Former Scottsville mayor, 99, to lead Fourth of July parade

SCOTTSVILLE — Ninety-nine-year-old A. Raymon Thacker, who was one of the longest-serving mayors in U.S. history when he oversaw Scottsville, will serve as grand marshal of the town’s Fourth of July Parade.
“He’s an icon in these parts,” said Tim Karr, who helped organize the parade.
Thacker served as mayor of Scottsville from Dec. 15, 1956, until July 1, 1996. The day he stepped down was declared “A. Raymon Thacker Day” across the Commonwealth by then-Gov. George Allen.

Thacker has been a Scottsville resident since 1911, when he moved there as a “whippersnapper” of about 2.
He can remember listening to former Confederate soldiers, at least one of whom was a member of Mosby’s Raiders, talking about the Civil War at his uncle’s place, the Palace, next to the municipal building. Thacker said he also remembered the first car in Scottsville, bought by a doctor in town.
“The thing sputtered and popped like a lawnmower,” Thacker said. “He’d have to turn it off when horses came by because it’d scare the horses. Then he’d have to get out front and crank it [to start again].”
By his reckoning, Thacker’s most important contribution to the town is the A. Raymon Thacker Levee, which was dedicated in 1990.
Scottsville suffered under the threat of costly floods every year. That’s why the shopping center was built on top of a hill, said Stephen Phipps, the town’s current mayor.

“It really saved the town from the James River,” Phipps said.
Thacker began working toward a levee in the 1970s, when he obtained a $500,000 grant from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development to build the Mink Creek dam, he said. The dam was completed in 1975, according to the Scottsville Museum Web site.
It took years of work to get the grant Scottsville needed to build a levee. A lot of little things came together to make it possible, Thacker said.
When World War II rolled around, Thacker was turned away from the Army because he didn’t weigh enough. Thacker said he “one banana” away from meeting the weight requirement.
Then he was granted deferment from the military because he was the only embalmer in Albemarle County. In the course of the war, Thacker worked with the government and made connections with Virginia’s congressmen.
As Thacker began working on getting the $4 million grant for a levee, those state congressmen moved on to the U.S. House and Senate in Washington.
Jack Marsh, one of Thacker’s acquaintances, former secretary of the Army and U.S. congressman, set up a meeting between Thacker and the Army Corps of Engineers at the Pentagon, Thacker said.
The process to get grant money had changed, and the town had to go through the Corps of Engineers, Thacker said. “I convinced them we had a good program and it was worth spending the money on,” he said.

But that wasn’t the end of it. The grant still had to be approved by Congress and signed by President Ronald Reagan. Luckily, a friend in Congress presented it to the U.S. House, according to Thacker.
Lowell P. Weicker Jr., a senator from Connecticut who attended the University of Virginia Law School and lived in Scottsville for three years, fought for the grant in the Senate and got it approved, Thacker said.
“It just went through slick as a ribbon,” Thacker said.
The $4 million federal grant was finally secured in 1981, Thacker said. The levee was finished in 1989.
Since then, the levee has allowed Scottsville to get at least $2 million in grant money, Phipps said. It wouldn’t have been possible to get money to build the Farmer’s Market structure, Canal Basin Square or the Streetscape grants, Phipps said.

“Why would they give us money if it’s going to wash away in a year?” Phipps said. “It saved the downtown historic district,”
Today’s parade will begin at 10 a.m., moving south on Valley Street, east on Main Street and end on Ferry Street, Karr said.
Rhythm on the River will begin at noon at Dorrier Park, followed by parade awards at six in the evening. Fireworks will begin at dusk.