Spooner's father, Harry Spooner, Sr. (1893–1964), originally from Buffalo, New York, was injured in France during World War I. The senior Spooner came to Texas with the petroleum industry and settled in Arkansas, first El Dorado, then Smackover, and finally Stephens in Ouachita County, where he married the former Willie Green (1905–2000). Frank Spooner was born in Stephens[2] and graduated in 1955 from Stephens High School. For two years thereafter he attended Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia and then transferred to the University of Oklahoma at Norman, from which in 1960 he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Petroleum Land Management. After college, Spooner served in the United States Army and the Army Reserves, Pre-Vietnam War. He worked for Humble Oil Company from 1960 to 1965.
After several years in Shreveport, Spooner moved to Monroe in 1967, and entered into a partnership with his brother, Harry Spooner, Jr. They discovered several natural gas fields in Northeast Louisiana. After 1971 Spooner operated under his own name until 1980, when he formed Spirit Petroleum Company. The company name was changed to Mark V Petroleum Company in 1997. Over the years these entities were successful in developing additional gas and oil fields, including the first commercial coal seam methane gas production in Louisiana in 2004.
In 1971, Spooner was the chairman of the Ouachita Parish Young Republicans and directed the Monroe-area campaign of the party's gubernatorial nominee, David C. Treen, an attorney then from Metairie in Jefferson Parish. Treen was defeated in this first bid for governor by Democrat Edwin Edwards. Later in 1972, Treen was elected to the U.S. House, and four years thereafter, Spooner sought to join Treen in Congress when he opposed Jerry Huckaby for the seat Otto Passman was compelled to vacate.[3] Treen left Congress in 1980, when he was inaugurated as the first Republican governor of Louisiana since Reconstruction.
In preparation for his race and when he expected to face Passman, Spooner attended a Republican candidate training school in Washington, D.C. The Republican National Committee sent John Bruce Hildebrand, former editor of the party's First Monday newsletter who had written speeches for vice-presidential candidate Bob Dole, to work on Spooner's behalf. Jennie Carroll Casey, a reporter at the time for the Monroe News-Star, worked as an unpaid public relations specialist.[6]
Top-name Republicans, including former GovernorsRonald W. Reagan of California and John B. Connally, Jr., of Texas, later rivals for the party's presidential nomination in 1980, came into the sprawling district, with a large agricultural component, to urge voters to elect Spooner. Connally lashed out at the increased power of the Democratic Caucus of the U.S. House, which he maintained had undermined the influence of the more moderate party members, such as then U.S. Senator Russell B. Long of Louisiana.[7] Connally did not know Spooner, but he had known Mrs. Spooner, the former Mary Flippo, when she was a child in the Connally neighborhood in Fort Worth in the 1950s. Reagan and Connally gave the race a high profile and helped to provide critical financial support for Spooner. Reagan appeared in Monroe, Louisiana and Connally in West Monroe and Natchitoches, the oldest city in the state. Huckaby, who like Spooner was a political newcomer, nevertheless developed effective television advertising critical of out-of-state politicians trying to influence voters in an otherwise unnoticed Louisiana district.[8][9]
Spooner hoped to poll convincing majorities in urban areas of the district to offset expected losses in rural regions, where voting Republican was still comparatively rare at the time except for the presidential level on occasion. He aimed particularly at winning in his own Monroe and West Monroe as well as Natchitoches, Ruston, Bastrop, and Winnfield. The general election turnout was more than double that of the Passman-Huckaby race because, while Huckaby and Spooner sought the House seat, in the same November 2 election, Jimmy Carter and the unelected incumbent, Gerald R. Ford, Jr., were the nominees for U.S. President.[9]
Election Day Returns By Parish in 1976 Congressional Election for Louisiana's 5th District
After his primary defeat, Passman "threatened" to endorse Spooner in the general election, but he never did so. Passman had run mostly without opposition after his initial primary victory in 1946, when he had unseated Charles E. McKenzie. He was unopposed in his last successful election on November 5, 1974. Passman was particularly known as a critic of foreign aid programs and a supporter of farm subsidies and the recently concluded Vietnam War.[11]
