Roy C. Strickland

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Roy Clifton Strickland (born September 20, 1942) is a businessman in The Woodlands (Montgomery County), Texas, north of Houston, who was a pioneer in the development of the Republican Party in Louisiana. Strickland challenged the Democrat Gillis William Long for the United States House of Representatives in 1972. More than a decade later, he ran unsuccessfully for local office as a write-in candidate in Texas.

Strickland was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, to Clyde Clifton Strickland (1914-1985) and the former Erna Voss (1902-1999), a native of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Strickland became a licensed real estate agent in 1967, while he was attending college at what became the University of New Orleans. Since the late 1960s, he has also been involved in real estate as an investor, developer, or contractor.

1 Running for the U.S. House, 1972
2 Business entrepreneur
3 Texas political activities
4 References

[edit] Running for the U.S. House, 1972

In 1972, when he was still twenty-nine Strickland decided to run for the open seat in the U.S. House from the now defunct Eighth Congressional District of Louisiana. Gillis Long (1923-1985), a former member of the House, was the Democratic nominee in the reconstituted district. Strickland, who had become a Republican when he first registered to vote, filed for the GOP nomination to face the man considered the "most liberal" of the Louisiana Longs. Strickland got support from a number of Republicans in the district, including Mayor Charles Edward "Ed" Karst of Alexandria, a recent convert to the party. Karst hosted Strickland in his home when the congressional candidate came to Alexandria to campaign.

Thereafter, Dr. S.R. Abramson, a surgeon from Marksville, the seat of Avoyelles Parish, in south central Louisiana, filed for the House as the candidate of George C. Wallace, Jr.,'s former American Independent Party. Abramson was considered part of the "Radical Right" at the time. From the start, the demographics made the race impossible for either challenger. Then freshman Governor Edwin Washington Edwards and the Democratic state legislature had redrawn the Eighth District in 1971 to create territory friendly to former Congressman Long, who had served in the position from 1963-1965, until he was unseated by his cousin, Speedy O. Long, in the 1964 Democratic primary. Speedy Long did not seek a fifth term after the district was altered, and Edwards wanted to repay Gillis Long for Long's support of Edwards in the 1971 Democratic runoff primary. Gillis Long himself had been an unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate in the 1971 primary and in the 1963 election as well.

The returns spoke clearly: Louisiana wanted a Long: Long, 72,607 votes (68.6 percent); Abramson, 17,844 (16.8 percent); and Strickland, 15,517 (14.6 percent).

[edit] Business entrepreneur

In June 1977, Younger Brothers transferred Strickland to Houston. He remained with the firm until 1982, when he cofounded a construction company, Strickland & Smith, Inc. The new company progressed and was ranked in the early 1980s as one of Houston's fastest growing. However, in 1986, the good times ended, and the company closed as part of the Houston-area economic crash. It was in that crash that former Texas Governor and United States Treasury Secretary John B. Connally, Jr., went bankrupt.

In 1987, Strickland reentered the transportation industry and joined several prior business associates who had acquired a small company based in Tennessee. He remained there until 1989.

In 1990, Strickland formed what became CANUSAMEX, Inc., a firm twice named the "Fastest Growing In Houston." In 2000, it was ranked by Inc. Magazine as the 133rd fastest growing company in the United States. CANUSAMEX, Inc., was a victim of September 11, 2001, Strickland explained, because it could not comply with new government regulations which stemmed from the terrorist attacks in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. The company ceased operations in the summer of 2002.^{[citation needed]} Strickland returned to Vicksburg in August 2002 and worked with family members to negotiate the merger, acquistion, and consolidation of twelve Internet Service Providers which were sold to Xfone early in 2005.^{[citation needed]}

He returned to The Woodlands in the fall of 2004 and activated his Texas real estate license. He is awaiting his broker's license in 2007.

[edit] Texas political activities

Strickland continued his Republican political activities in Montgomery County. After the suicide of one of the four county commissioners in the middle 1980s, Strickland sought the Republican nomination from a committee organized to select a replacement. When the committee chose someone else, who was part of the GOP hierarchy, Strickland ran unsuccessfully as a write-in candidate in the general election. Strickland is still affiliated with the Republican Party.

Strickland is divorced and has one daughter, Lindsay Dawn Strickland (born 1983). He attends both the Roman Catholic and Episcopalian churches and humorously refers to himself as a "Cathopalian".