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The former Pineville City Hall building was the location of the municipal office of Mayor Floyd Smith from 1966-1970. The building now houses the only museum in Louisiana dedicated to municipal government.
Business is the activity of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling products. Simply put, it is "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit. It does not mean it is a company, a corporation, partnership, or have any such formal organization, but it can range from a street peddler to General Motors."
Winnfield is a small city in the parish seat of Winn Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 5,749 at the 2000 census, and 4,840 in 2010. Three governors of the state of Louisiana were from Winnfield.
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.
Smith was born and reared in Winnfield, the seat of Winn Parish, to Floyd W. Smith, Sr. (March 28, 1902 – January 15, 1969),[2] and the former Carmel Long (died 1994), a daughter of William Morris Long (1887–1967) and the former Fannie Boyd (1893–1955). William Morris Long was an older brother of Felix Franklin Long (1899–1982), the father of Speedy O. Long. Smith's maternal great-grandfather, Charles Felix Long, was a first cousin of Huey Pierce Long, Sr., or Hugh Long, the father of Huey Pierce Long Jr., who as his political power grew became known as the "Louisiana Kingfish".[3]
Winn Parish is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2010 census, the population was 15,313. Its seat is Winnfield. The parish was founded in 1852. It is last in alphabetical order of Louisiana's sixty-four parishes.
Floyd Smith's maternal uncle, named "Huey P. Long" (August 30, 1929 – June 14, 2004),[2] was only three years Smith's senior. This Huey P. Long was born on the same calendar day that Huey P. Long, Jr. was mortally wounded – but six years apart. Smith's paternal grandfather, W. W. Smith, was a cattleman in Rapides Parish who once operated a slaughterhouse.[3]
A slaughterhouse or abattoir is a facility where animals are slaughtered, most often to provide food for humans. Slaughterhouses supply meat, which then becomes the responsibility of a packaging facility.
In 1950, Smith graduated from Winnfield Senior High School in Winnfield. He was the president of both his junior and senior classes. One of his classmates, later State RepresentativeJimmy D. Long of Natchitoches, was another cousin. Smith said that the two once got into a boxing competition. Smith was a paternal Smith and a maternal Long, and Jimmy Long was a paternal Long and a maternal Smith, whose mother was the former Ruby Smith (1906–1984). Ruby Smith Long was a sister of another former state representative, the late P.K. Smith of Winnfield, and the aunt of former State SenatorMike Smith, also of Winnfield.[3]
The Louisiana State Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is a bicameral body, comprising the lower house, the Louisiana House of Representatives with 105 representatives, and the upper house, the Louisiana Senate with 39 senators. Members of both houses are elected from single-member constituencies.
Jimmy Dale Long Sr. was a Democratic member of the Louisiana House of Representatives for District 23 from 1968 until 2000. He was the "dean" of the Louisiana House when he returned to private life. A recognized authority on educational policy, for sixteen years, he chaired the House Education Committee. Shreveport The ShreveportTimes named Long "One of the 100 Most Influential People of the 20th Century in North Louisiana." He was a member of the Long political dynasty.
Natchitoches is a small city and the parish seat of Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, United States. Established in 1714 by Louis Juchereau de St. Denis as part of French Louisiana, the community was named after the indigenous Natchitoches people.
Political career
After high school, Smith attended the University of Louisiana at Monroe, as it was later named, for a semester and worked part-time in a clothing factory. In December 1950, Long enlisted in the United States Air Force and served for eight months at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama.[4][5] Thereafter, he was employed by the large Central Louisiana Electric Company. From 1962 to 1966, he was chairman of the Pineville Municipal Democratic Executive Committee. He was elected mayor in 1966, having unseated the incumbent P. Elmo Futrell Jr.,[2] by 121 votes. In 1964, in his third year as mayor, Futrell had been named "Mayor of the Year" by the Louisiana Municipal Association.[6]
The University of Louisiana at Monroe (ULM) is a coeducational public university in Monroe, Louisiana, United States, and part of the University of Louisiana System.
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the aerial and space warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the five branches of the United States Armed Forces, and one of the seven American uniformed services. Initially formed as a part of the United States Army on 1 August 1907, the USAF was established as a separate branch of the U.S. Armed Forces on 18 September 1947 with the passing of the National Security Act of 1947. It is the youngest branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, and the fourth in order of precedence. The USAF is the largest and most technologically advanced air force in the world. The Air Force articulates its core missions as air and space superiority, global integrated intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, rapid global mobility, global strike, and command and control.
Maxwell Air Force Base, officially known as Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base, is a United States Air Force (USAF) installation under the Air Education and Training Command (AETC). The installation is located in Montgomery, Alabama, US. Occupying the site of the first Wright Flying School, it was named in honor of Second Lieutenant William C. Maxwell, a native of Atmore, Alabama.
