FitzGerald Bemiss, businessman, politician, conservationist of the highest rank, saw no conflict in those several roles he played in a life well-lived. He died Monday night after enduring with exceptional grace, but not being conquered by, Parkinson’s Disease.
I had the great pleasure of knowing Gerry Bemiss for the past four decades. Even to our final conversation a couple of months ago he was as lively and engaged as he had been over all that time. There was no subject foreign to him. Yet conservation of Virginia’s environment was definitely his life’s work.
We first met in 1970 when Gov Linwood Holton appointed me as Executive Director of the Governor’s Council on the Environment and appointed Gerry Bemiss as one of three citizen at-large members of the Council. Over the past 41 years I learned much from him both about Virginia and about its environment.
We have Gerry Bemiss to thank for creating the Virginia Outdoors Foundation in 1966 when he served in the Virginia Senate representing Richmond. The Outdoors Foundation’s many accomplishments in assisting Virginia landowners in protecting their natural abundance with perpetual conservation easements is literally a lasting accomplishment.
Not only did Senator Bemiss sponsor the Outdoors Foundation, he sponsored the conservation easement legislation that made its work so effective over the years.
He was also prescient in being among the first to recognize the Commonwealth’s responsibility to protect the Chesapeake Bay. While serving as a member of Governor Robb’s Commission on the Future of Virginia, he chaired the Natural Resources committee and wrote that section of the Commission’s report. It was a clarion call to protect the Bay.
Four years later, thanks to his friend Delegate Tayloe Murphy Jr, the state passed the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act, another landmark piece of legislation that traces its lineage back to Gerry Bemiss.
He was a great mentor to me about all things Virginia, a place he truly loved, cared for, and worked so effectively to conserve in perpetuity so that future generations would continue to enjoy living, working, and playing here.
He managed to be an effective advocate for the Commonwealth’s natural beauty and bounty while always remaining the consummate Virginia gentleman and successful businessman.
Virginia truly is a better place for his dedicated service to the Commonwealth and to conservation.
Gerald P. McCarthy is Executive Director of the Virginia Environmental Endowment
Additionally, he was one of those politicians for whom service to the Commonwealth was more important than the next election–a quality highly valued but too rarely found.
Virginia has lost a gentleman.