Shreveport is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is the most populous city in the Shreveport-Bossier City metropolitan area. Shreveport ranks third in population in Louisiana after New Orleans and Baton Rouge and 126th in the U.S. The bulk of Shreveport is in Caddo Parish, of which it is the parish seat. Shreveport extends along the west bank of the Red River into neighboring Bossier Parish. Shreveport and Bossier City are separated by the Red River. The population of Shreveport was 199,311 as of the 2010 U.S. Census. The United States Census Bureau's 2017 estimate for the city's population decreased to 192,036.
Louisiana is a state in the Deep South region of the South Central United States. It is the 31st most extensive and the 25th most populous of the 50 United States. Louisiana is bordered by the state of Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, Mississippi to the east, and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. A large part of its eastern boundary is demarcated by the Mississippi River. Louisiana is the only U.S. state with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are equivalent to counties. The state's capital is Baton Rouge, and its largest city is New Orleans.
Louisiana Public Service Commission (PSC) is an independent regulatory agency which manages public utilities and motor carriers in Louisiana. The commission has five elected members chosen in single-member districts for staggered six-year terms. Thus the commissioners have large constituencies, long terms, and close involvement with issues of intense consumer interest ; consequently membership on PSC has been known to serve as a springboard to even higher public office, as in the cases of Huey Long, Jimmie Davis, John McKeithen, and Kathleen Babineaux Blanco —PSC members who became governors of Louisiana.
A Democrat, Kennon represented North Louisiana on the commission for two six-year terms from January 1, 1973, until December 31, 1984. During his tenure, the panel was enlarged from three to five members under a provision of the Louisiana Constitution of 1974.[1] Kennon first represented thirty-three parishes in District 3 and then eighteen parishes in the smaller District 5. Kennon's uncle was Robert F. Kennon, a conservative Democrat who served as governor of Louisiana from 1952 to 1956.
The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. Tracing its heritage back to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison's Democratic-Republican Party, the modern-day Democratic Party was founded around 1828 by supporters of Andrew Jackson, making it the world's oldest active political party.
North Louisiana is a region in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The region has two metropolitan areas: Shreveport-Bossier City and Monroe-West Monroe.
Robert Floyd Kennon Sr., known as Bob Kennon, was the 48th Governor of Louisiana, serving from 1952 to 1956. From 1954 to 1955, he was chairman of the National Governors Association. In 1955, he was also the chairman of the Council of State Governments.
Early years, education, business
Kennon was born in Minden, the seat of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana. His father, Francis Edward Kennon, Sr. (1899–1945), was known as F. E. Kennon; his mother, Clara Wallace Kennon (1913–1997), was a native of Arkansas. F. E. and his brother, Webb Kennon, operated the former Kennon's Grocery in downtown Minden, the first in Minden to have price tags on the merchandise. After Floyd's death, Clara continued to operate the store, for which she had long handled the financial obligations. She also did tax consulting for individual clients. The business was begun by Kennon's paternal grandfather, Floyd Kennon (1871–1966).[2] Kennon has a younger brother, Michael Wayne "Mike" Kennon (born 1942).
Minden is a small city in and the parish seat of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana, United States. It is located twenty-eight miles east of Shreveport in Caddo Parish. The population has been relatively stable since 1960, when it was 12,786. Minden is 51.7 percent African American.
Arkansas is a state in the southern region of the United States, home to over 3 million people as of 2018. Its name is of Siouan derivation from the language of the Osage denoting their related kin, the Quapaw Indians. The state's diverse geography ranges from the mountainous regions of the Ozark and the Ouachita Mountains, which make up the U.S. Interior Highlands, to the densely forested land in the south known as the Arkansas Timberlands, to the eastern lowlands along the Mississippi River and the Arkansas Delta.
