Linsly’s DiOrio: ‘I Just Hope They Remember Me as Fair’

It was his chair.

If in the morning or the afternoon he positioned the seat in the middle of the first-floor hallway of Banes Hall, Linsly students either steered clear or veered near because Reno DiOrio was THE measuring stick that mattered most along Knox Lane.

He knew you, see, and depending on the day, that was a very good thing or a very, very bad thing.

“I think one of the smartest things I did was to put a chair near the main entrance to Banes Hall,” said DiOrio, Linsly’s headmaster for 30 years. “I did two things when I could. I tried to be outside when the students were entering in the morning or when they were leaving in the afternoon. I could talk to 25 kids in those 10 or 15 minutes, and that’s when they knew I knew exactly who they were.

“And I would sit in that chair as often as I could so that I could see the kids while they were changing classes,” he explained. “I could compliment them. I could be critical of them. No matter what, they knew I was there, and they knew I was watching because I cared about them.”

As the headmaster, DiOrio had his ways of attracting and retaining an individual’s attention, and his chair therapy paled in comparison to some of the one-on-one, behind-closed-doors conversations. His motivation, though, never was to demean but instead to inspire and that mindset has allowed Linsly’s student population to grow to an estimated 450 today with more than 100 boarding on campus.

“Through the years I’ve tried to be as interactive with the students as possible, and not just when something was wrong,” he explained. “Sure, I would go to a student and let them know I thought they could do better than the English grade they’ve earned, but I also let our students know when their hard work had paid off.

 “It was my way of letting our students know that I knew exactly who they were,” DiOrio confirmed. “And I believe it’s important to our young people to be recognized and to be recognized for the right reasons.”

The Good Doctor

He said no. A few times, actually.

DiOrio has told the tale many, many times.

He was graduated from Kiski Prep, had a Hall of Fame career at Dickinson College, and then returned to Saltsburg, Pa. to teach psychology and coach Cougar football. Dr. Donald Hofreuter, a member of the board of trustees for Linsly Military Institute, attempted to recruit him to Wheeling’s all-male private school.

DiOrio turned him down.

“I was impressed with what was going on with Linsly, but I wasn’t interested in leaving Kiski,” he recalled. “I had spent a lot of my life at Kiski as a student and then as a teacher and coach, so I wasn’t ready to leave.”

Hofreuter, however, didn’t quit. The family doctor called him on occasion, and Hofreuter even phoned DiOrio’s mother from time to time.

“And then I brought the Kiski football team down to Linsly a couple of years after my first visit to Linsly and Don Hofreuter met me at the bus and he asked me to take a walk while my players were getting dressed,” DiOrio remembered. “That’s when he told me they were still interested in me for the heads job. He asked if I was still interested, and if I wasn’t, he asked me if I would be interested in being a consultant while they were looking for a long-term headmaster.

“I still had no intentions of being a candidate for the position, but I did believe I could serve some purpose by making certain they had a track to find the right candidate to be the head of their school. That discussion over the months to come, though, resulted in my saying to them that they needed to decide if they wanted to be a military school or not,” he said. “It was the only way for them to find the most appropriate person for the job. That’s when they finally tackled the decision in December 1978 on the Board level. That’s when I became interested.”

Two years before Dr. Hofreuter’s unfortunate passing on Nov. 21, 2021, the legendary civic leader told Weelunk writer Jeremy Morris, “Without Reno stepping in when he did, there might not be a Linsly to write about today.”

Linsly Military Institute immediately became Linsly Institute, and then, in the early 1980s, The Linsly School officially was born.

“I was on the periphery when the military decision was made,” DiOrio said. “But I was right in the middle of the co-ed decision. We did a lot of work as far as taking a hard look at this area of the country and what was happening that could impact our school. We studied the demographics, and we knew the city of Wheeling was declining in population. We saw it was time in 1987 to evolve Linsly into a co-educational college preparatory school so we would have the best chance to maintain the growth we were experiencing once dropping the military.

“I knew it would change the culture of the school, but I also knew if we didn’t go co-ed, it would have limited the progress here,” he insisted. “And that wasn’t an option.”

Across the Lot

Believe it or not, there are students on Linsly’s campus who don’t know him.

“And that’s OK,” quickly said DiOrio while sitting in his office in The Dlesk Center. “Those students are in good hands, trust me.”

And he would know. Not only did he survive those 30 years in charge of an ever-evolving community, but he also constructed a “dream team” of long-term educators who offered lessons in and out of their classrooms, guided the institution through its biggest ever capital improvement campaign, established the school as a valued member of the Wheeling community, and laid Linsly’s long-term foundation.

But does he realize his impact on his former students?

“That’s a difficult question for me to answer,” DiOrio admitted. “Let me start by saying this … social media is terrible for the development of young people. At one point in my career I was telling parents it was a bad idea to put a TV, a telephone, and a computer in your 15-year-old’s bedroom because, with all of that entertainment, homework was going to lose that competition. Today, our smartphone is all three, and we are now putting that in the hands of young people who are not yet mature enough to deal with all of that.

“No matter where people are these days, they are on their phones and not talking to each other. I see it, you see it, and we all see it,” he said. “But, at the same time, I have been able to connect and stay in contact with so many former students and I am blown away by some of the things those students have told me. I’ve been humbled by what my students have told me as far as the positive impact I’ve had on them. I just hope they remember me as fair.”

These days the always spry 82-year-old DiOrio is a member of the school’s development office, and seldom walks – and never sits – in the hallways of Bane Hall during a school day.

“I have a new role these days,” he said with a smile. “Linsly has been very good for me and my wife Karen and our family, and that’s why there is no other place I’d want to be. The alumni work I do, and the help that I provide to raise funds, have given me a purpose and I believe it’s been good for Linsly, too.

“I am very pleased with what I see at Linsly today. Mr. (Justin) Zimmerman is a hard-working, young headmaster who now has eight years of experience here. I think he’s done a lot to improve the curriculum and to move Linsly into the right culture for the future,” DiOrio said. “He is working with the student body in all the right ways and that, I firmly believe, is the best way to go about education at this time.”