Larry Lilly

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Larry Lilly ’67 Went from Graphic Artist to Government Imagery Analyst

BY LINDSEY BYARS

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The first time Larry Lilly enrolled at Concord College was in 1961. He had just graduated from Mullens High school where he was an accomplished athlete and was selected to attend Mountaineer Boys State in Jackson’s Mill. After only one year at Concord, life changed Larry’s course.

“My education was interrupted in the fall of 1962 due to a family medical and financial issue,” Larry says.

Returning home, he took a job for the retail store G.C. Murphy Co., eventually becoming an assistant manager over three West Virginia stores. It was at one of the other branches that Larry met the woman who would become his wife.

“It was at the Oak Hill store in 1963 that I met my future beautiful, sweet wife, Beulah, who worked at the candy counter,” Larry says. “We were married in 1965 at the Mt. Hope Baptist Temple.”

Beulah took a position working in sales at the G.C. Murphy store in Princeton, and Larry returned to Concord to finish his education.

“When I attended Concord as a student, I realized that I had to maintain a balance between studying and recreational and social activities, with the primary emphasis on academics if I was to succeed,” Larry says.

Succeed he did. Before graduating with a B.S. in Advertising Design in 1967, Larry was selected to Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges, he was the president of the Interreligious Council, and he was an active member of the Phi Alpha Chi fraternity.

Upon graduation, Larry was hired as a consultant for the director of the Center for Economic Action, which established the Mountainaire Travel Council (MTC). The center was located on campus and allowed Larry

Larry and Beulah Lilly

to work on brochures promoting tourism in southern West Virginia, designing and then distributing them to in-state and out-of-state businesses. Concord’s President at the time, Dr. Joseph Marsh, also commissioned Larry to design a scrapbook cover for him.

While working on campus, Larry met a Central Intelligence Agency recruiter looking to hire students upon graduation and was impressed. He wanted to work for the government and felt that the CIA would provide job security, good benefits, and a suitable starting salary for his growing family. He applied, and was hired.

In July of 1967, two months after the birth of their daughter, Larry and Beulah moved to northern Virginia to await his employment with the CIA’s National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) in Washington, D.C.

“Initially I worked as an illustrator, secondly as a graphics analysis officer, and thirdly as an imagery analyst,” Larry says.

As an illustrator for NPIC, Larry did layouts, as well as pasting up graphics and text for publications. He prepared technical drawings, lettering, designed posters and announcements, prepared vu-graphs, and did miscellaneous art assignments. As a graphics analysis officer, Larry’s graphic art skills expanded into technical, schematic, and perspective drawings for the government. He also provided graphics and reproduction guidance, and served as graphics coordinator for briefing aids.

It was as an imagery analyst that Larry’s job description dramatically changed, and the position gave his family the opportunity to move away from the city, closer to home. Together with Beulah and their two children (their son was born in 1969), the Lily family headed from Washington, D.C. to Charlottesville, Virginia in 1978 where Larry worked with the U.S. Army Foreign Science and Technology Center, later to be named the National Ground Intelligence Center.

“As an IA, I analyzed satellite imagery and various air platforms to produce timely detailed scientific and technical intelligence, and military capability analysis of foreign ground forces required by warfighting commanders, the force modernization and R&D communities, and the Department of Defense and national policy makers,” Larry says. “It was my responsibility to evaluate changes to military equipment configurations, site features, or activities noted.”

With a graphics background, Larry says he would create artist concepts of military equipment that could provide insight into reports and studies.

“I was the prime author of a special study of a foreign weapon system,” Larry says, his concept drawings appearing in at least five publications. “The study dealt with system weaponry and electronics and the influence they would have on U.S. designers.”

Larry worked in this position for 23 years before retiring in 2002. He was the chairman of an international working group for five of those years, and combined with his previous experience, spent a total of 34 years working with the military, contractors, and other members of the intelligence community.

Upon retirement, Larry and Beulah built a home in Lewisburg, West Virginia, moving back to the region where their journey began. This year in September, the couple celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary, and when Larry describes his typical day post retirement, kissing his beloved Beulah is how it begins and

I shall continue to be thankful for all of life’s blessings received in the past and those I am currently receiving, specifically my wife and our immediate family.

- Larry Lilly ’67

(left to right) SGT Samuel Finley, Lisa Finley, Jim Finley, James Finley and Jonathan Finley

ends.

“On a typical day other than Sunday, my wife and I will usually sleep late, kiss each other ‘good morning’ after awakening, read our morning devotionals, enjoy time with ‘Razzie,’ our energetic chihuahua,” followed by brunch, some inside and outside work, naps, dinner, and the evening news. And before turning in for the day, Larry’s day ends in much the same way it started: “kiss my wife ‘good night.’”

While they are both retired, Larry says they try to stay busy. He is a deacon in their church where both he and Beulah teach Sunday school. Larry is also a member of the Lion’s Club, president of the local National Active and Retired Federal Employees chapter, chaplain for the same group, and is also in charge of collecting trash for Adopt-a-Highway in their housing development twice a year.

Larry and Beulah’s children have made their lives away from West Virginia. Their son, Stephen, lives in Salem, Oregon and works for a minor league baseball team of the San Francisco Giants. Their daughter Lisa is an art teacher in Griswold, Connecticut and her husband, Jim Finley, is a scientist with Pfizer. The couple has three sons: Jonathan, an industrial engineer with General Dynamics, Samuel, a member of the U.S. Marine Corps working for an electric utility, and James, a part-time college student studying computer science and full-time employee for General Dynamics. “I shall continue to be thankful for all of life’s blessings received in the past and those I am currently receiving, specifically my wife and our immediate family,” Larry says. “We pray for their safety.”

In the future, a time without pandemic restrictions, Larry’s primary goal is to see his children and their families. Regardless of what time may bring, he finds comfort in knowing his relationship with his wife and the one they share with a Savior is all that matters: “Once Beulah and I pass on, it is comforting to know we’ll be with our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the One who truly holds our future!”