Candidate Killed In Storm Still On Ballot, Remembered By Locals As A ‘Real Nice Fellow’

A West Virginia candidate killed in this week’s super storm, John Rose, Sr., remains on the ballot after his Tuesday death.

As we reported earlier, the candidate killed in the storm was one of three people who were fatally injured during Sandy’s wrath in West Virginia.

The candidate killed in the storm was out checking trees on his 100-acre deer farm near Philippi, West Virginia with his wife, son George Rose says, when the accident occurred. The pair were using an ATV and became stuck, prompting John Rose to back up the vehicle.

The younger Rose says that the felled tree quickly came down and fatally injured his dad, explaining that his father likely didn’t see it coming:

“It was a big limb… I don’t even think he knew it hit him.”

John Rose Sr.’s wife discovered that the candidate had been killed in the storm at first, George says, expecting her husband to catch up after freeing the ATV:

“She heard the limb break, but she had already walked a little ways. She didn’t think anything of it, and didn’t realize that anything was wrong. But then she saw he wasn’t coming.”

Barbour County sheriff’s deputy Lt. Phil Ferguson said he has known the candidate killed in the storm as well as Rose’s family his whole life, and told a local news source:

“He was a real nice fellow. He would give you the shirt off his back if you asked him… He was just a real fine fellow.”

Rose’s family is planning a funeral in Philippi for the candidate killed by the storm.