THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 15, 1995 TAG: 9503150430
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY VICKI LEWIS AND GUY FRIDDELL, STAFF WRITERS
LENGTH: Long : 110 lines
Thomas H. Willcox Jr., a quiet, self-effacing bringer of change, will be honored Saturday as Norfolk's First Citizen of 1994.
In ``an often unsung but crucial leadership role,'' Willcox has helped shape the United Way, the Chrysler Museum and the Norfolk Chamber of Commerce, said Thomas Johnson Jr., a law partner with him in Willcox and Savage.
Sponsored by the Cosmopolitan Club, the banquet at 6:30 p.m. at the Waterside Marriott will honor a bridge-builder who will nudge, prod and, if need be, drag people across the bridges.
Former Mayor Roy Martin Jr. recognized Willcox's tough and tender touch in asking him in 1962 to lead a citizens advisory committee on harmonizing race relations.
In the late 1950s, dissension had rent Norfolk under the state's Massive Resistance to school integration. It closed Norfolk's white high schools for a semester in 1958-59.
``It took courage for Tommy to take it on,'' said Josh Darden, who often served with him. ``Norfolk had been through a bitter time.''
``I lost some friends,'' Willcox acknowledged Tuesday.
Some members balked at going to a meeting in Berkley where tension was high because of neglected needs at the Boys Club. ``Tommy just insisted all of us had to be there,'' said Harvey Lindsay, who followed Willcox as chairman of the race relations committee.
Willcox and Lindsay, along with Stuart Hume and Billy Thomas, helped pay the Boys Club's way for a year. Willcox and Lindsay led a fund drive for a building.
To a gathering at Christ and St. Luke's, Willcox introduced a street leader whose words included some never before heard in that church.
He often brings together people of opposing viewpoints who might otherwise never meet. ``At first it's almost as if he is on the sidelines,'' said a young colleague.
When he does open up, it is in a fast, soft-spoken sentence or two, rapier-like. Relaxed, listening with a slight smile, he fairly twinkles.
Told that blacks were excluded from building trades, he consulted union shop stewards. Robert H. Mason, former editor of The Virginian-Pilot, marveled at his savvy in getting to the core and his tough-mindedness: ``He brought the controversy to easy resolution.''
Lindsay said: ``He cares for black and white, rich and poor. He cares for all people.''
Recently, when a community split over the Calvary Revival Church's plans to build a sanctuary on Little Creek Road, a troubled Willcox met with Lindsay. The two former chairmen, more than 30 years after their first venture, sought to defuse the dispute.
Even though Willcox is battling Parkinson's disease, his concern for Norfolk is as strong as ever.
As a young fund-raiser he went door to door asking employees of Goodwill Industries to donate 25 cents a week to the United Way.
By the late 1960s, he had reorganized the United Way's budgeting and set up an affirmative action program.
When the time came to name a chairman of the board to relieve the president of administrative duties, Willcox was the natural choice.
``The key to success was rational allocation of limited resources,'' said Darden. ``He had us set up panels to analyze budgets and decide which were the most pressing among competing requests.''
He also streamlined the Norfolk Chamber of Commerce when he became its president. He aided Henry Hunter's Tidewater Virginia Development Corp. in seeking industry and lending to businesses.
``Tommy was our guardian angel in the use of those funds,'' said Hunter. ``He has a way of just moving along quietly in a consensus-building style, never caring who gets the credit, just working for the public good.''
Behind the scenes, Willcox ``dealt with lawyers and politicians,'' Hunter said. ``He always has an eye for individuals in trouble. For one man on the brink of bankruptcy, Tommy kept creditors off his back and kept the banks at bay until he paid off his debts. He'd go the last inch for you.''
In the early 1970s, Willcox was on a five-member team that went to Provincetown, Mass., to evaluate whether Walter Chrysler's proposed gift of his art collection was worthy of support. The team recommended that the city should accept and support the gift.
Starting as a trustee of the Chrysler Museum in 1978, he was president of the board from 1983 to 1989, a period with a fund drive for $12 million renovation that put the museum in the nation's top 20.
``Walter was not the easiest person in the world to get along with,'' Darden noted.
Asked how he had succeeded, Willcox smiled and said, ``I didn't know anything about art.''
Willcox's strength lies partly in his believing strongly in what he's doing, said Toy Savage Jr., a longtime friend and partner. ``And he's expeditious. He's able to do a tremendous amount of work in a very short time. He doesn't get diverted by trivialities.''
Among other duties, Willcox has served on the boards of Norfolk Academy, Blue Ridge School and Virginia Wesleyan College.
A graduate of local schools and of the University of Virginia Law School, he served in the Navy in World War II as a lieutenant aboard a carrier, and in the Korean War.
Willcox and his wife, the former Betty Ferguson of Atlanta, have three children. He began law practice in 1948 in the firm where his father had worked since 1909 and that his grandfather Thomas Willcox founded in 1895.
Savage noted a remarkable continuity in the sense of civic duty among the three Tom Willcoxes.
He observed, too, that in the market crash of 1930, the Willcox firm insisted on repaying what all their clients had lost in real estate investments through the firm. It took 15 years, but the firm paid back every nickel, he noted.
``Tommy and his family,'' Savage said, ``ave [have] been first citizens for many years.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Bill Tiernan, Staff
Thomas H. Willcox Jr.
by CNB