SAVE THE STACK — A local group is rallying in hopes of preserving the old Ohio Valley General Hospital smokestack from demolition, as the old Ohio Valley Medical Center is scheduled to come down and be replaced by a new WVU Medicine Regional Cancer Center. -- Derek Redd

WHEELING — For nurse Peggy Porter, driving by and seeing the OVGH letters lit up at night at the former Ohio Valley Medical Center made her feel like she was coming home.

Now she is hoping the facility’s smokestack and neon letters can be saved and possibly incorporated into the future cancer center campus, which is to be built by WVU Medicine.

Demolition of the former OVMC building to make way for the new cancer center is expected to begin in August, said Anthony Condia, chief marketing and communications officer at WVU Medicine West Virginia University Health System.

Porter, a Valley Grove resident who worked at OVMC for 46 years, said she and other former employees, aka the Friends of OVMC, have started a petition in the hopes of saving the smokestack and old OVGH lettering on the building.

When the hospital was still open the neon lettering, which stood for Ohio Valley General Hospital, would be lit at night. Porter said anytime she was driving through the city and could see the lettering it made her feel good about coming home, and remember the good work she and others did there for so many years.

If the stack cannot be saved, she hopes at least the letters can be saved and somehow incorporated into the new cancer center’s campus.

Porter said she aims to get at least 1,000 signatures before submitting it to WVU Medicine officials for consideration.

“We’re trying to see what we can do, to see if we can convince someone it needs to stay up there,” she said. “I was thinking along the lines of the saved pillar from Wheeling High School, beside the new Wheeling Police Department.

“I’m hoping to have at least 1,000 signatures. That might be a little on the wild side, but I’d like to have a lot to let them know what OVGH meant to people here in the valley and what we want to see happen,” she said.

Porter said she and other former employees can be contacted about the petition via the group’s Facebook page titled, “Friends of OVMC.”

Condia said WVU Medicine plans to have the lettering preserved and then give it to Porter’s group so they can keep them. A special marker regarding OVMC and OVGH is expected to be installed on the new campus.

Condia said Porter’s group could then decide what to do with the lettering off-campus.

Porter said, however, that the group would still like the lettering to be placed somewhere on campus.

“We’d like it to be on the property. We still want something there. We want it to be known and seen. … That was our home away from home. We want something there with the letters to show how it was an important part of Wheeling, of growing Wheeling and life in Wheeling for so long,” she added.