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George Aubrey Burton, Jr. (June 21, 1926 – June 10, 2014), was a Certified Public Accountant and the last elected municipal finance commissioner in Shreveport, Louisiana, a position he filled from 1971 to 1978. He was the first Republican since Reconstruction to have been elected to citywide office in Shreveport.[1]
Certified Public Accountant (CPA) is the title of qualified accountants in numerous countries in the English-speaking world. In the United States, the CPA is a license to provide accounting services to the public. It is awarded by each of the 50 states for practice in that state. Additionally, almost every state has passed mobility laws to allow CPAs from other states to practice in their state. State licensing requirements vary, but the minimum standard requirements include passing the Uniform Certified Public Accountant Examination, 150 semester units of college education, and one year of accounting related experience.
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.
Burton was born in Texarkana, Arkansas, to George A. Burton, Sr. (1903–1980) and the former Theo Simmons (1908–1983). The Burtons thereafter resided in Alexandria in Central Louisiana and relocated to Shreveport in 1935.[1] Burton's grandfather was a railroad employee, and his father was secretary-treasurer of Cahn Electric Company in Shreveport.
Texarkana is a city in Arkansas and the county seat of Miller County. The city is located across the state line from its twin city, Texarkana, Texas. The city was founded at a railroad intersection on December 8, 1873, and was incorporated in Arkansas on August 10, 1880. Texarkana is the principal city of the Texarkana metropolitan area, which is ranked 274th in terms of population in the United States with 150,098 in 2016 according to the United States Census Bureau.
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.
Alexandria is the ninth-largest city in the state of Louisiana and is the parish seat of Rapides Parish, Louisiana, United States. It lies on the south bank of the Red River in almost the exact geographic center of the state. It is the principal city of the Alexandria metropolitan area which encompasses all of Rapides and Grant parishes. Its neighboring city is Pineville. In 2010, the population was 47,723, an increase of 3 percent from the 2000 census.
The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most capable navy in the world and it has been estimated that in terms of tonnage of its active battle fleet alone, it is larger than the next 13 navies combined, which includes 11 U.S. allies or partner nations. with the highest combined battle fleet tonnage and the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, with eleven in service, and two new carriers under construction. With 319,421 personnel on active duty and 99,616 in the Ready Reserve, the Navy is the third largest of the service branches. It has 282 deployable combat vessels and more than 3,700 operational aircraft as of March 2018, making it the second-largest air force in the world, after the United States Air Force.
The Asiatic-Pacific Theater, was the theater of operations of U.S. forces during World War II in the Pacific War during 1941–45. From mid-1942 until the end of the war in 1945, there were two U.S. operational commands in the Pacific. The Pacific Ocean Areas (POA), divided into the Central Pacific Area, the North Pacific Area and the South Pacific Area, were commanded by Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander-in-Chief Pacific Ocean Areas. The South West Pacific Area (SWPA) was commanded by General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Allied Commander South West Pacific Area. During 1945, the United States added the United States Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific, commanded by General Carl A. Spaatz.
World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. The major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.
After graduation from Centenary College, he was employed by the Operkuch, McGuirt, Watts and West accounting firm, of which he became a partner in 1953. However, he left the company in 1954 to begin his own firm. He was active in the American Institute Of CPA's, the Louisiana Society of CPA's, and the Association of Governmental Accountants.[1]
Political life
A lifelong Republican, he ran unsuccessfully on November 8, 1966, for a seat on the Caddo Parish School Board, as did his fellow Republican George Despot, later the state party chairman.[3] Her subsequently served on the Bond Issue and Rapid Learner study committees of the Caddo school board/[1]
George Joseph Despot was a businessman in his native Shreveport and a pioneer in the establishment of a competitive Republican Party in the U.S. state of Louisiana. He was the state Republican chairman from 1978 to 1985. His leadership began when the state party was so small that there was a standing joke that the Louisiana GOP could operate from a phone booth, few of which still exist, though the Republicans became the majority party in Louisiana by 2012.
