THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 20, 1995 TAG: 9508170238
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Tony Stein
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines
One way to learn if you're a newcomer to Chesapeake is to ask if you know Sid Oman. If you say ``Who?'' you're a newcomer.
Sid, a Chesapeaker since 1964, is an ex-mayor but a whole lot more than that. If you had a buck for every civic enterprise he's been involved with, you could buy me a new Cadillac out of pocket change. There is enough wood in the service plaques that line his office walls to build a new City Hall. Which, come to think of it, is not a bad idea.
Anyway, Sid just took over as chairman of the Chesapeake division of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce. That gave me an excuse to do another interview with him. And that's good because he has a politician's gift of gab coupled with a cheerful touch of hambone. He enjoys center stage, but for 30 years his talents have boosted his adopted city. What's more, there isn't a half-ounce of pomposity in his whole pudgy six-foot body. Yes, he's proud of a life packed with accomplishment. No, he doesn't take himself all that seriously.
Born in Trenton, N.J., he first landed in Virginia at Fork Union Military Academy in Fluvanna County. ``I wasn't a bad kid, but my dad thought I could use some discipline,'' Sid says. By his senior year, he was elected most popular cadet. When he tells you that, he says, ``I hate to brag.'' Then he grins and says, ``But I do a lot of it.''
After Fork Union came a hitch in the Marines. After the Marines, he headed for a mortuary college in Philadelphia. Ask him why he became a funeral director and he describes a funeral director he knew in his home town. ``He was admired and respected by everybody. He was deeply involved in charitable causes and he had a tremendous empathy with people.''
However, if Sid was pursuing a somber profession, his theatrical side was in high gear. His brother was pastor of a church that needed choir robes. OK, said Sid, let's put on a show to raise money. One of the people who helped with the show was Ernie Kovacs, the same Kovacs who became one of the early geniuses of TV comedy.
And Sid became part of the Kovacs' troupe on TV in Philadelphia. He wore a monkey suit in one skit and was the rear end of a horse in another. ``A reporter once told me,'' Sid says, ``that it was better to go from monkey to mayor than from mayor to monkey.''
Sid first came to Norfolk in the mid-1950s to join the marketing staff of a TV station. During those years, he was also executive director of Norfolk's Azalea Festival. He has a horror story to tell about it:
``I had persuaded Life magazine to send a reporter and photographer to interview the festival queen. The reporter asked her not to talk quite so fast, and she told him the problem was that he was thinking too slow. He walked out.''
When Sid came to Chesapeake in '64, it was as a full-time funeral director. Now he and his son Bob operate the Oman Funeral Home on Cedar Road. But along the way, there were the political years. He was mayor from 1980 to 1984 and 1986 to 1988. During that time, there was one particular budget hearing he will never forget.
``There were 72 speakers, so we limited them to three minutes each. But this lady came up with her three little daughters and they started singing a song she had written about the budget. Finally, one of the council members said, `Ma'am, this is a hearing, not a variety show.' ''
When Sid retired as Chesapeake's mayor, he moved to Elizabeth City to operate a second funeral home. But he was still scratching a political itch, and durned if he didn't become mayor there from 1989 to 1991.
Back home in Chesapeake, he had a battle to fight that was a lot tougher than any election could ever be. Doctors found a nasty case of prostate cancer. Four years later, Sid is cancer-free but deeply changed by the experience. ``I have a stronger religious faith and a lot more empathy with people whose loved ones had been cancer sufferers,'' he says.
Whenever Sid wields a gavel as mayor or chairman or whatever, he's known as a consensus builder. ``Instead of finding what's wrong,'' he says, ``let's find what's right, and maybe most of the wrongs will disintegrate. Let's talk it out. Let's not let problems linger because they only fester and get worse. Let's talk it out. Sometimes for a city council that's best done in private.
``The key is communication. If people really communicated well, there might not be any wars.''
And here he is, back in the semi-spotlight as a chamber of commerce guy. I hope they don't give him a plaque anytime soon. He's running out of wall space.
But Sid takes a practical view. ``With all those plaques,'' he says, ``I'll never have to paint.'' by CNB