by Larry Chowning –
Former Urbanna Oyster Festival Foundation (UOFF) board member Kathy Vesley-Massey has been named grand marshal of the 65th Urbanna Oyster Festival that is planned for Friday and Saturday, Nov. 4 and 5.
“Kathy has been a longtime supporter of the festival,” said Pam Simon, event administrator for UOFF. “She was on our board of directors from 2002-2004, was chairman of the souvenir and shuttle committee for many years and has judged both the Little Miss Spat and Queen competitions for us.”
“She has a long, positive history with the festival and we wanted to acknowledge her longstanding work,” said Simon. “We are honored to have Kathy as our grand marshal for the 65th festival.”
Vesley-Massey moved to Urbanna in 1998, leaving Richmond where she was deputy commissioner of Aging for the State of Virginia. “I had a great job and a great future in Richmond, but I also had a 9-year-old son who I wanted to grow up in an environment much the way I had grown up — without fearing for his life. We lived in a good part of town, but we were still warned that our children should not play in our front yards.”
“I decided I was going to look for a new home where things were safer and when I crossed Urbanna bridge (Beryl Newman Memorial Bridge) and looked over to the Rappahannock River at that view and drove through town where there was not one stoplight I knew Urbanna was the place,” she said.
Vesley-Massey took a job with Bay Aging making $20,000 less than she was making in Richmond. “It was a sacrifice to come here, but it has been well worth it,” she said.
She is now CEO of Bay Aging in Urbanna and head of the $36.65 million nonprofit agency that works to bring quality of life to seniors in the Middle Peninsula, Northern Neck and beyond. “When I arrived here in 1998 Bay Aging worked from a $2 million budget,” she said.
Vesley-Massey purchased a home in Urbanna next door to the late Liz Newbill. “Liz was a great neighbor and she filled me in on the importance of the oyster festival to this region,” she said.
Newbill had been owner and operator of Liz’s Dress Shop on Cross Street. In 1958, members of the Urbanna Merchants Association, decided to present a festival event called Urbanna Day. Newbill was the only woman on the Urbanna Day committee and was there in 1961 when the name changed to Urbanna Oyster Festival.
“As much as anything I was fascinated with the history of the festival and how long it had been going on,” Vesley-Massey said. “I soon got involved and saw firsthand the importance of the festival to Urbanna and Middlesex County.”
“I thank Bruce Desimone (past chairman of the UOFF) for encouraging me to become active in the festival,” she said. “He is someone I respected and when he suggested to get involved, I thought it would be a good idea.”
“I know town residents have different views of the oyster festival,” she said. “I look at it as a rich part of the town’s heritage that once a year brings us all together.”
She continued, “It is the biggest thing that happens in Urbanna and Middlesex County all year long and is a chance for us all to celebrate our heritage and to show the world what a wonderful town and county we live in.
“The biggest thing to happen to me before being named grand marshal was when (President) Jimmy Carter gave me a peanut,” she said.
“I was president of the Legal Women Voters group (in the late 1970s) and we were supporting the Equal Rights Amendment when we sponsored a presidential debate in Williamsburg,” she said.
“I was one of the representatives who met President Carter at the airport,” she said. “He gave me a peanut. I have it to this day and that was my life highlight until I was named grand marshal.”
As part of being grand marshal, Vesley-Massey will be honored throughout the festival weekend and will ride in the firemen’s parade, in the grand marshal car, on Friday night and the annual Saturday festival parade.
