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From White House to Lake Anna Billy Ray Former head of White House Travel Office

Billy Ray Dale was director of the White House Travel Office during the Clinton administration. After surmounting "Travelgate," he enjoys a quiet retirement in Spotsylvania County. By Jim Kundreskas

Date published: 5/6/2006

SPOTSYLVANIA COUNTY resi- dents Billy Ray Dale and his wife, Blanche, live today in retirement on the shore of Lake Anna. Billy worked for the U.S. government--as did his wife, before she took time off to raise their three children.

"Public servants," those kinds of people are often called.

They frequently work exceedingly hard to support the people and public interest of the United States. This is sometimes a noble profession, and real pride and personal satisfaction can be attained when you do your job well. Anyway, that's how these stories should play out. Keep that in mind as you read on.

Now, "Billy Ray Dale" might that name be ringing a faint bell in your memory?

Here's some help: Dale was in charge of the White House Travel Office during the Clinton administration. Yes, it's that Billy Ray Dale.

The national press back then called that ill-fated Clinton-presidency incident "Travelgate," but it might more properly have been tagged "Dalegate," for it most certainly was a personal assault on Dale and his family.

However, when all the partisan dust finally settled, it was Blanche and Billy who welcomed victory, while that other Bill, and his wife, Hillary, were on a different side of the political aisle.

Billy Ray Dale grew up in the southwestern corner of Virginia in a little town called Grundy near both the West Virginia and Kentucky borders.

There is no Lake Anna recreational area down there, nothing as big as a Central Park for shopping, and government employers like Dahlgren are nonexistent. "When I graduated high school," said Dale, "the choices were pretty much working in the coal mines, going into the sawmills or getting a job at some local gas station."

Billy's dad was a coal miner, and made it clear to his son that Billy needed to leave the area for any real chance at a better opportunity.

Billy worked during breaks in high school for an uncle who was a foreman at one of the mines. After one of his shifts underground, he remembers his dad saying to him, "This is only what's going to be in store for you, for the rest of your life, if you don't leave this place."

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Date published: 5/6/2006