Keith Hightower

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Keith Hightower and family

Keith Paul Hightower (born 1957) is a businessman who is the former Democratic mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana.

Hightower graduated from Louisiana Tech University in Ruston in Lincoln Parish in 1979. He was one of the relatively few graduates in his college class from Shreveport who returned to live and work in their hometown. First, however, Hightower worked for Acme Brick Co. in Baton Rouge; the firm transferred him to Shreveport. In 1990, Hightower was elected to the first of two terms on the Shreveport City Council. He left the brick company and made his living in automobile sales.

In 1998, Councilman Hightower unseated Republican Mayor Robert Warren "Bo" Williams in the municipal jungle primary. Hightower led with 20,250 votes (42 percent) to Williams' 13,637 (28 percent). Three other candidates, two Democrats and another Republican, divided the remaining 30 percent of the ballots. Williams, who trailed by nearly 7,000 votes, declined to proceed to a general election, and Hightower hence won the position outright.

Hightower was reelected with 75 percent of the vote in 2002 over the conservative Republican Vernon D. Adams. Hightower polled 31,054 votes to Adams' 10,611.

In the jungle primary held on September 30, 2006, voters sent a Republican attorney, Jerry Jones, and a black candidate, state Representative Cedric Bradford Glover, into the November 7 general election to choose Hightower's successor. Jones initially led the balloting with 39 percent, and Glover trailed with 32 percent, but Glover emerged the ultimate winner, 54-46 percent over Jones. Democrat Liz Swaine, a former television newswoman and one of Hightower's assistants, and Republican Vernon Adams were among nine contenders who were eliminated in the primary.

Hightower had considered seeking the open secretary of state's position in the September 30 balloting but never filed his candidacy papers. On November 29, 2006, Hightower will return to his old job as vice president of the Holmes Auto Group. Speculation now centers on whether he may challenge Republican U.S. Representative James Otis McCrery, III, in the 2008 congressional jungle primary. The Hightowers have two daughters, both of whom attend the University of Mississippi at Oxford.

Preceded by Robert Warren "Bo" Williams (R)	Mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana Keith Paul Hightower (D) 1998–2006	Succeeded by Cedric Bradford Glover (D)