Jon McBride was born in Charleston on 14 August 1943 and later relocated to Beckley, which he considered home. He graduated from Woodrow Wilson in 1960, attended WVU, and received a BS from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in 1971. A Navy pilot in Vietnam who flew 54 combat missions, he later served as a test pilot and aeronautical engineer and retired as a captain (O-6) in 1989. He was a NASA astronaut from 1979 to 1990, piloted space shuttle STS-41 in 1984, and later became a gubernatorial candidate and politician.