After he graduated from Minden High School in 1956, Ed Kennon attended the Methodist-affiliated Centenary College in Shreveport but did not graduate. Instead, he entered the concrete business in Minden with Frank Burnett Treat, Jr. (1923–1994) and built the Kennon Apartments there. Later he became a high-powered developer in Shreveport, the seat of Caddo Parish, and adjoining Bossier City in Bossier Parish. He and his third wife are directors of the Tri-State Bank and Trust in Haughton in south Bossier Parish. Kennon purchased the bank from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.[3] and owns the Tri-State Sand and Gravel Company, the developer of Lakewood, a 600-home subdivision in Bossier. He also is the developer of Forest Hills in Bossier Parish. City.[4]
Minden High School (MHS) is the public secondary educational institution in Minden, a small city of 13,000 and the seat of Webster Parish located twenty-eight miles east of Shreveport in northwestern Louisiana. MHS houses grades nine through twelve but originally handled grades one through eleven prior to the establishment of the twelfth grade. The school is under the supervision of the elected Webster Parish School Board.
Centenary College of Louisiana is a private, four-year arts and sciences college located in Shreveport, Louisiana. The college is affiliated with the United Methodist Church. Founded in 1825, it is the oldest chartered liberal arts college west of the Mississippi River and is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS).
Concrete, usually Portland cement concrete, is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement that hardens over time—most frequently a lime-based cement binder, such as Portland cement, but sometimes with other hydraulic cements, such as a calcium aluminate cement. It is distinguished from other, non-cementitious types of concrete all binding some form of aggregate together, including asphalt concrete with a bitumen binder, which is frequently used for road surfaces, and polymer concretes that use polymers as a binder.
In the political arena
Late in 1963, after Kennon's uncle failed to gain a Democratic runoff slot in a gubernatorial comeback attempt, Ed Kennon, as chairman of the Webster Parish Morrison for Governor Committee, in a public speech in Minden endorsed former New OrleansMayordeLesseps S. "Chep" Morrison, Sr., who was making a third bid for governor. (Robert Kennon sat out the runoff.) Despite Kennon's assistance, Morrison fared poorly in north Louisiana and lost the runoff to John J. McKeithen, a folksy lawyer from tiny Columbia, the seat of Caldwell Parish south of Monroe. Ironically, gubernatorial candidate McKeithen then held the PSC seat to which Kennon would be elected eight years later.
New Orleans is a consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of Louisiana. With an estimated population of 393,292 in 2017, it is the most populous city in Louisiana. A major port, New Orleans is considered an economic and commercial hub for the broader Gulf Coast region of the United States.
deLesseps Story Morrison, Sr., known as Chep Morrison, was an American attorney and politician, who was the 54th mayor of New Orleans, Louisiana from 1946 to 1961. He then served as an appointee of U.S. President John F. Kennedy as the United States ambassador to the Organization of American States between 1961 and 1963.
John Julian McKeithen was an American lawyer, politician, and the 49th governor of Louisiana, serving from 1964 to 1972. A Democrat and attorney from the rural town of Columbia, he first served in other state offices. In 1967 he gained passage after his first term of a constitutional amendment to allow governors to serve two successive terms. He was the first governor of his state in the twentieth century to be elected and serve two consecutive terms. He strongly advocated the construction of the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans.
On November 6, 1971, Kennon ran unsuccessfully in a 10-candidate Democratic field for lieutenant governor in an effort to succeed the retiring Clarence C. "Taddy" Aycock of Franklin, the seat of St. Mary Parish in south Louisiana. Aycock instead ran for governor. Kennon finished third with 162,944 votes. Other candidates in the field included two bankers who served in the legislature, State SenatorJamar Adcock of Monroe and State RepresentativeP.J. Mills of Shreveport, who finished narrowly behind Kennon in fourth place. Mills later headed Blue Cross Blue Shield in his native Baton Rouge. The party nomination and the general election went to former New Orleans City Councilman James E. "Jimmy" Fitzmorris, Jr., a former Morrison protégé. After he defeated Adcock in the party runoff election, Fitzmorris easily dispatched the Republican candidate, former State Representative Morley A. Hudson of Shreveport.[5] Closed primaries ended in Louisiana in 1975, but they returned briefly in 2008 only for congressional races. In the lieutenant governor's race, Kennon also had to compete with a second candidate from Webster Parish, outgoing State Representative Parey P. Branton, Sr., of Shongaloo. Branton was allied with gubernatorial candidate John G. Schwegmann of Jefferson Parish in the New Orleans suburbs. Ironically, Schwegmann later became one of Kennon's colleagues on the Public Service Commission. Statewide, Branton polled only 53,295 votes, fewer than one third of the votes that Kennon amassed.[6]
The Office of Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana is the second highest state office in Louisiana. The current lieutenant governor is Billy Nungesser, a Republican.
