[3][4] In his 2008 memoir, he wrote that could not remember a time as a youth when the goal of a Virginia governorship was not at the back of his mind.

[5] At his Stone Gap High School reunion in 1990, a childhood friend joked that he had sought the governorship since the 4th grade.

degree in commerce, cum laude,[2][6] and served on active duty submarine service throughout World War II and in the reserves for more than two decades afterwards.

In 1965, Holton ran for governor as the Republican candidate and was defeated by Democrat Mills E. Godwin Jr.

[8][9] Following his term as governor, Holton served one year in the Nixon Administration as the Assistant Secretary of State for Congressional Relations.

Holton later unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for the United States Senate in 1978, finishing third in a race against Richard D. Obenshain, John Warner, and Nathan H. Miller.

Gerald Baliles (1987–1991), he served as interim president of the Center for Innovative Technology in Northern Virginia, where he guided it through managerial difficulties.

Senator and former Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, the nominee of the Democratic Party for Vice President of the United States in 2016.

[12] Woody Holton (Abner Linwood Holton III) has published three books, including Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution (2007), a finalist for the National Book Award, and Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia (1999).

In 2006, Holton, his wife Jinks, daughter Anne and son-in-law Tim Kaine opposed a proposed constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in Virginia.

[17] He was a long-time member of the Governing Council of the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs.

[18] On the day of Ralph Northam's inauguration in January 2018, Holton sat front and center for a photograph with Northam and nine other former governors who had followed Holton, including Bob McDonnell, Jim Gilmore, Tim Kaine, Terry McAuliffe, George Allen, Mark Warner, L. Douglas Wilder, Chuck Robb, and Gerald Baliles.

[19][23][4] The memorial service for Holton in December 2021 at Second Presbyterian Church in Richmond included tributes to his belief in civil rights and school desegregation.