In September 1971, Shreveport Finance Commissioner Dwight E. Saur, a Democrat, died after serving less than a year of his second elected term. Burton won the special election to fill the remaining three years of the term at took office on December 14, 1971.[4] Despite his overt Republicanism, Burton carved his niche with his Democratic colleagues. In 1974, Burton was reelected finance commissioner with 17,488 votes (68.8 percent) over Democrat (later Republican) David R. Carroll (1926-2011), a Mississippi native and a Caddo Parish police juror,[5] received 7,938 ballots (31.2 percent). That year, Burton had the tacit support of Democratic MayorCalhoun Allen, who won a second term. Under the commission form of government then in effect, changed in November 1978 to the mayor-council format, the mayor was technically the "commissioner of administration."
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.
Mississippi is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. Mississippi is the 32nd most extensive and 34th most populous of the 50 United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Alabama to the east, the Gulf of Mexico and Louisiana to the south, and Arkansas and Louisiana to the west. The state's western boundary is largely defined by the Mississippi River. Jackson, with a population of approximately 167,000 people, is both the state's capital and largest city.
Littleberry Calhoun Allen, Jr., was a two-term Democratic mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana, the state's third largest city. From 1962-1970, he was the municipal public utilities commissioner. He also served some two months as a "District B" city council member after his election in the fall of 1990. The racially moderate Allen presided over a formerly segregated Shreveport, but there was much unrest in the black community during his tenure. Public Safety Commissioner George W. D'Artois had resigned in a swirl of corruption accusations though none reached directly to Allen. By the end of Allen's tenure, City Hall controversies produced a sense of stagnation even though Allen had worked for industrial development and public works projects, one of which bears his name.
Running with Burton in 1974 was another Republican, Billy Guin, who waged his second campaign against Public Utilities Commissioner William "Bill" Collins and polled 43 percent of the vote.[6] Collins resigned in 1977, and Guin won the seat in a special election. Guin was in effect only the second Republican in modern times to hold municipal office in Shreveport. Serving with Burton were Public Safety Commissioner George W. D'Artois and Public Works Commissioner Don Hathaway, both Democrats.
D'Artois was forced from office in a multi-faceted political scandal that surfaced in the spring of 1976. At one point before Attorney GeneralWilliam J. Guste was called to investigate, the five commissioners, including D'Artois, were conducting their own probe; "the city investigating itself," said the critics. Burton spoke out against the situation, which he found particularly alarming: "What's going on now is devastating to the city's image. I will favor anything that brings some final disposition to this matter. The city cannot move on anything until this is cleared up. We couldn't pull a public election right now endorsing motherhood."[7]
From 1960 to 1980, Burton was chairman of the Caddo Parish Republican Executive Committee. From 1972 to 1980, he was secretary of the Louisiana Republican State Central Committee, a 144-member body which meets periodically in Baton Rouge. He was president of the Caddo Parish Board of Election Supervisors from 1978 to 2008.[1]
Family and civic commitments
Burton married the former Joan (pronounced JO ANN) Cunningham (1928–2002), who lived in Amory, Mississippi and Memphis, Tennessee, before her parents, William and Lucille Cunningham, relocated to Shreveport. The couple had two children, son George A. Burton, III (1948–2010), a poet in Shreveport, and his wife Melissa Fowle Burton, and daughter Sandra Burton "Sandy" Batten[8] (born 1950), the wife of Rick Alan Batten (born 1954) of Maumelle near Little Rock, Arkansas. After Joan's death, Burton married Gloria Nell Brantley (1930-2013), a native of Homer, Louisiana, and the widow of Bernard Garvin (1927–1997) of Shreveport. They were no longer married at the time of her death.[9]
Burton was a charter member of the Shreveport chapter of Sertoma International and was highly active in his younger years in the Jaycees as the Shreveport president, state vice-president, and a national director. He was a founding board member of East Ridge Country Club. He was a director and treasurer of the Shreveport Legal Aid Society. Burton was a member of the United Methodist Church.[1][2]
He died in Little Rock eleven days before his 88th birthday. A memorial service was held on June 20, 2014 at Noel Memorial United Methodist Chuirch in Shreveport.[1]
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