By Michael Bird
The price of gas was 31 cents per gallon. First-class postage stamps sold for 4 cents. The Dow Jones hit a high of 734. 183 million people made the United States home. The year was 1961.
It was also the first year Lacey Putney, a native of Bedford County, Virginia, served in the Virginia House of Delegates.
On April 3, 2013, Delegate Putney bid adieu to his colleagues in a stirring floor statement. He served 26 consecutive terms in the Virginia House, a number currently unmatched by any of his House colleagues around the country.
The outgoing chair of the powerful House Appropriations Committee worked with 14 governors. He started a Democrat, became an Independent in 1968 and caucused with Republicans in his latter terms. And, while he worked with six Speakers of the House, he had a stint as acting Speaker of the Virginia House in 2002 prior to the election of Bill Howell, the current Speaker.
“When I first came, I was told that the service here would be a part of my life forever — a very important and rich part of it. I never knew it would be so true,” Putney said. “I never knew it would be so true,” Putney told the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Michael Bird works in NCSL’s Washington, D.C. office as senior federal affairs counsel, and is the NCSL's liaison to the Virginia General Assembly.
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