Carter's statewide victory in Louisiana (and in nine other former Confederate states) worked to Huckaby's advantage. Huckaby received 83,696 votes (52.5 percent); Spooner, 75,574 ballots (47.5 percent). Spooner surpassed Passman's primary showing by 35,000 votes, which translated only into a 0.2 percent gain over Passman's primary share of the vote because of the much larger turnout in the general election in contrast to the primary. Spooner polled 59 percent in Ouachita Parish and also won in the parishes of Lincoln (Ruston), Morehouse (Bastrop), Union (Farmerville, and Richland (Rayville), but his strength was insufficient to overcome large Democratic margins stretching from Huckaby's Bienville Parish on the west to Madison Parish (Tallulah) on the northeast, Concordia Parish (Vidalia) on the southeast, and the most northern precincts of Rapides Parish (Alexandria) on the south. Spooner received just 27 percent in Bienville Parish and less than 40 percent in Madison and Winn parishes, the latter the ancestral home of the Long political faction.[12][13]
Later political activities
Right after his congressional campaign, Spooner became the Louisiana Republican National Committeeman. He did not seek office again though he remained active in the GOP. In 1979, Spooner was uncommitted between Treen and U.S. Representative Henson Moore of Baton Rouge, who then held Louisiana's 6th congressional district, as the Republican choice for governor. His stance brought criticism from his predecessor as national committeeman, the Treen aide John H. Cade, Jr., of Alexandria. In 1983, Spooner was chairman of the Platform Committee for the Louisiana State Republican Convention that nominated Treen for the re-election as Governor. In 1984 Spooner spearheaded an unsuccessful movement to draft Dave Treen to run against Senator Bennett Johnson for the US Senate. Spooner was also chairman of security for the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas. In 1986, Spooner devised an effective "Get Out The Vote" plan that has been used by a number of Northeast Louisiana Republicans to win elective offices. In 1996, Spooner was the campaign chairman of John Cooksey's successful bid to become Congressman from Louisiana's 5th Congressional District.
Spooner found himself at odds with Treen and Cade in 1985 regarding the removal of State Party Chairman George Despot of Shreveport. Spooner, and then State Representative Charles D. Lancaster, Jr., of Jefferson Parish, stood with Despot, whom Spooner called "the best chairman we ever had". Such divisions hurt the state party in 1986, when Henson Moore opposed Democrat John Breaux in the U.S. Senate race to succeed Russell Long, who retired after thirty-eight years in office. Spooner later said that Moore's defeat for the Senate was his own "greatest disappointment" in politics.
Over the years, Spooner has supported Governor Bobby Jindal, U.S. Senator David Vitter, elected as Breaux's successor in 2004, and Representative Rodney Alexander, who held the seat that Spooner contested from 2003 to 2013, by which time the district had expanded far south into Rapides and Avoyelles parishes and even into the Florida Parishes east of Baton Rouge. In 2004, Spooner contributed to Alexander's unsuccessful intraparty rival, former State Representative Jock Scott of Alexandria.[14] In 2007, Spooner donated to the presidential campaign of former GovernorMike Huckabee of Arkansas.
Personal life
Spooner is a United Methodist[15] and a donor to the Louisiana Methodist Children's Home orphanage in Monroe.[16] He was a member of the Optimist Club.[2] He and his wife have three daughters and eight grandchildren.
Related Research Articles
Jackson Parish is a parish in the northern part of the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 15,031. The parish seat is Jonesboro. The parish was formed in 1845 from parts of Claiborne, Ouachita, and Union Parishes. In the twentieth century, this part of the state had several small industrial mill towns, such as Jonesboro.
Rodney McKinnie Alexander is an American politician and member of the Republican Party who served as the Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs from September 30, 2013, until June 3, 2014. Previously he was the U.S. representative for Louisiana's 5th congressional district from 2003 to 2013. First elected as a Democrat, he changed parties in 2004 to run as a Republican and was re-elected five times.
Edwin Washington Edwards was an American politician and member of the Democratic Party who served as the U.S. representative for Louisiana's 7th congressional district from 1965 to 1972 and as the 50th governor of Louisiana for four terms, twice as many elected terms as any other Louisiana chief executive. He served a total of 16 years in gubernatorial office, which at 5,784 days is the sixth-longest such tenure in post-Constitutional U.S. history.
David Conner Treen Sr. was an American politician and attorney from Louisiana. A member of the Republican Party, Treen served as U.S. Representative for Louisiana's 3rd congressional district from 1973 to 1980 and the 51st governor of Louisiana from 1980 to 1984. Treen was the first Republican elected to either office since Reconstruction.