Franklin is a small city in and the parish seat of St. Mary Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 7,660 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Morgan City Micropolitan Statistical Area.
St. Mary Parish is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2010 census, the population was 54,650. The parish seat is Franklin. The parish was created in 1811.
Election to the Public Service Commission
In the August 19, 1972, Democratic primary for the PSC, Kennon challenged incumbent John S. Hunt, II, a Monroe attorney and a nephew of former Governors Huey Pierce Long, Jr., and Earl Kemp Long. Hunt's mother, Lucille Long Hunt (1898–1985), was a sister of the two governors. Also in the race was a Long kinsman named "Huey P. Long" (1929–2004),[7] then of Pineville in Rapides Parish. Hunt alleged that Kennon had recruited Long as a candidate to siphon away some of Hunt's pro-Long support.[8]
In the primary, Kennon led with 122,573 votes (47.1 percent) to Hunt's 106,212 (40.8 percent). Long procured a critical 31,692 votes (12.2 percent). Kennon led in twenty-three parishes in the sprawling district, which then reached as far south as West Baton Rouge Parish. He won 58 percent in his native Webster Parish and also procured pluralities in Natchitoches, La Salle, De Soto, Avoyelles, St. Landry, and the Long traditional stronghold of Winn. Hunt led in ten parishes, including Caddo, Bossier, Lincoln, Ouachita, and Jackson.[9]
Kennon easily defeated Hunt in the September 30 party runoff election, 125,877 votes (58 percent) to 90,833 (42 percent). Kennon won twenty-nine parishes to Hunt's four. Hunt lost his native Lincoln Parish in the runoff by 176 votes and held his home base, Ouachita Parish, by a single vote, 15,502 to 15,501.[10] Kennon was unopposed in the November 7 general election, as no Republican candidate qualified for the ballot.
On September 16, 1978, Kennon won his second term in the revised Fifth District PSC seat. In the nonpartisan blanket primary, he polled 124,147 votes (71 percent) to 50,652 (29 percent) for intraparty rival Wayne Martin Pender (born 1940)[11] of Monroe. Kennon won all eighteen parishes.[12] Again, there was no Republican candidate for the seat, once held by Huey P. Long, Jr., himself.
Kennon joined the three-member PSC when he was thirty-four. The senior member and chairman, Ernest S. Clements, a Long protégé, was seventy-five and nearing the end of a long public career. The two presented a contrast in age and faction. Clements left the PSC at the end of 1974. With the five-member board, Kennon served with fellow Commissioners John F. Schwegmann (son of John G. Schwegmann), Nat B. Knight, Thomas E. "Tommy" Powell of Eunice in Evangeline Parish, and chairman Louis Lambert, Jr., of Baton Rouge, a former and future member of the Louisiana State Senate. Kennon did not seek public office after his PSC term expired, but in 1994 he announced that he would run for governor in 1995. Instead he withdrew from gubernatorial consideration on August 2, 1994, and the seat eventually went to Republican Murphy J. "Mike" Foster, Jr., of St. Mary Parish, the grandson of a previous namesake governor.[13]
Kennon was first married to the former Mary Virginia Nehring (1942–2002), "Miss Minden" in 1960, by whom he had a son, John Edward Kennon (1967–2003). He adopted two children by Virginia's first marriage to Rodney McMichael: Rodney Kennon (married to the former Jymme Story) of Bossier City[16] and Kelly Kennon Gillis (born 1964) of Haughton.[17]
After Kennon and Virginia divorced, he married the former Jeanette Claire "Jenny" Woodard (born 1939), who was the widow of professional basketball player Jackie Moreland. After seven years of marriage, Kennon divorced Jeanette.[2] He then wed the former Brenda Evans (born 1958). They have a daughter, Kari Melissa Kennon (born 1986).
