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PARKERSBURG - Gene Wharton's first year as a Wood County businessman was a difficult one.
"We had a $230,000 operating debt," Wharton said. "The interest rate hovered at 22 percent and the unemployment rate was at 17 percent during the Jimmy Carter Administration.
"That first year almost destroyed us," Wharton said.
But through personal tenacity and the grace of God, Wharton said he was able to sustain his first Burger King at Grand Central Mail in Vienna, in 1979, and grow his business empire considerably.
Today, Wharton, of Vienna, is president of Charton Management Inc. and owns 21 Burger King restaurants in West Virginia and Ohio, a Captain D's restaurant and a cleaning supplies company in Tennessee.
On Dec. 9, Wharton addressed business students attending the McDonough Symposium at Ohio Valley College in Parkersburg.
The program brings two or three businessmen each semester to the college...