THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 6, 1997 TAG: 9702060416
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 40 lines
Robert C. Nusbaum has been named Norfolk's First Citizen for 1996.
The Norfolk native and lawyer will be honored at the Cosmopolitan Club's 73rd annual awards banquet March 8 at the Norfolk Waterside Marriott Hotel.
``He is an unsung hero of almost 50 years of community service,'' said Beryl Love, who served on the four-member awards selection committee and is director of the Tidewater Council of the Boy Scouts of America.
Love said Nusbaum had distinguished himself through his work in education, medicine and religion.
The Norfolk club selected its initial First Citizen in 1928, the first such award of its kind and the model for the many now given in communities nationwide, said Tom Jones, chairman of the Norfolk club's civic affairs committee.
The award is ``advocational,'' and Nusbaum ``typifies that,'' Jones said.
Nusbaum, 72, said he felt honored to have been chosen.
On the long list of organizations Nusbaum has led and worked with is The Aid Fund, which he co-founded and, during the 1960s, directed. The group raised money to send local black students to college and graduate school.
Nusbaum also was first president of the Virginia Commission on Women and Minorities in the Legal System.
He pointed to his mother, Justine L. Nusbaum - 1979's first citizen award recipient - as a role model for his many years of community service.
To honor his mother, who is 96, and to perpetuate her grass-roots advocacy, Robert Nusbaum started and endowed Justine's Clothes Bank. It provides new clothing for people in need. MEMO: Tickets for the awards banquet are $75 and may be bought by
calling Jeffrey Black at 855-8041. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Robert C. Nusbaum is being honored for his work in education,
medicine and religion.