The Kennons reside in the fashionable Ellerbe Road area of southeast Shreveport.
Paul Jude Hardy is an American attorney from Baton Rouge, in the U.S. state of Louisiana, who was the first Republican to have been elected lieutenant governor of the U.S. state of Louisiana since Reconstruction. He served in the second-ranking post under Governor Buddy Roemer from 1988 to 1992.
Sam Houston Jones was the 46th Governor of Louisiana for the term from 1940 to 1944. He defeated the renowned Earl Kemp Long in the 1940 Democratic runoff primary election. Eight years later, Long then in a reversal of 1940 defeated Jones in the 1948 party primary.
Allison Ray Kolb was the Democratic auditor of Louisiana from 1952 to 1956, who angered many local officials in the pursuit of his job duties and was hence defeated by former Lieutenant Governor William J. "Bill" Dodd in the 1956 party primary. While he was a Democrat, Kolb was a part of the anti-Long faction in Louisiana politics.
Jamar William Adcock was a high-profile banker and a Democratic state senator from Monroe, Louisiana, who served from 1960 to 1972. He was Senate president pro tempore in his third term from 1968 to 1972.
Parey Pershing Branton Sr. was a businessman from Shongaloo, Louisiana, who was from 1960 to 1972 a Democratic member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from what is now District 10 in Webster Parish. The district, which includes the parish seat of Minden in northwestern Louisiana, is now represented by the Democrat Gene Reynolds of Dubberly.
Richard Harmon Drew Sr., was a fourth generation judge and a Democratic state representative who was descended from pioneer families of Webster Parish in North Louisiana. The first Drew in the area, Newett Drew, established a grist mill on Dorcheat Bayou in 1818 in what became the former community of Overton, subsequently obliterated by yellow fever. Drew's father, grandfather, and great-grandfather all held judicial positions in either the city of Minden, or Webster and surrounding parishes. As of 2011, his son Richard Harmon Drew Jr. of Minden is serving his second 10-year term on the Louisiana Second Circuit Court of Appeal, based in Shreveport.
Wiley Douglas Fowler Sr., known as Doug Fowler, was a politician from rural Red River Parish in northwestern Louisiana, a loyal supporter of Governor Earl Kemp Long, and his state's chief elections officer from 1959, until declining health forced his retirement, effective December 31, 1979. Fowler laid the groundwork for a small-scale family political dynasty in Louisiana. Jerry Marston Fowler succeeded his father as elections commissioner and served until a scandal caused his own defeat, effective in 2000. And one of Fowler's two brothers, H.M. "Mutt" Fowler, went into local politics, served in the Louisiana House of Representatives for fourteen years and ended his public career, also amid a scandal, as the executive director of the Sabine River Authority in Many.
Louis Joseph Lambert Jr., is a Louisiana attorney, businessman, and politician. He served as a former member and chairman of the Louisiana Public Service Commission, and was elected to the Louisiana State Senate, serving one term 1972-1974, and again from 1994 to 2004.
Jack Arthur Blossman Jr., known as Jay Blossman, is an attorney from Mandeville, Louisiana, who is a Republican former member of the Louisiana Public Service Commission. Blossman was the PSC chairman for his last two years on the board, 2007 to 2008.
