JoAnn Calhoun, 92, of Charleston, West Virginia, passed away at home on Saturday, October 31, 2026, following a long illness. JoAnn was born on Thursday, July 26, 1934, to Claude Calhoun and Maxie Wolford Calhoun in a small white house half way up Whittington Hill which is about 6 miles north of Charleston on Sissonville Road.

JoAnn grew up in that same white house. She attended Wallace Heights grade school and Sissonville High School graduating in 1952. JoAnn enjoyed being married so she did so 4 times. First she married her high school sweetheart Golden Beane in 1952. Since she enjoyed being married, she did it three more times in subsequent years with Larry Humphreys, John Michael Earley Sr. and Gordon ‘Buck’ Flynn. JoAnn had three children with Golden – Debbie, Roger and Rickey and one, Michael, with Mike Earley.

JoAnn was very smart. I remember in the late 40s when JoAnn would be kissing one boyfriend goodbye on the back porch while she would race through the house to greet another boyfriend at the front door – quite a feat of perfect timing when the first one was rounding the house just as the second one was walking through the front door. When we kids used to have to work in the garden weeding, JoAnn, who hated garden work, would pull up a tomato in one hand and a cucumber vine in the other asking mom if that was what she wanted us to do. Disgusted, mom would order her to go back into the house which is exactly where she wanted to be!

JoAnn was a fixture in West Virginia government – working from 1969 until she finally retired in 2005. She was the executive secretary extraordinaire working at several positions in W.Va. state government before landing in the Communications Office in 1985 where she worked for Governors Moore, Caperton, Underwood and Wise. One of them sent a note to JoAnn (who was a stickler for correct grammar) thanking her for not making any red marks correcting his grammar in his State of the State speech. One of her favorite sayings was: “If I wake up in the morning and can walk, talk, see, hear, feel and laugh, then that’s indeed a very good day!”

She was preceded in death by her daughter Debbie and her son Roger. She is survived by her children Rick Beane and Michael Earley of Charleston, W.Va. and her sisters Betty Kirkwood and Cay Wood also of Charleston and her brother Larry of Hurricane, W.Va. She is also survived by her grandchildren Corey Beane, Jennifer Beane and Stacey Beane and her great grand-daughter Nora Kelly.

Funeral Services will be held at 12:00 pm on Monday, November 9, 2026, at Long and Fisher Funeral Home located at 6837 Sissonville Dr., Sissonville, WV 25320 adjacent to the Floral Hills Garden of Memories.  A gathering of friends and family will be held an hour prior to the service. Burial will follow at Floral Hills Garden of Memories