MRA History

MONONGAHELA ROWING ASSOCIATION

Morgantown, WV

MRA History

Member

Web Master: JMD

Last updated:

01/31/2012

"Modern rowing" started in Morgantown in 1966 with the chartering of the Mountaineer Rowing Club. The club name changed to Monongahela Rowing Club in 1976, and finally to its current form in 1982. Our long term goals include the support of collegiate and high school rowing in Morgantown.

This page contains the links to various historical documents on the activities of MRC/MRA and the WVU Crew Club and of people who made Mon Rowing history. More will be added as "new" material may become available

Accurate history can only be written with access to original documents. What you find on these pages is a compilation of scanned documents to which current officers of MRA have access to, and some interpretation of those same documents.

If you have old pictures or other documents about Rowing in Morgantown we would like to hear from you. If you have documents that you which to contribute please send it to us info@monrowing.org

All those involved in the early years of Monongahela Rowing Club were detrimental to the development of this organization, yet MRC owes its creation to the effort of one man Dr. Willem Van Eck "Vim". All documents left behind attest to the effort put into recruiting, promoting, training, organizing without which nothing else would have happened.

Undeniably, the effort spent on fund Fund-raising was far greater than that spent in the course of actual rowing. Vim wrote letter after letter seeking support for the nascent program.

October 1985 Letter to Supporters from Vim Van Eck, MRA President and WVU Crew Adviser

Vim's help was essential in creating the Morgantown Mason-Dixon festival and he was its vice-chairman, besides portraying Dixon during the festivities.

From the MRA Archives

Monongahela Rowing Association, 40 Donley Street, Morgantown, WV

info@monrowing.org