Smith ran successfully for alderman at-large in 1970,[1] as Fred Baden, a plumber with whom Smith often quarreled, began the first of seven consecutive terms as mayor.[7]
Frederick Herman Baden, Sr., known as Fred Baden, was a Democratic mayor of Pineville, a small city across the Red River from Alexandria in Rapides Parish, Louisiana. Baden served in the executive position from 1970 until his defeat in 1998 by the Republican Leo Deslatte.
A plumber is a tradesperson who specializes in installing and maintaining systems used for potable (drinking) water, sewage and drainage in plumbing systems. The term dates from ancient times and is related to the Latin word for lead, "plumbum".
In 1971, Smith left the city council and ran for the Louisiana State Senate against the incumbent Cecil R. Blair of Lecompte in south Rapides Parish. Arnold Jack Rosenthal, an Alexandria businessman and attorney, also entered the race. Smith ran sufficiently strong to force Blair into a runoff, and the third-place candidate, Rosenthal, thereafter endorsed Smith. Blair still prevailed by some two thousand votes and then ran without Republican opposition in the general election held on February 1, 1972.[1]
Thereafter, Smith was named executive assistant to Rosenthal, who was elected as the last finance and utilities commissioner in the city of Alexandria prior to the adoption of a new city charter that established the current mayor-council form of municipal government. Smith remained as the assistant to the commissioner until 1975, when MayorJohn K. Snyder and Streets and Parks Commissioner Malcolm P. Hebert dismissed him from the position in a 2–1 vote, which Rosenthal considered to have been invalid and unfair.[1]
After his Pineville and Alexandria years, Smith lived for a time in Houston, Texas, where he sold automobiles. He returned to Winn Parish where he engaged in the sale of timber and land through his company called TLMS, Inc.[4]
In 1983, Smith ran for governor, having geared his campaign toward drawing attention to the poor condition of many Louisiana highways. He polled only 2,314 votes, as Edwin Washington Edwards handily reclaimed the office from the Republican incumbent David C. Treen.[8]
In 1984, Smith polled 4 percent of the vote in a race for the District 5 seat on the Louisiana Public Service Commission. Victory went to the Democrat Donald Lynn "Don" Owen, a former news anchor from station KSLA-TV in Shreveport, who succeeded the retiring Edward Kennon.[9] Smith promised if elected to the commission to halt fuel cost adjustments and advocated a single rate for electricity. He vowed to investigate the contracts of fuel companies and urged the refund of overcharges to consumers.[10]
In 1995 and 1999, Smith ran at the local level for Winn Parish sheriff, but he lost both races to incumbent fellow Democrat James E. "Buddy" Jordan.[11][12] In 2003, Smith waged his final race for office, having contested the Winn Parish seat in the Louisiana House. He lost to the incumbent Thomas D. "Tommy" Wright of Jena,[13] who then won the general election against Republican Tony Kevin Owens (born 1960), also from Jena.[14]
Current Pineville Mayor Clarence R. Fields said that he had developed a relationship with Smith through the years even though Smith had returned to Winn Parish. Fields said that Smith was willing to give advice and share some of his concerns about the city. Similarly, Rapides Parish Police Juror Richard Vanderlick recalled that he and Smith worked together at CLECO in the early 1960s and had remained friends throughout the years. Vanderlick said that Smith "never lost his passion for politics."[1]
Personal life
Smith was twice married. By the former Helen Jordan, whom he wed in 1953, were born three children: Marilyn S. O'Hare (born 1954), Patricia Smith "Tricia" Hensarling (born 1955), and Robert Ray Smith (1959–1998). Marilyn O'Hare is a financial planner in Baton Rouge and resident of Prairieville, Louisiana. Tricia is State Adult Services Director for the Office of Mental Health and married to Kinard Dale Hensarling (born 1951), a United Methodist minister in Opelousas. Son Robert R. Smith died at the age of thirty-nine.[4][15]
Floyd and Helen Smith divorced in the early 1970s; she remarried and resides in Houston. In 1977, he married the former Shirley McLean, a native of Shreveport, the former wife of Jay Reeves Bond, Sr., of Pineville.[15] The Smiths resided at 188 Floyd Smith Road outside Winnfield.[16]
Smith died of pneumonia at the age of seventy-seven in Rapides Regional Medical Center in Alexandria.[15] In addition to his wife and daughters, he was survived by a sister, Juanita S. Carter of Bossier City, and two stepsons, Jay Bond, Jr. (born c. 1959) of Doyline and Brad Alan Bond (born c. 1961) of Gonzales, Louisiana, three step-grandchildren, and three step-great-grandchildren. Services were held at the chapel of Southern Funeral Home in Winnfield on February 14, 2010. Interment was at Pleasant Hill Cemetery near Winnfield.[15]
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