Colgan Is Virginia's Longest-Serving Senator

Sen. Charles J. Colgan took his Senate oath for his 10th term Wednesday, making the 85-year-old Democrat the longest-serving state senator in Virginia history.

Colgan, of Prince William County, was elected during the term of President Gerald Ford in 1975. He has been a member of the budget-writing Finance Committee for most of that time and most recently was its chairman.

With the start of the 2012 General Assembly, Colgan begins 36 years of service in the Senate. That ties him with Henry Taylor Wickham, of Hanover, who served in the Senate from 1889 to 1906, then returned to the Senate in 1923 and remained there until 1942.

Having survived a close re-election battle in November, Colgan becomes the only World War II veteran in the Virginia Senate.