Earlier this year, David Helms acknowledged that he sometimes drew criticism for spending so much time at the Marion Fire-EMS building. The town’s mayor refused to apologize for his presence among the first-responders, saying that firefighting and rescue services were in his blood and those who continued offering that help were among his family. Yet, they weren’t the only members of his large extended family for as he proved throughout his life, service of all kinds ran through him -- mind, body, and spirit.
As news of Helms’ death spread Thursday morning, people throughout the town, county, region, and Commonwealth testified to how his passionate service touched their lives.
Following in his father’s footsteps, Helms began his community service in his hometown when he joined the Glade Spring Volunteer Fire Department along with his brother. Helms also volunteered with the community’s rescue squad.
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After high school, Helms went to Emory & Henry College, earning a bachelor's degree in Elementary Education in 1963. In addition to preparing him for his education career that extended across 37 years and permanently brought Helms to Smyth County, the future mayor got his first job for Marion during his time at E&H. The young Helms accompanied the late Evelyn Lawrence to a pool that at the time served Marion’s Black community. It was his job to clean the pool.
He and Lawrence, a teacher, historian, and advocate for progress, often worked together until her death in 2015.
Helms first put his college degree to work, teaching fifth grade in Washington County.
A few years later, he decided to honor his father's legacy and sought a seat on the Glade Town Council.
However, his education career brought Helms to a teaching position at Marion Intermediate School in 1970. He was quickly promoted to assistant principal of Marion Primary School. In 1973, he advanced to the school’s principal. He served in that post until his retirement in 2000.
Helms’ brother also called Marion home, serving first on the town staff and then on its council. He died in 1989, and, the following year, Helms again picked up the family legacy and ran for a seat of the Marion Town Council. He won.
A decade later, Helms ran for the mayor’s seat and was continuously re-elected.
Vice Mayor Jim Gates came on the council two years later and for 32 years the pair served side by side.
Thursday, Gates said that they shared a goal of keeping the council on task, which was doing the best for Marion. That meant, he said, working through crises sensibly and moving forward when all was going well.
Throughout his decades of service, Gates said, Helms thrived “being an ambassador for the town.” Whether weekday or weekend, he noted that the mayor would try to meet every official, tour group, and unique visitor who came to Marion. Speaking well and easily, Gates said Helms enjoyed the work. Helms could make most people feel welcome, including those who came to town council meetings to speak about difficult subjects, Gates observed.
Still, the vice mayor acknowledged, “We both made mistakes.” And, both men matured in their service.
Gates watched Helms transform from a no-nonsense principal to a more open leader. Early on, Helms struggled to understand all the effort it took to make the town operate, but later, Gates said, the mayor admitted, “I never realized how hard all the people in this building work.”
In his later years, Helms regularly praised members of the town staff for their work and dedication. He was always quick to deflect praise for the town’s successes, directing it to the full council and staff.
The vice mayor ticked off a long list of accomplishments achieved during Helms’ tenure. Those ranged from the recent agreement with the county regarding EMS operations to the town’s unique program to address blight and develop new housing to getting an elevator in the Town Hall. He listed Helms’ involvement with launching and the continuing success of the musical concert series Song of the Mountains that is taped in Marion for airing on Public Broadcast stations to the Salvation Army to promoting patriotism and supporting veterans.
Helms’ guidance led the council to hire Bill Rush as its town manager and John Clair as the police chief, Gates noted.
His perseverance, his vision, said Gates, served as “a ramrod for a lot we’ve accomplished.”
“He will be missed,” Gates said, while hoping “the next mayor can follow in his footsteps.
As mayor, the first town manager worked extensively with Helms was John Clark, who was hired in November of 2000. They served together for more than a dozen years until Clark retired in the spring of 2013.
Thursday, Clark, now serving as Chilhowie’s town manager, remembered that Helms “loved his role as mayor” and promoting Marion, Southwest Virginia, and the Commonwealth.
“There was hardly a ribbon he didn’t cut or a baby he didn’t kiss,” Clark said with a chuckle. Turning entirely serious, Clark described Helms as a “man of integrity, a man of his word…. He will be missed.”
