THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, April 21, 1995 TAG: 9504200138
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY IDA KAY JORDAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 159 lines
BANKING HAS CHANGED a lot over the years that Arthur Lee Cherry has been serving as a bank director.
When he steps down at the end of this month as chairman of the Portsmouth board of Commerce Bank, Cherry will have served 30 years - the first 20 on the corporate board of the old Citizens Trust Bank and the last 10 on the new Commerce Bank board.
``It's been an advantage for local people to have a local bank,'' Cherry says. ``But those times have come to an end. In order to make larger loans, the banks have to have more assets.''
Commerce Bank recently completed a merger with North Carolina-based Branch Bank & Trust.
``It hasn't hurt the stockholders,'' Cherry says. ``And so far, the customers accept it just fine.''
Trends in banking over the past 30 years are evident in the growing assets of the local banks over the years Cherry has been associated with them. Citizens Trust, a Portsmouth-owned bank, had assets of $10.5 million in 1964 when Cherry joined its board. When it was sold 20 years later, the assets stood at $160 million.
Ten years ago, when Commerce Bank expanded from a local Virginia Beach company to a regional bank, it had assets of $24.6 million. When its merger with BB&T was completed this past January, its assets were $700 million. The combined assets of the merged banks now hover around $20 billion.
G. Robert ``Bob'' Aston, the man who made Commerce Bank into a viable regional business and still serves as president and chief executive officer, and Cherry have known each other a long time.
Aston was a runner for Citizens Trust when Cherry became a director.
``I used to see him back then around the bank,'' Cherry says. ``We've been together 30 years in the banking business.''
His departure from the bank board at age 82 may be overdue because ``it's time for a younger man to step in,'' Cherry says.
``It's just time for me to do it. I had a heart attack and several operations last year, and I haven't got my strength back yet.''
But just because Cherry is backing away from some of his extracurricular activities, don't think he's going to quit work.
``I want to stay active in the business. I guess the good Lord will tell me when it's time to stop working.''
Actually, Cherry and Aston have more in common than their years in the banking business.
Both are self-made men. Aston went to work part time at Citizens Trust before he graduated from Cradock High School. He joined the bank full time in 1966 and rose rapidly through the ranks to become president of Citizens Trust at age 36.
When Citizens Trust was merged with Bank of Virginia in 1985, Aston and a coterie of 49 of his colleagues at Citizens Trust moved to Commerce, which rapidly grew into a regional bank. Cherry and other local folks moved to the Commerce board.
Cherry's working life began when he was 14, the oldest of six children.
``I had to quit school and go to work,'' he says.
His first job was at Moss's in the old City Market.
``I went to work at 4:30 in the morning to get the produce ready. We even polished the apples to make them look good.''
Then he took a job as a runner for a jewelry store.
``You got to remember, I was only 14 - and even then there weren't many jobs for me.''
Within a few years, Cherry found a more promising situation.
``I got my first real job as a clerk in the chief engineer's office of Virginia Railroad. I took that ferry from Portsmouth to work in Union Station on Main Street in Norfolk.''
By 1935, he was making $106 a month - enough to get married to Martha Jane Tynes, who worked at Hofheimer's shoes and later as a buyer for the Leggett department store on High Street.
``We lived in a little apartment on Waverly Boulevard,'' he says.
Cherry attended some night classes at the College of William and Mary's campus in Norfolk, now Old Dominion University.
A dozen years later, the couple were living in Cradock and operating a rug-cleaning business. They constructed a new building and opened a business to clean and store rugs on South Street in April 1947. They moved to a home in Pinehurst that same year.
It wasn't until 1965, when son Brad graduated from college, that the Cherrys started selling rugs and carpet.
``We had been adding on to the building down on South Street until it was 26,000 square feet,'' Cherry says. ``We took a small area to make a show room and started bidding contract jobs.''
In the 1970s, the Cherrys leased an old laundry building on High Street at Frederick Boulevard for a showroom. The original building on South Street was sold to Campaign Leather, which subsequently moved to Norfolk.
``Then we needed more space, and Commerce Bank needed space,'' Cherry says. ``Commerce first moved into the leased building, then acquired the land and put up the new (Midtown branch) that's there now.''
Meanwhile, Cherry constructed a building nearby on London Boulevard, where the business is located today.
Cherry's 25,000-square-foot building was completed in 1984. Two years later, they added 6,000 square feet to the warehouse area.
People in other cities tried to tempt the company to move from Portsmouth when it became known they were going to put up a new building.
``It never crossed my mind to leave Portsmouth,'' Cherry says. ``We've been happy here, and we've grown.''
The location is good because it's in the center of Hampton Roads, he says.
``It's easier for people to come here than to go to Military Circle or Virginia Beach. People come from all around, and I like to see those contracts from all around Hampton Roads.''
Cherry now is a $5 million-a-year operation.
In 48 years of business, he says, he lost money only one year - just before he was named First Citizen of Portsmouth for 1960. He was cited for his involvement in a myriad of community activities, most notably a committee to raise almost $2 million to enlarge Portsmouth General Hospital and another to raise money for a new education building at Churchland Baptist Church.
``The money for those projects was raised by committees,'' Cherry says. ``I just happened to be the chairman, so I got the credit. I didn't do it all.''
But one thing he learned then was that a man can be involved only in so many outside activities and run a business at the same time.
Cherry stayed involved in several organizations including the Tidewater Retail Merchants Association and Portsmouth Community Trust, an organization he served for 18 years.
The Cherrys moved to Sterling Point to a house on the water in 1959 and have continued to live there. Brad, the middle son of three, is the only one associated with the family business, although both Donald and Lee Cherry are in the carpet business. Arthur and Martha Cherry have nine grandchildren, three by each son, and five great-grandchildren.
``But I'm not old,'' Cherry says. ``And I've got a young wife!''
She is two years younger than he.
They plan to take a seven-day cruise next month - a present from Commerce Bank at a dinner Thursday in his honor at Cedar Point Club - whether he wants to go or not.
Cherry doesn't like to be away from the business.
``I have taken off five Thursdays already this year. And I don't work Saturdays unless we're short on people,'' he says.
``I'm a simple man, and I'm ultraconservative. I was born poor and raised poor. I believe in work.''
He also believes in Portsmouth.
``My granddaddy was born and raised in Deep Creek and my daddy in Newtown,'' and Cherry himself grew up Downtown.
Nothing makes him happier than showing off his hometown.
``All the regional boards of Commerce Bank are going to meet in Portsmouth on April 27,'' Cherry said. ``The meeting will be at the Children's Museum and I am going welcome them to Portsmouth.''
Cherry already has planned his opening line:
``Welcome to the hub of Tidewater.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color cover photo] Arthur Cherry
Staff file photo by Mort Fryman
Arthur Cherry - with two of his three sons, Brad and Arthur Lee
Cherry III - still works at the family business, Cherry Carpet. " I
was born poor and raised poor. I believe in work," he says.
Staff file photo by ROBIE RAY
Arthur L. Cherry Jr. was named First Citizen of Portsmouth for 1960.
He was cited for his involvement in a myriad of community
activities, most notably a fund-raiser to enlarge Portsmouth General
Hospital.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE BIOGRAPHY by CNB