Mills E. Godwin Jr

At top and background image, the exterior of the Godwin Courts Building; above, a Godwin Boulevard sign; opposite page, a portrait of Mills E. Godwin Jr. hanging in Riddick’s Folly.

BY ALEX PERRY

Staff Writer

The name “Godwin” represents a Suffolk man who became a prominent figure in the history of Virginia leadership.

Mills E. Godwin Jr. was the 60th and 62nd Governor of Virginia. He served his first term as a Democrat from 1966 to 1970, and his second term as a Republican from 1974 to 1978.

Godwin was born on Nov. 19, 1914, and grew up on the family farm in Nansemond County. He attended public school in the nearby village of Chuckatuck and was educated at the College of William and Mary’s Norfolk Division, later known as Old Dominion University.

He went on to graduate from the University of Virginia with a law degree on June 10, 1940, and entered the practice of law in Suffolk. He married Katherine Thomas Beale, a Chuckatuck school teacher, on Oct. 26, 1940.

He also served as a special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation during World War II, before resuming his Suffolk law practice after the war.

He was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates for Nansemond and Suffolk from 1948 to 1952, then served in the Virginia Senate from 1952 to 1962, and then as lieutenant governor from 1962 to 1966.

Godwin’s first term as Virginia governor from 1966 to 1970 produced “an extraordinary record of accomplishments,” stated encyclopediavirginia. org.

He earned the nickname “the education governor” by increasing state appropriations for public schools by more than 100 percent, improving teacher salaries, and for the first time the state government provided funding for kindergartens and summer schools, among other highlights.

“Godwin’s greatest achievement in expanding opportunity for higher education was creation of the Virginia Community College System, which ul

timately became a network of twentythree colleges in all sections of Virginia,” encyclopediavirginia.org states.

The governor also persuaded the General Assembly to provide more funding for mental health, state parks, ports, environmental protection and public safety, “all of which improved the quality of life for Virginians.”

“Politics can be a balky servant or a tyrannical master, and yet the intangible rewards of public service continue to attract men and women of great ability,” Godwin said in his Address to the General Assembly that was held in Richmond on Jan. 14, 1970, according to the book “Selected Speeches of The Honorable Mills E. Godwin Jr.,” from 1966 to 1970.

“During the four years of this administration,” he continued, “the members of this body and countless Virginians from every walk of life have come forward, as eager volunteers, to assume a portion of our labors. I wish it were within my power to accord fully to you, and to them, the honors that are so generously due.”

He was an “outstanding speaker,” according to Barbara Warren, a former personal secretary to Gov. Godwin. She said he was a very organized and capable person, who knew the law and “knew what was best for Virginia.”

“He was one-of-a-kind, really. He was amazing,” she said.

The Godwins had also endured tragedy in their personal life, when their daughter, Becky Godwin, was struck by lightning and killed in Virginia Beach, just before her 14th birthday in 1968.

The Becky Godwin Memorial Scholarship Fund was established at Oakland Christian Church in Chuckatuck, where she was a member. Godwin wrote about the memorial scholarship for his daughter, along with other memorials for Becky, in the book titled “Some Recollections.”

Another was the Becky Godwin Scholarship at Nansemond-Suffolk Academy, and the school also named

Currently meeting at the YMCA on Godwin Blvd. Service begins at 10:30

www.c3suffolk.com 757-942-2485 We exist to live and love like jesus Christ to see life change through the simplicity of the Gospel

its Lower School Library the “Becky Godwin Memorial Library” when it opened in 1991, according to “Some Recollections.”

“Becky loved to read and when she was deceased in August, 1968, St. Catherine’s School in Richmond named a section of its lower school library in her memory,” Godwin wrote in the book. “This is the fine private school attended by Becky when she moved to Richmond from Chuckatuck. She loved the school and its students and teachers.”

Mills E. Godwin Jr. died in 1999 at the age of 84, and his wife Katherine in 2015 at the age of 98. Both are bur

ied at Cedar Hill Cemetery in Suffolk.

The Mills E. Godwin Bridge, also known as the Nansemond River Bridge, which carries drivers across the Nansemond River in North Suffolk, opened in 1982 and was named in honor of the former Virginia governor.

Drivers will also spot Godwin Boulevard in the city, and the Mills E. Godwin Courts Building on North Main Street. There is also a permanent display room reflecting Godwin’s legacy at the Riddick’s Folly House Museum on North Main Street.