Richard Gor­don ’59 Empha­sizes the Impor­tance of His Edu­ca­tion at Wesley

By Elise Marie Knable ’09

“Those were pretty try­ing days at Wes­ley, par­tic­u­larly in the finan­cial sit­u­a­tion of the Col­lege, but the entire com­mu­nity was there to sup­port Wes­ley and that shows even today,” Richard Gor­don ’59 remarked about his time on cam­pus. Gor­don came to what was then Wes­ley Junior Col­lege after spend­ing a year at Duke Uni­ver­sity. For Gor­don, Wes­ley was not just a place of edu­ca­tion, but one that changed him for the bet­ter and was an impor­tant step­ping stone in his life’s journey.

Grow­ing up in Fred­er­ica, Delaware, Gor­don attended Cae­sar Rod­ney High School and then moved onto Duke Uni­ver­sity. After a year of school at Duke, Gor­don real­ized “it wasn’t my cup of tea.” He signed up for the vol­un­teer draft, although remem­bers being told he would never be drafted. Upon return­ing to Delaware from Duke, Gordon’s fam­ily adamantly insisted he go back to school, com­pelling him to enroll at Wes­ley. While attend­ing his first semes­ter there, he received orders that he was to be drafted and left school to serve two years with the United States Army. Once dis­charged, Gor­don returned to Wes­ley in Sep­tem­ber 1957 to study lib­eral arts.

That year was a crit­i­cal time both for Gor­don, expe­ri­enc­ing a new set­ting and adjust­ing to civil­ian life, and Wes­ley as an insti­tu­tion, almost clos­ing its doors on June 15, 1957. Just one year prior, finan­cial prob­lems and dis­sat­is­fac­tion from the Methodists of the Penin­sula Con­fer­ence threat­ened the future of the insti­tu­tion. For­tu­nately, the Board of Trustees received approval from Bishop Oxnam to con­tinue oper­a­tions and Pres­i­dent Slay­baugh announced the rous­ing efforts to save Wes­ley. These included a $10,000 chal­lenge fund started by stu­dents, with $6,000 already raised with the help of par­ents and oth­ers; the cre­ation of an Alumni Asso­ci­a­tion cor­po­ra­tion to raise addi­tional funds among grad­u­ates and friends of the Col­lege; and finan­cial sac­ri­fices by fac­ulty. Remem­ber­ing the dif­fi­cul­ties Wes­ley faced, Gor­don pointed out the impor­tance of “the cama­raderie of the stu­dent body, fac­ulty, Board of Trustees and the admin­is­tra­tion” at that time. He explained, “There were spe­cial things going on in and around the area of Wes­ley to help sup­port the College…it became a fam­ily affair.”

As Col­lege alumni, stu­dents, trustees, staff and friends pooled resources with the Penin­sula Con­fer­ence and local gov­ern­ment and com­mu­nity lead­ers to secure funds for a $1.5 mil­lion dol­lar rede­vel­op­ment pro­gram for the insti­tu­tion, Gor­don and his class­mates were for­tu­nate to be prepar­ing for an upcom­ing aca­d­e­mic year at the revived school. At this turn­ing point for Wes­ley, the cam­pus grew with the addi­tion of sev­eral new build­ings and a boost in enroll­ment over the next cou­ple years. At the same time, the small class sizes and indi­vid­ual atten­tion that Gor­don remem­bers being given in his classes remained con­sis­tent char­ac­ter­is­tics of the Col­lege that still exist today.

“We were a close knit group and the com­mu­ni­ca­tion was good in both ways. If we needed help, we got it. And if the pro­fes­sors needed some­thing from us, they got what they needed,” Gor­don explained. He observed how pas­sion­ate Wes­ley pro­fes­sors were about their stu­dents’ edu­ca­tion and suc­cess. “The teach­ers really cared. They were inter­ested in you and your edu­ca­tion,” he said. He remem­bers the gen­eral feel­ing on cam­pus that each indi­vid­ual was a mem­ber of the fam­ily that existed there, unlike what he had expe­ri­enced at a larger uni­ver­sity. He rem­i­nisced, “You just felt a part of every­thing. You felt a part of the school just by walk­ing down the hall. That sur­prised me to see.” Despite being a com­muter stu­dent, Gor­don joined his peers in enjoy­ing many cam­pus sport­ing events, dances and other stu­dent activ­i­ties through­out the year.

