The following article originally appeared in the 2009 Autumn issue of Hometown Magazine.
Good financial habits are passed down from generation to generation. In the case of the White family from Suffolk, their relationship with Bronco has been passed down for three generations.
The family patriarch, Orville White, started working at Union Camp in 1960 and joined the credit union the first year he was there. “I heard the other guys I was working with talking about the credit union,” says Orville, “so when I needed a car, I joined to get a loan. I’ve been with them every since—and I’m still with them. Through the years I have bought several cars and saved money through them, too.”
Orville knows the value of hard work. He taught practiced welding on his lunch hours so he could be promoted to a welder position at Union Camp. He put in 33 years before hanging up his welding torch and mask. Now retired, Orville spends his time looking after his wife, working around the house and raising cows for feeder calves.Gerald White, Orville’s son, keeps his ties with Bronco through the shared-branch agreement with the credit union at his place of business—the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. Currently the Deputy Superintendent of the Electrical Shop, Gerald started at the Navy Yard when he signed on to be an apprentice at the age of 18.
Even after 32 years of service, Gerald is still too young to retire, but he is already making some loose plans for when he gets there in five years. “I’ll probably do pretty much the same thing my dad is doing—raise a few cows, go on some vacations and just basically kick back and relax.”
One thing Gerald knows he won’t have to worry about is putting his son through college. Skylar White, this year’s John Alan Glasgow Memorial Scholarship winner, is adding his Bronco scholarship money to his hard-earned savings to attend James Madison University.
“I’m very proud of Skylar because he has worked very hard to save enough money to pay for his college,” says Gerald. “It’s a big burden off my mind.” Skylar admits with a laugh that he originally joined Bronco to safeguard his savings from his sister and the new branch in Suffolk was a very convenient place to do that.
In addition to the scholarship money that Skylar worked hard to earn, he also worked a number of different jobs to earn enough to pay for all four years of his undergraduate studies. One interesting job in particular was umpiring baseball and softball games for the Suffolk Youth Athletic Association. “It’s something my father and I could do together,” says Skylar. “It was a way for us to spend time together and also to make a little bit of extra gas money.”
Over the past summer, Skylar also had an opportunity to spend time with his dad on their daily ride to and from the Norfolk Navy Shipyard where Skylar was completing a summer intern program in the Engineering and Planning Department.
Currently, Skylar is majoring in Chemistry and will be going Pre-Med on his path to becoming a dermatologist. “I wanted to become a doctor, but I also want to be able to spend time with my family,” he explains. “While dermatologists have very tough jobs, they usually don’t have the same bad hours other doctors have.”
It’s evident that hard work and dedication run in the White family line, which is probably why they stick with a credit union that works just as hard to serve their needs—through the last three generations and beyond.
