DATE: Friday, October 10, 1997              TAG: 9710100578

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B8   EDITION: FINAL 

DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH                        LENGTH:   57 lines

WILLIAM B. SPONG JR.

William B. Spong Jr., 77, a Portsmouth lawyer and Dudley W. Woodbridge professor of Law Emeritus of the College of William and Mary, died Oct. 8, 1997 at Maryview Medical Center.

Mr. Spong was born in Portsmouth, educated in its public schools, and was a lifelong member of Monumental United Methodist Church. He attended Hampden-Sydney College and graduated from the School of Law at the University of Virginia. During World War II he served with the Ninety-Third Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force. After the war, he attended the University of Edinburgh and Cambridge University. He began the practice of law in Portsmouth in 1948 and subsequently became a founder of the firm of Cooper, Spong and Davis with which he was associated off and on for nearly 50 years.

In 1954, he was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates, in 1956 to the Senate of Virginia, and in 1966 to the U.S. Senate. In 1973, following the loss of his Senate seat, Mr. Spong returned to Portsmouth and resumed the practice of law. In 1976, while serving as president of the Virginia Bar Association, he became dean of the Marshall-Wythe School of Law of the College of William and Mary, serving until 1985. Following retirement from William and Mary, he taught at the University of Virginia, Washington and Lee University and the University of London before returning to Portsmouth and his law firm.

Mr. Spong served successfully as a mediator in several cases with national ramifications, among them: the Westinghouse uranium cases; the Dalkon Shield cases; a suit against Morton-Thiokol as a result of the Challenger explosion.

In 1988, Mr. Spong became president of Old Dominion University, returning again to the practice of law in 1990. He received the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from Hampden-Sydney College, Roanoke College, Washington and Lee University and the College of William and Mary. Mr. Spong served in past years on the governing boards of Hampden-Sydney College, the U.S. Naval Academy, the U.S. Air Force Academy and the College of William and Mary. In recent years, he served as a Trustee of the Virginia Library Foundation, the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, the Virginia Historical Society and the State Council on Higher Education for Virginia. He was first president of the Portsmouth Museums Foundation and was active in soliciting funds for the Children's Museum of Virginia. He was a past president and honorary member of the Portsmouth Rotary Club.

He was the widower of Virginia Galliford Spong and the son of the late William Belser Spong and Emily Nichols Spong.

He is survived by a daughter, Martha Kingman Spong of Portland, Maine; a son, Thomas Nichols Spong and his wife, Misty Cupp Spong of Hershey, Pa.; and five grandchildren, Edward Belser Bauer, Peter Stewart Bauer and Lucy Wise Bauer of Portland, Maine, William Chase Spong and Emily Madison Spong of Hershey.

The family will receive friends from 2 to 8 p.m. Sunday at Mr. Spong's home in Portsmouth. There will be a memorial service in the Wren Yard of the College of William and Mary on Monday, Oct. 13 at 2 p.m. Thereafter, interment will be private at the University of Virginia Cemetery.

In lieu of flowers, the family would welcome contributions to the Children's Museum of Virginia, 221 High St., Portsmouth, Va. 23704. Foster Funeral Home, Portsmouth, is handling arrangements. KEYWORDS: DEATH OBITUARY

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