Longest-serving legislator has long-serving assisstant

Virginia's governor had recently abandoned Massive Resistance and John F. Kennedy was president when Del. Lacey E. Putney joined the state legislature.

The independent from Bedford has watched the state budget swell while serving under 11 governors. He has held court in the state legislature for more than 11 percent of the 400-year history of the state of Virginia.

And all the while, there was Betty Lou.

A self-described "country girl," blue-eyed Betty Lou Layne has been a source of unwavering support to Putney throughout his career, from his modest quarters as a young lawyer in Bedford to what is now his spacious 9th floor legislative suite, reserved for the powerful chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

Tomorrow marks 50 years together.

"I never intended to be a secretary," Layne said one day this week with a quick shrug.

They way they tell it, they just started working together and life took over.

Layne was a new high-school graduate when she agreed to briefly answer phones at a law firm to fill in for a secretary on vacation. It was her first job after school and she never left. Putney joined the firm in 1959 and they've been together pretty much ever since.

Familiarity and a mutual respect seems to have carried them through a span that would gravely test any relationship. Putney, who does the people's work with few smiles, grows more animated around Layne, and they are proud of each other.

Putney leans across his desk to punctuate his comment that "her skills in the legal world were equal to most of the paralegals" and she says with complete conviction that he's the best boss anyone could have.

When Putney was first elected to the House in 1961, the state's General Assembly met once every two years. Lawmakers didn't have offices but had access to a phone bank and the position Layne now holds, legislative assistant, didn't exist.

One secretary served the several lawmakers from entire congressional districts, Putney explained one day this week as Layne sat nearby in his well-appointed office. With many lawmakers to help, Putney said his secretary might get just a few letters out in a session, to which incredulous Layne said an "oh my goodness" under her breath.

She's accustomed to slogging long days around the office during the session with a rotating door of people wanting face time with the man who, in part, controls the purse strings.

During the early years, Layne stayed in Bedford to raise her daughter. When Putney was at the session in Richmond, Layne spent weekdays working on his law cases and would wait for the delegate to drive back on Friday with legislative work that they would tend to over the weekend.

"I was always available," she recalls.

In the early 1990s, Layne's daughter graduated from high school and she joined Putney in Richmond for the session. Neither Putney nor Layne recalls exactly which year she started driving up, only that Putney's office was on the 7th floor. As his seniority rose, so did his office space in the General Assembly Building. His quarters now open directly into the House Appropriations room.

The pomp surrounding Putney hasn't changed him much, from Layne's perspective. She still fixes his coffee black with sugar. And if he wants to meet with someone for 10 minutes, she knows to book 20. He's a storyteller.

"I don't think there's any way to schedule him," she said.

Moreover, Layne said, "he's a country boy, and he doesn't ever forget that." Putney and his wife, Carmela, have become family to Layne.

"To me and all of his friends he's just plain old Lacey," Layne said. "He speaks to everybody. I don't think you could say his success has swelled his head or anything like that. He's very humble, he knows his roots and he remembers them."

Layne and her husband, Roger, still live on part of the farm where Layne was raised. When her friends fled Bedford for Roanoke after high school, Layne shunned the city for her familiar rural surroundings.

"I just didn't want to leave home. I enjoyed the work . . . and Lacey would always say, 'If you can find a better job with better pay, don't hesitate to go.'"

She couldn't have guessed then that decades later she would make an annual trek to the capital city to sleep in a hotel suite along the interstate for weeks at a time. And she always brings two things: her own typewriter because she doesn't trust that there's another good one at the Capitol, and her church songs to practice.

"I sing all the way from Bedford to Richmond and back."

One day, she'll retire like her husband, and they might finally build their dream log home in the woods on the homeplace where she and her sister would gallop on stick horses after school.

But for now, Putney's mulling another term.

And if he comes back? Layne wouldn't miss it.

Contact Olympia Meola at (804) 649-6061 or omeola@timesdispatch.com.