T.I. Martin Jr. becomes second-generation Henretty Award winner

A gentleman, a good Samaritan, a civic-minded citizen, a native son — the 2009 L.B. Henretty Outstanding Citizen of Culpeper Award winner embodies all this and then some.

T.I. Martin Jr., 89, earned the Culpeper County Chamber of Commerce’s top award at its annual banquet last night and he accepted graciously, as usual, and with few words.

“This is the nicest thing,” he told last year’s award recipient Mary Jane Glass, embracing her. “I want to say some very devious things went on to get me here.”

In her introductory remarks before a crowd of hundreds of local business, community and government elite, Glass went over the requirements for receiving the award, founded in 1971 and so named for a past community leader who lived what the award meant. That first year, in fact, the Henretty award went to Martin’s father, T.I. Martin Sr., longtime mayor of Culpeper.

Martin Jr., retired vice president of sales at Rochester Corp., certainly met the requirement of being a Culpeper resident; he’s lived here his whole life and is 1938 graduate of Culpeper County High School.

He is also past president of the Culpeper County Chamber of Commerce and holds a degree in engineering from Virginia Tech.

Martin has served on most town and county committees, most recently the Culpeper Town 250th Anniversary Committee.

Impressively, he also served on the county’s bicentennial commission back in 1949.

“This person was a tenor in the Pink Ladies Follies,” Glass said of Martin’s involvement in the storied hospital variety show of yore. “I also hear he was a past golf and tennis champion.”

Martin, though nearing 90, still enjoys swinging the club around at the country club.

He is also a member of the Culpeper Regional Hospital Foundation Board, an elder at Culpeper Presbyterian Church and a veteran of the Army Air Force.

“I was told it was about time he got an award,” Glass said.

Martin, approaching the podium to a standing ovation, was at a temporary loss for words.

He said he was tricked into attending the program for something his son, David, apparently was doing.

“We were scheduled to go to Hilton Head,” Martin said, expressing his gratitude for the recognition. “I do appreciate the fact I that I can get up here with all these young people.”

Then he admitted that he once took the stage with the Follies, adding, “But I won’t sing tonight.”

Culpeper Human Services Director Chip Coleman nominated Martin for the Henretty Award, saying in the nomination form that Martin “has committed a lifetime of service to Culpeper” and that the chamber recognition was “long overdue.“

Thursday night’s recognition was not his first. The Musuem of Culpeper History, of which Martin was past board president, honored him in 2002 as its Citizen of the Year and in 2003, he got the Good Scout Award. He is also past recipient of the Board of Supervisor’s Culpeper Colonel Award.

Martin’s other community service includes serving on the committee that helped develop Yowell Meadow Park in 1985 and serving with the Culpeper Volunteer Fire and Rescue Squad in the 1950s and 60s.

“As you can see from Mr. Martin’s list of affliations with Culpeper, he is public-spirited, generous with his time, energy and charity,“ Coleman wrote in the nomination.

Other highlights of Thursday night’s four-hour chamber event included acknowledgement of $30,000 in scholarships generated from local businesses for a team of six Culpeper high school students who competed—and won—the chamber’s E-Squared, or Entreprenurial Energy program. The students developed and marketed their own business and unique product—panty hose for men and flip flops—to win the scholarships.