DATE: Tuesday, November 18, 1997            TAG: 9711180236
SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B4   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JANIE BRYANT, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH                        LENGTH:   97 lines

PORTSMOUTH FOUND AN ADVOCATE IN NEWSPAPER CHIEF RICHARD WOOD

Richard Forbes Wood Sr., who died Saturday, came to Portsmouth almost 60 years ago to work for his uncle, the late politician and millionaire newspaper publisher Norman R. Hamilton.

Wood credited his uncle with teaching him the value of community service along with the newspaper business. But the nephew learned to love Portsmouth on his own.

The combination helped him follow in his uncle's footsteps as vice president and general manager of The Portsmouth Star and later as Portsmouth-Chesapeake general manager of The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star.

Those traits also earned him the distinction of being one of Portsmouth's First Citizens. In 1932, Hamilton had been the first to receive the city's First Citizen Award. His nephew was presented the award 29 years later.

Numbered among Wood's contributions to the city was his work on the board of the Portsmouth Industrial Foundation and the Community Chest (now the United Way).

He also was lauded for his work as a liaison between the city and the naval community based at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard.

``He particularly cared about synthesizing the military and the civilian communities in Portsmouth,'' said Bernard Rivin, who owned a well-known Portsmouth retail business, The Famous, with his wife, Zelma.

``That was a very important concern of his,'' Rivin said. ``He always wanted to bring them together - get the military to know the civilians and the civilians to know the military.''

Wood served as chairman of the Portsmouth Advisory Council on Navy Affairs for almost two decades. He was also active on the Chamber of Commerce's Military Affairs Committee and was a board member of the USS Forrestal Memorial Foundation.

The early 1960s also saw Wood at the helm of Portsmouth's Chamber of Commerce, a job he held for two years. During his terms he tried to steer the city toward increased industrial activity, urban renewal and promotion of the tourist trade.

``There's so much to say, because Dick was definitely a Portsmouth cheerleader and participated in everything he thought would benefit the city,'' Zelma Rivin said.

An avid sports lover, Wood was a charter member and the second president of the Portsmouth Sports Club. He was named Sportsman of the Year by the club in 1978.

He was twice president of the Elizabeth Manor Golf and Country Club and a longtime leader of the Eastern Amateur Golf Tournament.

R.W. ``Henry'' Lynch, a fellow golfer who worked with Wood on the tournament, remembers him as a humorous, congenial and energetic friend who was always the organizer for an annual George Washington Day golfing trip to Myrtle Beach.

Wood and his friends would take his yellow GMC wagon, nicknamed the ``Yellow Goose,'' because it was large enough to pack everything even though it got 10 miles to the gallon, Lynch remembered.

Once Wood became ill and could not make the trip three years ago, it became named the ``Dick Wood Myrtle Beach Trip,'' his friend said.

Wood was also an active supporter of youth activities, coaching youth leagues and serving on the executive board of the Tidewater Council of Boy Scouts.

He was born in Colon, Republic of Panama, on April 25, 1912. His father, Emory B. Wood, was a Portsmouth native who was a civilian employee on the Panama Canal Commission.

The family came back to Portsmouth during his youth but later returned to Panama. He graduated from Canal Zone High School.

He had been working for Pan American Airways in the Canal Zone for eight years when Hamilton asked him to join the staff of The Portsmouth Star, which operated at the foot of High Street.

Wood served in the advertising, news, production and business departments of the former paper, and in 1946 became vice president and general manager.

Hamilton sold the paper to The Norfolk Newspapers Inc. in 1955. But Wood stayed on as general manager of the Portsmouth operations. He retired in 1977 as Portsmouth-Chesapeake general manager of The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star.

He also served as a director of the former Portsmouth Retail Merchants Association and on the boards of Mutual Federal Savings and Loan Association (now Cenit Bank) and American National Bank (now Central Fidelity).

He was appointed by the Norfolk City Council as a member of the Norfolk Area Medical Center Authority in 1969 before the first bricks had been laid for the Eastern Virginia Medical School. He served on the board of commissioners, the governing board of the medical school, for six years.

Wood was also a president of the Portsmouth Rotary Club and a member for almost 60 years. He was also a member of the Portsmouth Executives Club.

He resided at 406 Dinwiddie St. in Olde Towne. He is survived by his wife, Dona E. Wood; two of their three sons, Richard F. Wood Jr., a retired banker, and Thomas E. Wood of the Landmark Communications corporate staff; and four grandchildren.

Wood was 85. He died as a result of Alzheimer's disease, and family members have asked that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Hampton Roads chapter of the Alzheimer's Association. ILLUSTRATION: FILE PHOTO/The Virginian-Pilot

Richard Wood Sr. served on the board of the Portsmouth Industrial

Foundation and the Community Chest (now the United Way). He died

Saturday at age 85 of Alzheimer's disease. KEYWORDS: DEATH OBITUARY PROFILE BIOGRAPHY

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