![]() With that election, Edwards became one of only 11 men in U.S. Edwards won handily over Duke for his fourth and last term. Four years later, Roemer lost to Edwards and former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke, in the primary. He conceded the race and essentially made Congressman Buddy Roemer governor. ![]() In the 1987 governor’s race, he did not finish first. But Treen lost by a landslide when Edwin Edwards returned in 1983. Treen to become Louisiana’s first Republican governor since Reconstruction. This allowed conservative voters and politicians to shift to the Republican Party and, for the first time, still have a chance to win office. During the 1973 legislative session, Edwards beat back oil lobbyists and upped the state’s severance tax on oil from 25-cents a barrel to 12.5% of value.īy the end of his first term, the Public Affairs Research Council applauded Edwards for fulfilling all the reforms PAR had requested.Įdwards passed legislation to shift to a jungle primary in which the top two vote getters would be in a single runoff, no matter what party. 7, 1972.Įdwards fulfilled a campaign promise and initiated Louisiana’s first constitutional convention in half a century. Allen Ellender died and he appointed his wife Elaine. Treen to become Louisiana’s 50th governor on May 9, 1972. In February 1972, he beat Republican David C. Jimmie Davis who had been the favorite to win. Bennett Johnston, Gillis Long, and former Gov. In the Democratic primary, Edwards defeated J. Edwards flew his own plane, hopscotching across the state three times faster than road-bound candidates. In December 1970, Edwards began a campaign for governor, challenging a field of 18 candidates by mid-1971. He also appointed Louisiana’s first black postmaster. Waggoner, and Speedy Long, and became one of a handful of southern congressmen to vote for the extension of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Thompson was killed in an accident in 1965, Edwards won a seat in Congress.Įdwards became part of Louisiana’s powerful delegation headed by Senators Russell Long and Allen Ellender, and Congressmen Hale Boggs, Otto Passman, Joe D. In 1964, Edwards challenged long-time state Sen. JFK announced for the Democratic nomination for president in 1960. Kennedy to festival-goers at the Crowley International Rice Festival. In 1959, he introduced young Massachusetts Sen. In 1954, he won his first election as a Crowley city councilman, serving on Louisiana’s first integrated city council. He brokered fairer deals with energy companies for the Cajuns, many of whom were illiterate. But Edwards made a name for himself by using his Cajun French to communicate with coastal French Acadians who had oil and gas lands. Moody, an accountant, who many times tried to get quick-thinking Edwin to go into business. There, the young attorney met lifelong friend B. He opened the Edwards Law Firm atop Gremillion’s Drug Store in Crowley in Acadia Parish because his sister, Audrey Edwards Isbell, told him there were more businesses in Crowley. ![]() They had four children, Anna, Victoria, Stephen and David. ![]() Edwards graduated LSU Law School four years later and married Elaine Schwartzenberg, a classmate at Marksville. He became a Navy pilot in California but as his squadron was about to deploy to the Pacific, Japan surrendered and World War II ended. He graduated Marksville High School in 1944 and began his life of public service at 17 when he joined the United States Navy. ![]() His father Clarence was a farmer and his mother Agnes was a midwife credited with nearly 2,000 births. He was 93 years old.Įdwards was born in the small community of Johnson seven miles outside Marksville in Avoyelles Parish. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat who is not related to Edwin Edwards, was among the first to pay his respects to the former governor’s family - before the public and media were allowed inside the vast, ornate hall where the casket rested on the Louisiana state seal.Įdwin Edwards’ wife, Trina, more than 50 years his junior, and their 7-year-old son Eli - the ex-governor’s fifth child - returned to the visitation area once it was opened to the public, and Edwards’ other children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren mingled with mourners as well.Louisiana’s 50th governor, Edwin Washington Edwards, was born on Aug. Republican House Speaker Clay Schexnayder, who lived in the same Gonzales neighborhood as Edwards, personally managed the memorial events, arranged the display and stood in Memorial Hall between the Louisiana House and Senate chambers as visitors arrived. Troy Carter, a Democrat who served in the Louisiana Legislature during one of Edwards’ terms, described the former governor as “just someone that you could never question his love of the people of Louisiana.” ![]()
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