Clark also estimated that at least a quarter of Marion’s population were one-time students of Helms.
Board of Supervisors Chair Charlie Atkins also reflected on Helms’ students, saying, “He loved his students…. He still loved them as citizens.”
Atkins also called Helms an “ambassador for Marion, Smyth County.”
County Administrator Shawn Utt reflected that Helms possessed considerable passion for the town and county.
Utt and Atkins agreed that with Helms’ emphasis on partnerships and working together “a lot of historic issues were resolved.”
Atkins also noted that Helms possessed a rare ability to diffuse tension. While, Supervisor Courtney Widener added, that Helms was always “working to build bridges.”
Atkins, a Vietnam veteran and member of Marion’s VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) post, also reflected on Helms’ close relationship with the VFW and his commitment to bolstering patriotism in Marion.
Helms loved to share how U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine described Marion as the nation’s most patriotic town.
Each year, Helms was a key figure in planning and carrying out the community’s Memorial Day activities that included lining the courthouse lawn and beyond with more than 1,000 U.S. flags and crosses remembering deceased veterans, a parade, formal ceremony, and community cookout.
Helms always emphasized that he was not a veteran but he was there to support those who were, Atkins said.
“Mayor Helms was a fixture at our VFW post,” said Commonwealth’s Attorney Phillip “Bucky” Blevins. “You could almost guarantee Mayor Helms would be in attendance at every meeting - and that if he was, you could count on him speaking to the audience. The Mayor never missed an opportunity to tell the men and women of Post 4667 how grateful he was for our service. In his opening remarks, Mayor Helms would remind the audience that ‘he was not a member of the VFW because he was not a veteran himself.’ Mayor Helms may not have served in a foreign war, but he certainly served those of us who did.”
“God blessed me, and my comrades at VFW Post 4667, with the biggest cheerleader and supporter in Mayor Helms; his gratitude for veterans was as genuine as the day is long. Mayor Helms' absence leaves a void that can never be filled, but his memory and spirit will continue to inspire me and my comrades at Post 4667. While I will deeply miss my friend and confidant, I know that we'll meet again,” Blevins said.
Saltville Mayor Todd Young remembered walking with Helms in a Memorial Day parade, helping carry a large flag. Along the route, Helms saw constituents he wanted to speak with and left Young to finish out the parade with the flag. Thursday, that memory proved bittersweet to Young, who said Helms’ loss hurts. “It just really truly hurts.”
He lauded Helm’s work for Marion, the region, and beyond, saying, “He was well respected across the state.”
In 2014, Helms served as the 95th president of the Virginia Municipal League, an association of city, town and county governments that strives to improve and assist local governments.
When Young was elected to the VML board late last year, Helms bolstered him.
He also celebrated Helms’ belief in building cooperation among agencies and people.
“My heart goes out to the Town of Marion… and to his wife,” Young said.
Though she was traveling, VML Executive Director Michelle Gowdy also reflected on Helms’ legacy, saying his “heartfelt dedication to the league’s mission meant that his influence and support for sound local government resonated throughout Virginia. While our deepest sympathies go out to the Town of Marion, there are people serving local governments in every corner of the Commonwealth whose lives he touched that will also miss him dearly. The next time our members gather his absence will be deeply felt.”
Each VML president selects a platform for his year of service. Helms emphasized his hallmark of service in Marion: his commitment to the community’s veterans and promoting patriotic events to recognize their contributions and encourage others to follow their lead in giving back.
In his first address to the VML members as their president, Helms extended his message farther, challenging Virginia’s local municipal leaders to unite in a call to patriotism and service motivated by its spirit.
Reminding the leaders that they are “the most directly accessible elected officials our fellow citizens can get a hold of,“ he charged them “not to wait for another terrible tragedy to strike, but for each of us to strike out, to find ways to come together, like we have so many times throughout our country’s history, and be Americans first! Not politician versus citizen, party versus party, small town versus metropolitan city, but Americans. Let’s find ways to come together as patriots, as proud Americans….”
