A farewell to George Gordon

DAVID S. KERR / Stafford County Sun
Published: March 5, 2008

My favorite is a display that includes some knick-knacks of student and academic life. There are old football schedules, assignment sheets and amongst the many items on display there are several student reports. George Gordon wrote two of my favorites, both composed in the early 1930s.

Gordon, in one assignment wrote about Virginia wildlife, complete with a beautiful drawing on the cover, and another, written a few years later, was a short essay, amazingly well-written given his age, on the Constitution. But his teacher, lest you think that Gordon for all his gifts was all that different from any other child, regretfully notes that the score would have been higher had it been submitted on time.

George Gordon died last week. As Stafford's Commissioner of Revenue for nearly 60 years, he was the longest serving constitutional officer in Virginia's history. He retired in 1999 and his able prot-g- Scott Mayausky, serving very much in the Gordon tradition, has had the job ever since.

However, there will only be one George Gordon.

Given that Stafford's population has increased by as much as 30 percent since Gordon retired, many people won't recognize his name. That's a shame, but Gordon of all people probably would understand.

He watched his rural county, which when he took office numbered only 10,000 people, grow to nearly 123,000 at the time of his passing.

Gordon, who frequently noted that when he took office there was only one stoplight in the entire county, also liked to recall in the early 1950s going across the street from the courthouse to the Hotel Virginia (it's the home of Aquia Realty now) to watch television. It was, as far as he knew, the only television in Stafford.

Gordon demonstrated early on he was intellectually and academically motivated.

College, in this day and age, would have been a logical next step for a man like him, but the Depression, in spite of his parents' hopes, made that dream impossible. In 1940, after a few jobs he didn't really care for, he was appointed deputy Commissioner of the Revenue and in 1942, in a special election, was elected Commissioner in his own right.

At the time, Franklin D. Roosevelt was President, we were fresh into World War II, and Quantico Marine Corps base was just beginning its expansion into western Stafford County. Gordon's salary, which was good at the time, was about $2,000.

Gordon was a quiet fixture of Stafford political life. Sometimes he was an activist, but most of the time he just did his job, tried to maintain the personal touch, and just kept getting re-elected.

He managed to win 14 four-year terms. Only once was the race even close.

I didn't have that much contact with Mr. Gordon, though I remember once, when the school board was debating an issue over the appropriate sale price for a piece of property calling to ask him if he thought we were getting a good deal. He wouldn't answer that question.

It was a little too politically loaded for his tastes. But with his calm southern manner, he explained to me what the valuation records showed and how I could use that information, within a range, to estimate what the property might be worth.

He also reminded me that real estate valuation is not an exact science, but rather a matter of experience and judgment. He must have talked to me for 40 minutes. Given that this was the week they were mailing out the reassessments, it was a busy time for his office, and he must have had other things to do, but I was a citizen with a question and that took precedence.

Mr. Gordon, himself a student of history, became, without realizing it, a part of the history of the county he cared for so much. He dedicated his life to personal service, to being thoughtful, cooperative, and on occasion, telling people things they didn't want to hear.

But he did it with Southern charm, intelligence, and good manners. Even though Mr. Gordon has been gone from office for some time, I notice that in many of our county offices that legacy persists. There is a personal quality that still defines the county government.

George Gordon, and people like him, now drifting into history, helped define that culture. Mr. Gordon, and all that he did for us, won't be forgotten all that easily.

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