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I.L. “Ike” Morris, the Glenville businessman who built Waco Oil & Gas and gave millions of dollars to Glenville State University, died Monday morning. In September, the university dedicated a new football stadium named for him and his wife, Sue.
His daughter, Shelly Morris Smith, shared the news Monday, writing that her father “passed away peacefully this morning.”
“While our hearts are saddened, we are grateful for the love, memories and time we were blessed to share with him,” she wrote. Funeral arrangements are not complete, and the family said it will share details as they become available.
Buckhannon Mayor Robbie Skinner called Morris “a remarkable West Virginian, a generous philanthropist, and a true friend to the City of Buckhannon.”
“Although Glenville was his home, Ike’s kindness and generosity extended far beyond Gilmer County,” Skinner wrote.
He said Morris’s longtime business partnership and close friendship with Mike Ross “created a special connection between Ike and our community,” and that Morris “faithfully supported both the West Virginia Strawberry Festival and West Virginia Wesleyan College.”
Ike and Sue Morris have two children, Doug and Shelly, four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, according to his profile in the Business Hall of Fame at West Virginia University’s Chambers College of Business and Economics, which inducted him this year.
Originally from Oklahoma, Morris came to Glenville in 1962 to be part of the oil and gas boom. He incorporated Waco Oil & Gas Co. in 1975. The company employs about 70 area residents and runs Waco Foods LLC, which owns the Foodland stores in Glenville, Grantsville and Craigsville, the WVU profile says.
Over the years, Morris also went into coal mining, stone quarries, a fitness center, a restaurant, a lounge, an automatic car wash and commercial and residential real estate, and he was active in land, minerals and timber across the state. With Ross, he built ventures including We-R-Farmers, Landaplenty and Rossco LLC.
He served on the boards of United Bank, Alliance Petroleum Corp. of Canton, Ohio, and the West Virginia Oil and Gas Commission, and he was a past president of the Glenville Golf Club. He was named the 1994 West Virginia Oil & Gas Man of the Year and Gilmer Countian of the Year, and in 2018 he received The State Journal’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
At Glenville State, the Morris name is on the football stadium, the softball and baseball complex and the university’s new health and fitness complex.
In 2008, Ike and Sue Morris gave $5 million to what was then Glenville State College, the largest private gift in the college’s history, the college announced at the time. It was a challenge gift to launch Transforming Lives Now, a $10 million capital campaign that Morris chaired. Sue Morris, a 1965 Glenville State graduate, taught in Gilmer County Schools for 30 years and once chaired the college’s Board of Governors.
Long before the new stadium, the couple paid to install field turf twice at the college’s football stadium, named Morris Stadium, along with goal posts, a blue track surface, fencing and bleachers for visiting fans, according to the university’s athletic hall of fame, which inducted them for meritorious service. They were major funders of the Waco Center. When the softball field was removed to make way for it, they built the Sue Morris Sports Complex for college and local softball and baseball teams.
“Their support has allowed a small-budget athletic program to survive and thrive through some very difficult economic times,” the hall of fame’s citation reads. “Ike and Sue are true ‘Pioneers’ in every sense of the word.”
The family’s giving reached the classroom too. Morris helped set up the Accounting Textbook Scholarship, and in recent years the family has given a $500,000 matching grant each year to the Glenville State University Foundation’s Day of Giving for academic merit scholarships, the WVU profile says. In 2020, he gave the Pioneers’ men’s and women’s golf teams a pair of club vans.
In 2025, Morris spearheaded a capital campaign for the Morris Family Health and Fitness Complex. Glenville State announced the complex that May, saying it was made possible “through the extraordinary generosity of the Morris family and other dedicated donors.” It is designed to house the university’s College of Health Sciences and a fitness center open to the public.
The new Ike and Sue Morris Stadium is part of that complex. Glenville State dedicated it September 3, before the Pioneers’ home opener against Millersville.
“This is more than the opening of a new stadium,” Glenville State President Dr. Mark A. Manchin said ahead of the dedication. “It represents the continued growth of Glenville State University and the strong connection between our university and the Glenville community.”
Gov. Patrick Morrisey said in a statement Monday that Morris “came to West Virginia with little more than determination and a willingness to work hard, built a remarkable business, and spent the rest of his life helping others find the same opportunities he had been given.”
“His contributions to Glenville State University transformed the campus and opened doors for countless students,” Morrisey said. He added that “so much of what Ike did for others was done quietly, without seeking recognition or anything in return.”
Secretary of State Kris Warner, who called Morris his friend, wrote Monday that Morris had completed “a life full of entrepreneurship, invention, innovation, and philanthropy unlike any other.”
“Everyone who knew Ike knew he lived in and loved Glenville,” Warner wrote.
He said the couple’s giving reached well beyond Gilmer County: “Significant contributions from Ike and Sue Morris can also be found all over West Virginia, including West Virginia University, Marshall University, and West Virginia Wesleyan College.”
When he announced the 2008 gift, Morris explained why he supported Glenville to such a degree.
“Gilmer County has always been very good to me,” he said. “There is absolutely nothing anyone could do to make me leave. I want to help make it better, especially for the young people.”
