[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 127 (Monday, November 13, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2001]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       REMEMBERING FRANK LAMBERT

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                       Monday, November 13, 2006

  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, last week Loudoun County in Virginia's 10th 
District lost a loyal public servant. Frank Lambert, a former Loudoun 
County supervisor, passed away on Wednesday, November 8, at the age of 
77.
  I was honored to call Frank Lambert a friend and to work with him on 
issues of importance to Loudoun County when he served on the Board of 
Supervisors during the 1980's.
  Mr. Speaker, I submit for the Record an obituary from the Leesburg 
Today newspaper of November 10 which describes the public service of 
Frank Lambert. We send our condolences to his wife Ruby and all his 
family.

                  [From Leesburg Today, Nov. 10, 2006]

                  Former Supervisor Frank Lambert Dies

                          (By Margaret Morton)

       A longtime Waterford area resident, Frank Lambert, 77, died 
     early Wednesday morning at Inova Loudoun Hospital's Cornwall 
     Street campus in Leesburg.
       Colleagues and friends were surprised by the news of 
     Lambert's death. Attorney Steve Stockman, who served with 
     Lambert on the county board when Republicans were a rare 
     breed in Loudoun, knew he had been ill, suffering from 
     pneumonia, but he said Wednesday he had visited him in his 
     home north of Waterford less than a month ago. ``He seemed 
     strong,'' Stockman said.
       The two Republicans served on the board of supervisors 
     together from January 1984 to December 1987, along with Jim 
     Brownell and Andrew Byrd, with Lambert representing the 
     Catoctin District.
       ``He was a very nice man, the epitome of a Virginia 
     gentleman,'' Stockman recalled. He described his former 
     colleague as being ``very, very astute, with a brilliant 
     mind.'' Despite a bit of occasional acerbity, ``when he had 
     to,'' Lambert did not try to force his opinions on others. 
     ``He would lay it out and give a brilliant analysis,'' 
     Stockman said.
       Stockman, who was some years younger than Lambert, said he 
     was also very friendly. ``I learned a lot from him,'' he 
     recalled, describing Lambert as almost ``Reaganesque'' in his 
     warmth and ability to communicate, with a big deep baritone 
     voice.
       His political philosophy was ``very conservative,'' 
     according to Stockman. After both had left elective office 
     Lambert and former Leesburg mayor and Leesburg District 
     Supervisor Frank Raffo, a staunch Democrat, did a weekly 
     radio talk show and Brownell recalled Wednesday the two had 
     some ``heated exchanges.''
       ``He was very principled, very true to his cause,'' 
     Brownell said of his former colleague. ``If ever there were a 
     loyal and faithful Republican, he was it,'' he said. 
     Describing Lambert as ``very, very conservative,'' Brownell, 
     whose support for moderation often put him at odds with GOP 
     stalwarts, said that looking back, however, ``Frank was 
     probably right about a lot of things.''
       After Democrat Betsey Brown defeated Lambert as part of the 
     1987 slow-growth movement, he left active politics, although 
     he remained an ardent Republican, according to Brownell. He 
     also continued in public service as a member of the Loudoun 
     County Library Board and currently as a member of the Loudoun 
     County Animal Control Advisory Board.
       Winston ``Win'' Porter was chairman of the Loudoun 
     Republican Party when Lambert was on the board of 
     supervisors. He echoed the opinions of Lambert's colleagues, 
     calling him ``very intelligent and capable, with a lot of 
     ideas.''
       Don Walker, of Walker and Clarke Construction, recalled 
     another of Lambert's contributions, calling him ``the father 
     of communications in Loudoun.'' Fascinated with radio 
     communications as a youth, Lambert established one of the 
     area's first successful pager companies, Metrocall. Since 
     1969, he has been president of the Great Eastern 
     Communications Company. He also was a Ham radio operator and 
     held a FCC first class radio telephone license. In the 1960s, 
     Lambert was part owner and manager of WEER in Warrenton and 
     later worked for WAGE in Leesburg.
       Lambert's pioneering paging business was not without 
     controversy, and some opposed it, especially the tall radio 
     tower that was erected at his home north of Waterford. ``But, 
     no one at the time had instant communications,'' including 
     those who would most need them, such as doctors, nurses or 
     fire and rescue workers, Walker said. Ironically, he 
     recalled, one of the opponents had a heart attack and it was 
     one of Lambert's pagers that helped save her life.
       But Lambert was more than just a successful businessman to 
     Walker. ``He was my neighbor and friend, from the day he 
     moved here in the mid-1970s,'' he said. It was a friendship 
     that lasted from the first day. Walker, as a young man, met 
     the older Lambert, when he went up to help him move into 
     his house, to Wednesday morning's news that he had died.
       Describing Lambert as ``a very professional and academic 
     man, a caring member of the community and a great lover of 
     animals,'' Walker asked him to be godfather to his two sons.
       ``I would trust him with anything I had, or would hope to 
     have, in my life,'' he said this week.
       He is survived by his wife Ruby; sons Roger Lambert of 
     Andros Island, Bahamas, and Christopher Lambert of Waterford; 
     grandsons Michael and James Lambert; granddaughters Constance 
     and Angela Lambert; and brother Roland Lambert of 
     Connecticut.
       Graveside services will be held at 1 p.m. Monday, Nov. 13 
     at Union Cemetery with the Rev. Edwin Urban officiating.

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