Who's your favorite Gym Leader and why?

Lt. Surge is mine, as a child the episode featuring him was my favorite since he was a tough electric type gym leader. I have always thought Ash was a bitch for not evolving Pikachu, I didn't care about their respectful friendship, he would of gotten over it and became awesome being a Riachu with his 100,000 volts. Also, Lt. Surge reminds some of Kanto war theories.