Diamondback Online - The University of Maryland's Independent Daily Student Newspaper

Former College Park mayor and council member Dervey Lomax died of cancer this month. He was 84.

Lomax became College's Park first and only black mayor after being elected in 1973. He previously had served as a council member for 14 years. Though he served only a single two-year term as mayor, he stayed active in city politics into this decade.

District 2 Councilman Jack Perry, the only current council member who lived in College Park while Lomax was mayor, remembered him as an "all-around good councilman" who was already heavily involved in city affairs when Perry - the current oldtimer on the council - moved to College Park in 1969.

"There goes another one," Perry said. "He's going to be missed by a good many people in the city."

Lomax's mayoral victory over a white opponent in a mostly white city was a high point for a man who had been a part of the early civil rights movement.

"Ten years ago, this city never would have voted for a black person for mayor," then-Prince George's County Executive William Gullett told The Diamondback in 1973. The Diamondback endorsed Lomax as the student-friendly candidate in his 1975 re-election campaign.

Lomax went on to serve as the chairman of Gullett's human relations committee at the county. His day job was working for the Navy as an instrument coordinator.

More recently, Lomax was active in Barack Obama's presidential campaign, where he worked with College Park District 3 Councilman Mark Cook, who described him as a "personal inspiration."

"He was amazing. He's been working with election stuff since the '50s," Cook said. "Even at the viewing, he had a Sen. Obama lapel pin on. He never stopped campaigning. It's the sort of man he was."

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