For Gor­don, Wes­ley suc­cess­fully instilled a new desire for edu­ca­tion that he did not have before. “It cer­tainly changed my out­look on col­lege,” he said. “It made me want to get a degree and fin­ish my edu­ca­tion.” After grad­u­at­ing from Wes­ley, he stud­ied gov­ern­ment and pub­lic admin­is­tra­tion at Amer­i­can Uni­ver­sity and after earn­ing his degree there, moved down to Bris­tol, Vir­ginia with his first wife.

Gor­don found his call­ing while liv­ing there and became heav­ily involved with his com­mu­nity. From 1962 to 1972, he was a mem­ber of the Bris­tol Junior Cham­ber of Com­merce, and in 1969 he was awarded the Out­stand­ing Young Man of the Year award for his par­tic­i­pa­tion in numer­ous com­mu­nity groups and orga­ni­za­tions. In 1974, he ran for city coun­cil and received the most votes among his 13 com­peti­tors. He ran for re-election in 1978 and again won, con­vinc­ing the city coun­cil to elect him as mayor the fol­low­ing year.

Dur­ing his term as mayor, Gor­don was appointed to the Mount Roger’s Plan­ning Dis­trict Com­mis­sion, a group which aided in numer­ous plan­ning projects, from indus­tri­al­iza­tion to parks, for an eight county area and two inde­pen­dent cities. From 1978 to 1994, Gor­don served on the Com­mis­sion in var­i­ous roles, act­ing as chair­man at one point. “We were involved with a lot of projects like water and sewer plans and had to work with the state and fed­eral lev­els to attain the funds needed for the plans,” Gor­don explained. Dur­ing his time on the Com­mis­sion, the group was instru­men­tal in help­ing to mod­ern­ize that area of rural Vir­ginia with new roads and indus­trial parks, and move its econ­omy from agri­cul­tural to indus­trial pro­duc­tion. “Some of the parks have flour­ished over the past eight to ten years because of the con­tin­ued sup­port that we ini­tially got,” Gor­don stated.

Along with his com­mu­nity involve­ment, Gor­don worked for the Elec­trolux Cor­po­ra­tion for 291/2 years as a pur­chas­ing agent. Remar­ried in Novem­ber 2007 and now liv­ing in Bris­tol, Ten­nessee as a retired mem­ber of the com­mu­nity, he spends time with his wife Doris, his son R. Bur­ton Gor­don Jr., the direc­tor of res­i­den­tial life at the Asheville School in North Car­olina, his daugh­ter Susan G. Henry and her eight-year-old twin girls Kristina and Diana. Gor­don also enjoys play­ing ten­nis as well as his involve­ment with the Cen­tral Pres­by­ter­ian Church and the men’s bible study group he attends weekly.

Gor­don recalled a trip he made to Wesley’s cam­pus four years ago and his over­all amaze­ment at the sight of his alma mater. He said, “It is remark­able to see what has hap­pened at Wesley…the peo­ple at Wes­ley now should really have pride in what has been done around the cam­pus such as build­ing ren­o­va­tions and the Col­lege Cen­ter.” Since he now finds it more dif­fi­cult to travel, he will be unable to return for his 50th class reunion but did advise his class­mates, “If you can make the trip or live in the area, I would cer­tainly encour­age you to get up and go, not only to see your class­mates, but to see the out­stand­ing Wes­ley cam­pus that most won’t rec­og­nize if they haven’t seen it in years.”

Gor­don under­scores the sig­nif­i­cance of edu­ca­tion in today’s world and Wesley’s niche as a small, pri­vate lib­eral arts col­lege. He said, “The school needs to remain a vibrant part of the com­mu­nity, and it needs the sup­port of alums to con­tinue. Whether it is mon­e­tar­ily or to attend func­tions at the Col­lege, go there and sup­port Wes­ley.” With his expe­ri­ence in pub­lic ser­vice hav­ing shown him the impor­tance of com­mu­nity sup­port for edu­ca­tional insti­tu­tions, he believes that local res­i­dents in a col­lege town also should par­tic­i­pate as much as pos­si­ble and show their sup­port “because as the col­lege grows, the area around it will grow with it.” He con­tin­ued, “It is impor­tant to see what has been done and what can be done to enhance the world that these young peo­ple are grow­ing up in today.”

Wes­ley Col­lege will for­ever be sig­nif­i­cant in Gordon’s life, not only because of the drive for edu­ca­tion he devel­oped there, but also the valu­able expe­ri­ences he had. “Wes­ley taught me that cama­raderie and asso­ci­a­tion with a group of peo­ple which I later used in my career to get a job done. This is what life is all about. It’s a step­ping stone; each level in your life hope­fully pre­pares you for a bet­ter life ahead.” W