Filmmaker, educator, and author Daniel “Danny” Ned Boyd (September 14, 1956 – February 5, 2026) was born in Martinsburg. He graduated from Martinsburg High School, where he competed in track and wrestling. As a teenager, he also won a Duncan Yo-Yo Championship. After high school, Boyd earned a communications degree from West Virginia University and a filmmaking degree from the University of Arkansas.

Boyd began his career as a documentary filmmaker. His early films included Homeless Brothers (1979), which examined homeless communities in the United States, and Marcos de San Marcos (1981), which explored the effects of war in Guatemala.

In 1983, he began a 33-year teaching career at West Virginia State College (now University). Known for his unconventional and supportive teaching style, he frequently involved students in his film productions and encouraged them with their own creative work, sometimes holding office hours on his front porch or at baseball games. As a Fulbright Program scholar, Boyd taught the first filmmaking and screenwriting classes at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. That collaboration resulted in the award-winning films Duara and Sound the Drum.

Boyd directed three independent feature films with eclectic casts of mostly local actors and friends. His first feature, Chillers (1988), won the Silver Scroll Award from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films. His next venture, Strangest Dreams: Invasion of the Space Preachers (1991), later aired on the USA network. Another feature, Paradise Park (1992), included appearances by Mountain Stage host Larry Groce, country music singers Porter Waggoner and Johnny Paycheck, and professional wrestler “Dusty” Rhodes. The film won Gold Awards at film festivals in Houston and Chicago, and it was selected for the Breckenridge Festival of Film and shown at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

In the early 2000s, Boyd returned to documentaries with a series of films about West Virginia history and archeology: Red Salt and Reynolds (2003), Ghosts of Green Bottom (2005), and Secrets of the Valley (2010). These projects earned him two regional Emmy nominations. In 2003, he was named West Virginia Filmmaker of the Year.

Inspired as much by comic books as the TV series The Twilight Zone, Boyd turned to writing books. His works included the illustrated novel Death Falcon Zero vs. the Zombie Slug Lords (2008, with William Bitner) and the graphic novels Chillers I (2012), Chillers II (2013), Carbon (2014), and Salt (2016). He then authored four children’s books: The Adventures of Wandala (2020), Miss Dirt’s Turtle Club (2021), Tavey’s First Hunt (2022), and Wrestledreamia (2023). His final book was the novella God’s Pool in Particle Park (2025).

Boyd also ventured into musical theater. He collaborated with Groce to adapt Paradise Park into a stage musical, which Theatre West Virginia premiered in 2018. He worked with composer Mark Scarpelli to develop Space Preachers: The Musical (2019) and again partnered with Groce on a children’s musical based on Miss Dirt’s Turtle Club (2021).

In addition to his work in film, teaching, and writing, Boyd had an unusual side career as a professional wrestler under the ring name Professor Danger, competing in more than 100 matches.