watsons. We live in between Pitt and Cleveland. If they ever need a place to stay, people to go with them to appointments, or whatever we can offer of help, we would love to do so. My husband almost lost his life a few years back and we understand the ongoing struggle dealing with such huge changes in life. We were helped by people we did not even know who made sacrifices to help us during what seemed a challenge we could not carry ourselves. We stand ready to help. References and contact information available if requested. Our best hopes and prayers to the Watsons.
Susan Woods
Dear Troy, God bless you for your generosity! My name is Susan Woods and Sean is my brother n law. My sister Jennifer is the one battling leukemia (AML.) Our family is very thankful to you for recognizing and choosing Sean and also to the young man, Danny Harbert, who nominated Sean. We agree Sean is indeed an amazing person! Their world turned upside down this past March when Jen was diagnosed with AML. She recently just had a stem cell transplant on Nov. 30th. We are excited to see God work on my sister’s behalf and heal her completely! We have so many thousands of prayer warriors out there talking to God on her and Sean and their four beautiful children’s behalf! It is so awesome! We thank God for this special blessing from you to Sean! We are big Steelers fans and we thank God for you and what you stand for! May you always have God’s favor and rich blessings all the days of your life!
Kim Dougan
Just when I thought I couldn’t become a bigger fan of yours, Troy, you prove me wrong. I am from Morgantown and my son was a student of Sean’s and I was blessed to know him for those 3 years. He is indeed deserving of your award. Both he and his wife are educators in our county and many children have been blessed to have them as teachers. Our community wishes the best for this family and many prayers are going up for them. It is an wonderful to know you feel the same. Many blessings to you and many thanks for your kind words and deeds.