Floyd W. Smith, Jr.

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Floyd William Smith, Jr. (born September 17, 1932), is a semiretired businessman and Democratic politician in Winn Parish, Louisiana, the traditional home of the Long dynasty. He was a second cousin of former U.S. Representative Speedy O. Long (1928-2006) of La Salle Parish and a cousin of varying degrees of kinship to other Longs as well.

1 Early years and family heritage
2 Education, military, occupation
3 Mayor of Pineville, Louisiana
4 Alexandria politics
5 Later political campaigns
6 References

[edit] Early years and family heritage

Smith was born and reared in Winnfield, the seat of Winn Parish, to Floyd W. Smith, Sr. (March 28, 1902 - January 15, 1969), and the former Carmel Long (died 1994). Carmel was a daughter of William Morris Long (1887-1967) and the former Fannie Boyd (1893-1955). Morris Long was an older brother of Felix Field Long (1899-1982), the father of Speedy Long. Smith's maternal great-grandfather, Field Long, was a first cousin of Huey Pierce Long, Sr., generally known as "Hugh" Long and the father of the "Louisiana Kingfish" Huey Pierce Long, Jr.

Floyd Smith had a paternal uncle who was only three years Smith's senior. This uncle was named "Huey P. Long" (August 30, 1929 - June 14, 2004). Ironically, this Huey P. Long was born on the same calendar day that Huey Pierce Long, Jr., was mortally wounded -- though six years apart. Smith's paternal grandfather, W.W. Smith, the father of this "Huey P. Long", was a Rapides Parish cattleman and operator of a slaughterhouse until hard times sunk his business. Smith recalls that on his grandfather's death, an Alexandria funeral home refused to accept payment from the family because W.W. Smith had helped to pay expenses for many poor persons who had died over the years.

[edit] Education, military, occupation

In 1950, Smith graduated from Winnfield High School, where he had been the president of both his junior and senior classes. One of his classmates, a year older, was former State Representative Jimmy D. Long of Natchitoches Parish. Smith recalls that the two once got into a boxing competition in which Smith prevailed. Thereafter, Smith jokes that Long, later a grocer in Natchitoches, would go out of his way to befriend his cousin. Smith explained that he was a paternal Smith and a maternal Long, and Jimmy Long was a paternal Long and a maternal Smith because Jimmy Long's mother was the former Ruby Smith (1906-1984). So each were half Longs and half Smiths.

After high school, Smith attended the University of Louisiana at Monroe for a semester. At the time the institution was known as Northeast Junior College; it later became Northeast Louisiana University before it was designated UL-M. Smith worked in a pants factory in Monroe in a vain bid to pay college expenses. Being a half Long did not necessarily mean that one had the funds to attend college, Smith said.

On the day after Christmas, 1950, Smith enlisted in the United States Air Force. He served eight months at Maxwell Air Force Base near the capital city of Montgomery, Alabama. He was discharged for family hardship because of the state of his father's health.

[edit] Mayor of Pineville, Louisiana

In 1953, Smith was employed by the telephone company. Two years later, he went to work for Pineville Gas Company (later part of the large Central Louisiana Electric Company). He stayed with CLECO for eleven years. He worked in Winnfield, Olla in La Salle Parish, and Pineville in northern Rapides Parish, located east of the Red River from Alexandria.

From 1962-1966, Smith was the chairman of the Pineville Municipal Democratic Committee, a position which enable him to handle candidate recruitment and filing.

In the spring of 1966, he was elected to a single term as mayor of Pineville. He unseated the incumbent Perry Elmo Futrell, Jr. (October 7, 1916 - December 4, 1993), by 121 votes. His experience in dealing with utilities proved valuable in winning the office. In 1970, Smith did not seek mayoral reelection but ran instead for alderman at-large. He unseated incumbent Robert F. Cespiva (born ca. 1926) in that race. As alderman at-large, Smith often clashed with his successor as mayor, fellow Democrat and outgoing city council member Fred H. Baden (born 1934), a former plumber who went on to hold the mayor's position for twenty-eight years. Pineville is particularly known for its large Baptist population and the location of Baptist-affiliated Louisiana College, and its continued prohibition against the sale of alcoholic beverages. Like most of the Longs, Smith is Baptist, but he did not secure the support of most of the Baptist leaders in Pineville.

