Colonial Heights’ ex-mayor Lucas dies

Aubrey Lee Lucas was described by one Colonial Heights resident as someone who speaks his mind whether he stands alone or not.

Mr. Lucas said in 1967 that he endeavored "to take a stand for the people . . . to speak out against idealistic and grandiose plans made in the belief that you have to do what's fashionable . . . with an utter disregard for the wage earner and those of fixed income who can least afford such thinking."

Mr. Lucas, who served on Colonial Heights' City Council from 1960 to 1968, including two two-year terms as mayor from 1964 to 1968, died Jan. 11 of heart failure. He was 82.

His family planned a private funeral.

The city's population had grown from 10,000 to 17,000 between 1960 and 1967. Mr. Lucas endured criticism over the planning of new schools financed with additional tax revenue.

"I have been charged by some with being against education simply because I have asked that we furnish adequate, comfortable facilities -- not luxuries," he said.

He pointed out that he was a teacher himself. He held bachelor's and master's degrees from Richmond Professional Institute (now Virginia Commonwealth University) and taught accounting and business management there for five years.

An Army reservist after returning from Korea as part of U.S. occupation forces, Mr. Lucas was a senior unit adviser to the Quartermaster Replacement Training Unit at Fort Lee before returning to active duty in 1969 as an Army adviser in Richmond.

He was promoted to lieutenant colonel and held that rank when he retired from the Reserve in 1972.

He then worked as a policy analyst for the state Board of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services, retiring in 1992. He began sitting in on classes at Richard Bland Community College, planning to earn enough undergraduate and graduate credit hours to qualify to teach history at the college level.

"He was interested in everything," said his wife of 61 years, Charlotte Cottrell Lucas.

In 1971 Mr. Lucas told a reporter that he had no regrets about leaving politics and public life and being "an ordinary citizen, voting and paying my taxes."