CHATHAM, Va. â The 2020 proposed budget for the County of Pittsylvania was over $180 million. In 1972, that budget was 93 percent smaller. That was also the year that W. T. "Tommy" Gatewood would begin to affect some of the most significant changes in the history of the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors.
In 1972, Gatewood was elected to become the first representative of the Westover District, before it was annexed into Danville City. Gatewood, who served as a board member until 1984, said that the board he served on was the most influential board in the county's history.
"When we went on the board, we saw the things that needed to be done," he recounted. "I'm not saying that the previous boards were negligible in what they did, but we only had a clerk of the board, and all he did was keep the minutes and write checks. We knew that if the county was going to ever progress, we had to make some changes. We had to do some things and bite some bullets and make things happen."