[edit] Alexandria politics

In 1971, Smith ran for the Louisiana State Senate against the veteran Cecil R. Blair of Lecompte in south Rapides Parish. Other candidates also challenged Blair in the Democratic primary (prior to the adoption of the Louisiana jungle primary). One was the Alexandria businessman Arnold Jack Rosenthal (born 1923). During the Senate race, United States District Judge E. Gordon West in Baton Rouge altered the district lines and removed precincts that Smith considered favorable to him from the district. Smith nevertheless entered the party runoff against Blair. Rosenthal, the third-place finisher, endorsed Smith, but Blair still won by just over 2,000 votes. Blair, like Smith, was part of the Long faction. There was no Republican candidate at the time, and Blair was unopposed in the general election. Even in 2007, it is still difficult for the Louisiana GOP to recruit legislative candidates in such heavily Democratic areas.

Smith and Rosenthal continued their political relationship after Rosenthal was elected as Alexandria's last finance and utilities commissioner in the spring of 1973, prior to the adoption of a new city charter, effective in 1977. Smith, who had resigned as alderman in Pineville because of his difficulties of working with Baden, joined Rosenthal as his executive assistant. However, in 1975, Smith was dismissed from the post by Rosenthal's two Democratic council colleagues, Mayor John K. Snyder (1922-1993) and Streets and Parks Commissioner Malcolm P. Hebert, Sr. (1926-2006). The 2-1 firing was upheld even though it had been previously permitted for a commissioner to select his own administrative assistant. Smith recalls that Snyder once removed a door from a toilet in Rosenthal's office on the spurious grounds that he and Rosenthal were eavesdropping from the restroom. The 1973-1977 administration was the last under the commission form of municipal government.

[edit] Later political campaigns

After his Pineville-Alexandria years, Smith worked for a time as an automobile salesman in Houston, then returned to Pineville, and went full circle back to Winn Parish, where he engaged in the sale of timber and land.

He had wed the former Helen Jordan in 1953, and they had three children, Marilyn O'Hare (born 1954), Patricia (born 1955), and Robert Ray Smith (1959-1998). Marilyn is a financial planner in Baton Rouge, and Patricia is the wife of a Methodist minister in Opelousas, the seat of St. Landry Parish, in south Louisiana. Robert was a long-distance truck driver. Floyd and Helen Smith divorced in the early 1970s. Helen remarried and moved to Houston. In 1980, Smith married his current wife, the former Shirley McLean, a native of Shreveport, the former wife of Jay Bond of Pineville.

In 1983, Smith waged a quixotic bid for governor, a protest campaign to bring attention to the dilapidated condition of Louisiana roads. He suggested that no one should campaign for governor unless he drives throughout the state. That way, he maintained, whoever wins will have an understanding of the continuing problems of poor highways. Former Governor Edwin Washington Edwards, considered part of the Long tradition, won the election that year, easily unseating the incumbent Republican David C. Treen. There were a half dozen minor candidates, including Smith, who finished with only 2,314 votes.

In 1995 and again in 1999, the political bug again bit Smith. He waged two futile campaigns for sheriff of Winn Parish against the incumbent James E. "Buddy" Jordan, a fellow Democrat. In 1995, Smith actually finished second in the race with 741 votes (11 percent) to Jordan's 4,770 (73 percent); there were three other minor Democratic candidates also on the ballot. In 1999, Smith was the only challenger to Jordan. He received 969 votes (17 percent) to Jordan's 4,871 (83 percent).

In 2003, Smith entered the jungle primary for the Winn Parish seat in the Louisiana House of Representatives. He polled some 1,736 ballots (12 percent), but the incumbent Democrat Thomas D. "Tommy" Wright went on to win the general election against the Republican Tony Kevin Owens. Both Wright and Owens are from Jena. Wright was thereafter forced to resign over a morals charge, and another Democrat, Billy Chandler of Grant Parish, won the position in a special election in the spring of 2006. Chandler also defeated Owens, who had temporarily moved to Winnfield for that race.