Charles R. Fenwick

In 1922, a year after he transferred to the University of Virginia's academic school, Fenwick helped found the formed Beta chapter of Sigma Nu fraternity.

He much later became president of the alumni association and in 1962 became the first recipient of the Virginia Hall of Fame Award for distinguished achievements after leaving college.

He also became a charter member of the Touchdown Club of Washington, D.C., and served as its third president In 1929, Fenwick married Eleanor Russell Eastman, a Presbyterian, though he did not change his Baptist affiliation.

During that World War II period, the legislative position being part-time, Fenwick also served as chief of the Royalty Adjustment Branch at an Army Air Forces base in Ohio, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Especially after the United States Supreme Court decisions in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 and 1955, Arlington became embroiled in Massive Resistance.

Segregationists within the Byrd Organization, especially in Southside Virginia, wanted to close any school which desegregated, even pursuant to an order of a federal court, as Arlington also faced.

The Byrd Organization had become radicalized after the Gray Commission issued a report authorizing local options in public schools.

Fenwick drafted several laws in the subsequent Stanley Plan, specifically those aimed at harassing the NAACP (which was handling the legal challenges to Arlington's (and other) public schools).

On February 22, 1969, Fenwick died of complications about a month after major surgery for diverticulitis at a local hospital and was buried at Oakwood Cemetery in Falls Church, Virginia.

Governor Mills Godwin and former U.S. Representative Howard W. Smith were among the many distinguished attendees at the funeral, in addition to his wife, sisters Mrs. John Demarest, Mrs. Boynton P. Livingston, Mrs. J.R. Browning and Mrs. Donald K. Addie, as well as family friends Mrs. William Tate and Mrs. Charles H. Smith of Richmond and over 800 additional mourners.

In 1978, Arlington named its human resources center on Walter Reed Drive after Fenwick, although the building no longer exists.