Richard S. Gillis
Dick Gillis was the enthusiastic Mayor of Ashland for sixteen years who proclaimed Ashland as the “Center of the Universe”.
He graduated from Randolph- Macon College and served on the Hanover County Board of Supervisors. He served as Executive Vice-President of the Virginia Chamber of Commerce and publisher of the Commonwealth Magazine of Virginia. He organized Virginia’s first World Trade Mission to Europe. He served on the military staffs of five Virginia Governors.
He has been a President and Lt. Governor of the Kiwanis Club, Command and Third District Commander of the American Legion and active in many other civic and professional organizations.
He was a founder and former Chairman of the Camptown Races and the Strawberry Faire. He married Margaret Shelton Gillis and they had one daughter, Kim.