The Franklin Reporter & Advocate Eight Villages, One Community
Betty Lee Gray DeMonic, 86, passed away on January 21 at her home in Hightstown.
Betty was born at home, July 4, 1939 in Hinton, West Virginia. Her mother, Alice Parker Gray, of Hinton was the organist for Ascension Episcopal Church and a medical laboratory technician at Hinton Hospital. Alice graduated from Marshall College and studied at George Washington University in the 1930s. Betty’s father was Oscar Lee Gray of Florence, Alabama.
Her grandparents, Augusta Dakin Parker and Ruby Elmo Parker, were early Hinton residents (1902) and lifelong members of Ascension Episcopal Church. Augusta had a floral business in the James St. home and Elmo was a salesman at the Palace Clothing Company located at 306-310 2nd Avenue.
Betty graduated from Hinton High School in 1957. In 1956-1957 she was Drum Majorette of the Hinton High School Band and well-known and loved for her beauty, scholarship, and musical gifts. Some of her other high school accomplishments included Junior and Senior Honor Society, All State Chorus, Girls State representative, Dart yearbook photo editor, Homecoming attendant and was voted most talented and most likely to succeed. She also worked as a Nurse’s Aide at the Hinton Hospital.
She majored in music at Concord College, where she also was Homecoming Queen and band twirler, graduating in 1961. In 1973, she received a Master’s Degree from WVU in vocal music and drama, with a focus on opera. Her primary teacher, mentor, and dear friend was the great opera singer Frances Yend. When her daughter Holly was 6 years old, she saw her mother perform the lead in Madame Butterfly on the WVU Creative Art Center stage.
While in her first music teaching position at Parkersburg High School, Betty married Harold Wayne Metz of in 1962. In 1983, she married James Ronald DeMonic of Delaware. Jim was her beloved husband and companion for 46 years, until her death.
For over 50 years, in her career as a high school vocal music and drama teacher, she inspired the creative growth, self-expression and confidence of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of young people, many of whom became choir directors, music teachers, and professional singers and actors. She directed countless choir concerts and musicals in WV, Delaware and New Jersey and worked with Jim on productions at the American Academy of Arts in New York City and the College of New Jersey. Her creative impact was immense in all the lives she touched.
She leaves behind her husband Jim; a daughter, Holly Metz, and two grandsons, Jehgos and Tash Hendricks of the Gila River Indian Community, Arizona.
Betty returned to Hinton in her retirement years and bought the home at 423 3rd Avenue, just doors from her childhood home, a place that filled her with wonder as a child. After traveling far and living away for decades, Hinton was her favorite place in the world.
Funeral services are pending at this time.
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