CLARKSBURG – Rosemarie Igbo is a citizen of the world, but the director of Fairmont State University’s global engagement division couldn’t feel more at home in this neighborhood, she said, with its strong ties to Calabria in Italy.
Most of the region’s Italian-American population, in fact, can trace its lineage to country’s southern region, with its mountain and coastal towns and villages near the arch of the Boot.
Calabrese families sailed here through the 1920s, so their patriarchs could begin carving a purchase of the American dream in coal, the Mountain State’s chief export.
“North-central West Virginia has some of the deepest and most enduring Italian roots in the state,” she said.
Igbo, who speaks Italian, has diplomatic roots of her own in the country and its provinces.
She worked with the Embassy of Nigeria to the Holy See in Vatican City and with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Rome, on her journey to academia.
Come September, she’ll take an exalted spot at the Calabrese table here.
Igbo has been named Honorary Italian Woman of the Year for the 2026 West Virginia Italian Heritage Festival, which will be Sept. 4-6 in Clarksburg.
This is the 47th year for the gathering, which traditionally draws thousands to the Harrison County city for food, entertainment and pageants – not to mention appearances by Italian-American luminaries from 1960s surf movie icon Frankie Avalon to Bruno Sammartino, the opera-loving, pro wrestling champion who reigned in Pittsburgh for decades.
A Roman Catholic Mass celebrated in Italian is a traditional Sunday morning highlight.
Visit https://www.wvihf.com/ for the full history celebration, going back to its first weekend in 1979.
Igbo, meanwhile, is teaching a course on Italian studies this fall at Fairmont State, which will also take in the school’s partnership with the University of Calabria from the place once populated by so many West Virginia sojourners.
She loves that home is home – both here and there.
Fairmont, for example, hosts the Feast of the Seven Fishes every December, celebrating that city’s Calabrese and Roman Catholic chords of history and place.
“This history is an important part our cultural fabric,” the educator said.
Igbo holds a doctorate in international psychology and previously worked in global engagement at Old Dominion University and Morgan State University.