John Sidney Garrett was a conservative Democratic member of the Louisiana House of Representatives who served from 1948 to 1972 under four gubernatorial administrations. Garrett was a successful businessman in the small town of Haynesville in Claiborne Parish south of the Arkansas state line. In his last term, he was defeated for reelection even though he was the Speaker of the House. In 1966, Garrett made a strong but losing primary race for the Louisiana Public Service Commission to fill the seat vacated by the election of John McKeithen as governor. At the time, there were only three PSC districts; the number was increased to five under the Louisiana Constitution of 1974.
Foster Lonnie Campbell Jr., is an American politician and member of the Democratic Party from the U.S. state of Louisiana. Since 2003, he has been a member of the Louisiana Public Service Commission. He served in the Louisiana State Senate from 1976 to 2002.
Carlos Gustave Spaht, I, was a Louisiana judge best remembered for having lost the Democratic gubernatorial runoff election in January 1952 to fellow Judge Robert F. Kennon of Minden, the seat of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana. Spaht's unsuccessful running mate for lieutenant governor was future Governor John J. McKeithen of Columbia, the seat of Caldwell Parish in north Louisiana. McKeithen lost to then State Senator C.E. "Cap" Barham of Ruston, the seat of Lincoln Parish, also in north Louisiana. At the time, McKeithen was an outgoing member of the Louisiana House of Representatives.
John Smoker Hunt II was a nephew of Governors Huey Pierce Long Jr. and Earl Kemp Long who served on the elected Louisiana Public Service Commission from May 1964, to December 31, 1972. He was unseated in the September 30, 1972, Democratic primary runoff election by Francis Edward Kennon Jr., then of Minden in Webster Parish and a nephew of former Governor Robert F. Kennon, an intraparty rival of the Longs.
Ernest Dewey Gleason, known as E. D. Gleason, was a Democratic member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from the Evergreen Community north of Minden in Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana. Gleason served from 1952 until his death at the end of his second term. He was briefly succeeded in office by his widow, Mary Smith Gleason, who was appointed for the remaining eight months by then Governor Earl Kemp Long.
Drayton Rogers Boucher was a Louisiana state legislator from Springhill in northern Webster Parish, Louisiana, affiliated with the Long faction of state Democratic politics. Boucher represented Webster Parish for a single four-year term in the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1936 to 1940. and three terms in the State Senate from a combination district including Webster and Bossier parishes from 1940 to 1952. In the Senate, he succeeded Coleman Lindsey (1892–1968) of Minden, who in 1939 became lieutenant governor upon the succession to the governorship of Earl Kemp Long.
Wellborn Jack, Sr., was an attorney from Shreveport, Louisiana, who was a Democratic member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from Caddo Parish, having served from 1940 to 1964. He finished in sixth place for five at-large seats in the general election held on March 3, 1964. Winning the fifth position was future State Senator and U.S. Senator J. Bennett Johnston, Jr., a fellow Democrat.
Charles Emmett McConnell, also known as Jack McConnell, was an American attorney and Democratic politician, who was elected in 1954 as the mayor of Springhill in northern Louisiana,
James McGoldrick McLemore was a landowner, cattleman, and auction barn owner from Alexandria who ran unsuccessfully in 1952 and 1956 for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in his native Louisiana. In the second election, he became the first candidate for governor to base his campaign almost entirely on the preservation of racial segregation in the aftermath of the May 17, 1954 United States Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education. The victors in the two elections were Robert F. Kennon and Earl Kemp Long, respectively.
References
↑ Statement from the Louisiana Public Service Commission in Baton Rouge
↑ Report of the Louisiana Secretary of State, "Official Returns of the Democratic First Primary Election, August 19, 1972", Member of the Public Service Commission, Third District"
↑ Report of the Louisiana Secretary of State, "Official Returns of Democratic Second Primary Election, September 30, 1972", Member of the Public Service Commission, Third District
↑ Report of the Louisiana Secretary of State, "Official Returns of Open Primary Election September 16, 1978", Member of the Louisiana Public Service Commission, Fifth District
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