March 6, 2011
Former delegate, Gazette city editor Nelson Sorah dies
Deputy State Treasurer Nelson A. Sorah, former city editor of The Charleston Gazette and a former member of the West Virginia House of Delegates, died early Sunday in Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio, following a heart attack Thursday in Charleston.
By Staff reports
The Charleston Gazette
CHARLESTON, W.VA. -- Deputy State Treasurer Nelson A. Sorah, former city editor of The Charleston Gazette and a former member of the West Virginia House of Delegates, died early Sunday in Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio, following a heart attack Thursday in Charleston.
A native of McDowell County, Sorah, 64, was a 1964 graduate of Welch High School, where he was a halfback on the school's 1963 state championship football team.
He began his newspaper career with the Welch Daily News immediately after high school, moving on to the Beckley Post Herald before joining the Gazette as a sportswriter in 1970.
In 1972, while working as a general assignment reporter in the Gazette's news department, Sorah was one of the first reporters to reach the scene of the Buffalo Creek Disaster, where 125 people died after a dam for a coal slurry pond collapsed in Logan County. Hours after filing his reports, Sorah, an officer in the West Virginia Army National Guard, was called to active duty and sent back to Buffalo Creek to search for victims and clear debris.
While working full time for the newspaper, Sorah earned degrees in criminal justice and political science from West Virginia State University. In the late 1980s, he served as a visiting professor of international journalism at Fudan University in Shanghai, China, with which the Gazette participated in a journalist exchange program.
Sorah was the Gazette's city editor when he left the newspaper in 1990 to start a new career in public relations and political consulting. He served one term in the House of Delegates from Charleston's 31st Delegate District after winning the Democratic primary by a two-vote margin in 1992.
He helped John Perdue win his first bid for the State Treasurer's office in 1996, and the following year joined Perdue's staff as deputy treasurer of communications.
As a member of the National Association of State Treasurers, Sorah helped state treasurers' offices across the nation develop college savings plans and streamline unclaimed property practices.
An avid fly fisherman, Sorah was active in the Kanawha Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited, serving on its board of directors for several years. As a long-time volunteer in KVCTU's Angling Arts community education program, he taught hundreds of Kanawha Valley fishing enthusiasts how to build flyrods during evening classes.
"He was many things to many people," Perdue said of Sorah.
"He was a reporter, a state legislator, a passionate fly fisherman and a wonderful, loving family man. I will remember him as a friend, the one person I could turn to when I needed advice. He was a constant in my life who stood beside me through good times and through times of crisis. He was often the calm among chaos."
Sorah's survivors include his wife, Kelly, and son, Andy.
Funeral arrangements were incomplete Sunday evening.