“And let’s resolve to lead our communities with that awesome honor and responsibility, pulling together while allowing the exchange of ideas through civil discourse, but with the ultimate goal of serving those who voted us in office…. Join me… to recommit our service to the very people we serve, to bring them the very best government we are able, and to leave office knowing we have not left a shattered, divided commonwealth, but one much stronger because of the common fabrics we weave. Let us serve with the fervor of patriotism. Let us serve.”
Helms’ contacts throughout the state and among federal legislators often gave him the opportunity to advocate for rural America.
In 2017, Helms served as the lone voice for small towns when he testified before a U.S. House of Representatives committee in an effort to save a threatened grant program that helps communities provide essentials like water and sewer and create economic growth. Others testifying that day included the mayor of the city of Gary, Indiana; the mayor of the city of Allentown, Pennsylvania; the director of community development for the city of Shreveport, Louisiana; and leaders of housing services in Los Angeles, California, and Washington, D.C.
News of Helms’ death reached federal legislators. Rep. Morgan Griffith issued a statement on the mayor’s death: “I am saddened to learn of the death of Marion Mayor David Helms. Working with him over the years, his great love of Marion and Smyth County was evident. As a public-school teacher, principal, and town council member, he exhibited some of the finest qualities of a public servant. His passing is a great loss to his community and the Commonwealth of Virginia.”
For all his work to benefit the state and country nowhere are the fruits of Helms’ labor more obvious than Marion.
In 2021, when Marion celebrated Helms’ legacy of service, Rush described Helms “as an engaged mayor as you’ll ever see.”
That desire to see Marion prosper regularly brought Helms into the office about 30 hours a week, noted Rush in 2021. In more populous communities, Rush said, the mayor’s post is full-time and paid. That’s not the case in Marion, but the town manager said Marion’s citizens still benefited from a full-time mayor.
During his tenure, Helms worked for growth and downtown revitalization, supported youth programs, and each Christmas season he could be found ringing a Red Kettle bell for the Salvation Army or recruiting others to help the charity.
During Helms’ tenure, Marion won three VML Achievement Awards: one in 2002 for the public-private partnership to develop a Callan Drive neighborhood, another in 2012 for downtown revitalization, and a third in 2015 for the town’s innovative Pop Up Marion entrepreneur development program.
In 2021, those awards were put together in a display case in the Town Hall to serve “as a permanent reminder of the accomplishments of the Town of Marion as part of Mayor David Helms’ continuing and lasting legacy of service to our community, our county, our region, and our Commonwealth….”
Helms’ leadership was characterized by civility, respect, and an eye to future generations.
Chief Clair reflected, “Mayor Helms was a pure statesman, whose style of public governance harkened to a more civilized age. His tenure might be seen as something of a last waltz, of the Virginia Gentleman.”
That gentleman was supported in all his endeavors by his wife, Sue.
In 2021, Helms described Sue as his “heart, soul and inspiration.”
Reflecting then on his life, the mayor said succinctly, “I feel blessed.”
Helms regularly thanked citizens who attended council meetings for doing so. In 2013, he championed greater citizen involvement in the community, saying he’d like to see more people ask, “How can I help?”
Anne Hull, a coordinator for the Appalachian Spirit Gallery, noted Thursday that Helms was also a champion for local artists. On Facebook, she wrote, “He was, without a doubt, our staunchest friend of the Appalachian Spirit Gallery. He supported us through many years of growth beginning when we opened in 2005; and he never stopped giving us his time, energy and encouragement.”
To honor Helms’ legacy, Hull suggested that others “please tell someone how much you love them, reach out to a neighbor experiencing problems or loneliness, thank a teacher, and support all the people who make the Town of Marion so special!”
Thursday night, the first-responders with whom Helms’ spent so much time were missing their peer. Chief Rusty Hamm said, “Mayor Helms made a tremendous impression on the Marion Fire & EMS family and his steadfast support will be missed.”
Arrangements to memorialize Helms’ life had not been announced by press time.