John Weagraff of Gibsonia had lifelong love of education
Apr 17, 2018He started teaching night school classes in accounting and finance at Syracuse University after his graduation in 1949. After his arrival in Murrysville in the 1960s, he won a seat on the Franklin Regional school board and became an expert in education finance and administration. Even after he left the board, he was brought back as a consultant for teacher arbitration, his daughter Sue Malagise said. “He was very service-oriented,” Malagise said. “It was about serving the community in the area where he was gifted — in the financial realm.” John D. Weagraff of Gibsonia died Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2017, at Good Samaritan Hospice in Wexford. He was 89. Born in Salamanca, N.Y., on June 25, 1928, he was the son of the late Orville and Wilhelmina (Achenbach) Weagraff. He became a CPA and took a senior financial management job with Carrier Corp. in Syracuse. He left there to work for Elliott Co. in Jeannette. While there, he settled in Murrysville and raised nine children with his wife, Nancy. All of his children attended Franklin Regional schools. “If you had kids at (Franklin Regional) from 1968 to 1988, you probably knew a Weagraff,” Malagise said. Mr. Weagraff served as school board president at Franklin Regional and the West Genesee School District in Camillus, N.Y. “He was very passionate about education,” she said. Mr. Weagraff went from Elliot to the National Mine Service Co. in Pittsburgh and, finally, to the Cape Codder newspaper in Orleans, Mass. He played clarinet in the Chatham Band in Cape Cod, Mass., and especially enjoyed playing John Philip Sousa marches on Friday nights in the town gazebo, Malagise said. In 1999, he returned to Western Pennsylvania, eventually settling in Gibsonia. Malagise described her father as a man of deep faith who not only attended church but also served on church boards in Taunton, N.Y., Murrysville and East Dennis, Mass. He was a financial adviser and treasurer for the churches he attended. “He was in service his entire life. … He was that kind of man,” she said. Mr. Weagraff ... (Tribune-Review)
