Tag Archives: leesburg town council

Stanley Caulkins – No Ordinary Shopkeep

Stanley Caulkins (l) and former Mayor Frank Raflo (r)  at the 1963 groundbreaking of Godfrey Field

Stanley Caulkins (l) and former Mayor Frank Raflo (r)
at the 1963 groundbreaking of Godfrey Field

The measure of a hero is found among the doings in a day to day life, when the exceptional act or word appears more regularly, so that it becomes “expected,” and reveals the character of a person as “a hero.”

Stanley Caulkins was such a person.

Stanley was a World War II B-17 radio operator, an airman, and his love of flight and aircraft, discovered in the armed forces, carried over into his private life back home in Loudoun County, where he became a moving force in organizing the Leesburg Airport Commission in 1962.

Stanley was at the groundbreaking for the first local airport in 1963 with former Leesburg Mayor Frank Raflo, an effort made largely possible by the then famed entertainer, Arthur Godfrey, who lived in the area, and preferred to fly to NY to air his show.

Stanley was in the thick of it again at the celebration of a second airport, the one off Sycolin Road.

After the war, Stanley learned watchmaking and, by fits and starts, established his own jewelry store on King Street.  He worked in that shop for 60 years until a fire forced him to close in 2015. Continue reading

“God” is alive! His office is in the NVTA

[Update 2013-09-14 – Edited for spelling, grammar and clarity]

The Leesburg Town Council apparently stepped out of line by considering opposition to the Tri-County Parkway, a North-South corridor connecting I-95, Manassas, and Route 7 via Route 659.

Loudoun BoS Chairman, Scott York asked his aide, Robin Bartok to read a letter to the Town council at their June 25 meeting. The Washington post reports that Bartok read:

“The chairman asked me to ask you: Do you support roads? And that’s a really important question,” she said to the council members. “Because if you oppose this road, it appears that you don’t support roads.”

And if the council opposed the road, she warned, the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority would “keep that in mind” when determining how to allocate funds from the landmark transportation funding bill passed by the General Assembly this year.

York is on the board of the NVTA. Continue reading