William Henson Moore III is an American attorney and businessman who is a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, having represented Louisiana's 6th congressional district, based about Baton Rouge, from 1975 to 1987. He was only the second Republican to have represented Louisiana in the House since Reconstruction, the first having been David C. Treen, then of Jefferson Parish.
Joseph Eugene Ransdell was an attorney and politician from Louisiana. Beginning in 1899, he was elected for seven consecutive terms as United States representative from Louisiana's 5th congressional district. He subsequently served for three terms in the United States Senate from Louisiana before being defeated in the 1930 Democratic primary for the seat by Governor Huey Long.
The 1972 Louisiana gubernatorial election was held on February 1, 1972. Edwin Edwards defeated Republican candidate David Treen to become Governor of Louisiana.
The 1995 Louisiana gubernatorial election was held on November 18, 1995 to elect the Governor of Louisiana.
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.
Charles Edgar Mckenzie was a U.S. Representative from Louisiana's 5th congressional district, based in the northeastern quadrant of his state, for two terms from 1943 to 1947.
Patrick Thomson Caffery, Sr., known as Pat Caffery, was an attorney from New Iberia, Louisiana, who formerly served as a Democrat in the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1964 to 1968 and then as a U.S. representative from Louisiana's 3rd congressional district from 1969 to 1973.
The 2004 United States presidential election in Louisiana took place on November 2, 2004, and was part of the 2004 United States presidential election. Voters chose nine representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
Henry Ernest Hardtner was a Louisiana businessman and conservationist regarded as "the father of forestry in the South." He founded and named the town of Urania in La Salle Parish and served single terms as a Democrat in both houses of the Louisiana State Legislature. In 1900 he was the Republican candidate for Louisiana's 5th congressional district, losing to future U.S. Senator Joseph E. Ransdell of Lake Providence in East Carroll Parish.
Joseph Louis Watkins Jr., was a judge of the Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeal, based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, from 1979 until his death in 1997. He resided in Houma in Terrebonne Parish in south Louisiana.
Thomas Floyd "Bud" Brady, was an American politician who was a Democratic member of the Louisiana House of Representatives. He served from 1976 to 1988 from districts which included his native La Salle Parish and at different times neighboring Caldwell, Grant, Rapides, and Winn parishes.
William Lorenzo Howard, known as W. L. "Jack" Howard, was a five-term Democratic mayor of Monroe, Louisiana, who served from 1956 to 1972 and again from 1976 to 1978. He was a partner in the former Howard Brothers Discount Stores, which at their peak had eighty-seven outlets throughout the American South.
Robert Ellis Powell, Sr., known as Robert E. "Bob" Powell, was a Democrat who served for more than seventeen years as the mayor of Monroe in Ouachita Parish in northeastern Louisiana.
Sherman Albert Bernard Sr. was an American businessman from Jefferson Parish in the New Orleans suburbs, who served from 1972 to 1988 as the Louisiana Commissioner of Insurance. He is mainly remembered for having served forty-one months in federal prison after he pleaded guilty in federal court to extortion in connection with his job duties.
Robert Max Ross was a Republican activist and a candidate for numerous statewide and local offices who resided in Mangham in northeastern Louisiana. He was among the earliest advocates for the Republican political movement at a time when no GOP candidate had been elected statewide in more than a century. He ran as one of two candidates in the Republican primaries for governor in 1972 and Louisiana's 5th congressional district seat in 1974. After Louisiana adopted the jungle primary system, Ross qualified again for governor in 1983 and also the United States Senate in 1984. He additionally ran for the Louisiana State Senate as well as mayor of Mangham during other election years.
1 2 "Louisiana: Frank Spooner", Who's Who in American Politics, 2007–2008 (Marquis Who's Who: New Providence, New Jersey, 2007), p. 672
↑ "Otto Passman, Jerry Huckaby, and Frank Spooner: The Louisiana Fifth Congressional District Election of 1976", Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association, LIV No. 3 (Summer 2013), p. 346.
↑ Anna C. Burns, "Henry E. Hardtner (1870–1935): Louisiana's First Conservationist," Journal of Forest History Vol. 22 No. 2 (April 1978)
↑ Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections, 1900–1976, U.S. House races from Louisiana
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
