Ron Bean
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Ronald Clarence "Ron" Bean (November 4, 1938--April 19, 2005) was a Republican state senator from Shreveport, Louisiana, between 1992 and 2004, who was hailed by his peers for nonpartisanship. Moreover, he was a U.S. Army soldier with service in South Korea and Vietnam and a pilot decorated for heroism. Bean died of renal failure at the LSU Medical Center in his native Shreveport. He had undergone two kidney transplants and suffered from steadily declining health since 2001.
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[edit] Humor amid personal problems
Bean's friends said that he never lost his notable sense of humor. Besides the kidney transplants, Bean contracted pneumonia, which required hospitalization in 2003, back surgeries, a helicopter crash in 1973 that led to his health problems, and the strains of politics. He outlived two of his three children.
"He was snake bit," said Democratic Senate President Don Hines of Bunkie in Avoyelles Parish, a physician who for eight years sat behind Bean in the Senate. "As soon as he got over one problem he'd have another one. But I never heard him complain one time. He met adversity and then went on with it and never let it affect his personal outlook or his demeanor or his relationship with anybody."
In 2001, Bean collapsed just outside the Senate chambers. He'd taken medication that knocked his blood pressure down to zero, said Hines who, along with others, revived Bean with CPR before emergency medical help arrived.
"Some guys are funny-funny; to me, Ron was the kind of guy who was funny with a very dry sense of humor," former Democratic state senator Donald G. Kelly of Natchitoches said. "I can't ever recall seeing him mad; I've seen him aggravated, but never mad. He was just ... a great guy."
Bean and Gregory William "Greg" Tarver (born 1946), another state senator from Shreveport, met while serving on the Caddo Parish Police Jury (equivalent of county commission in other states). Though Bean was a white Republican and Tarver a black Democrat, the two found that they could work together and became close friends.
"I used to drive to his house late at night and we'd go places together; we just became big buddies," Tarver said. "I could tell you a lot of funny things Ron did and I did, but none of them for print. He was a character."
Bean often told Tarver, whose family is in the funeral home business, that he'd be "the first white man you'll ever have to bury."
"That was our standing joke," Tarver said, laughing loudly. "I told him that my family had been in the business for 105 years, and we ain't buried a white man yet. We'd joke about that all the time."
Kelly said much of the talk among legislators at the funeral only days earlier for State Senator John Hainkel of New Orleans was of their friend Bean. "It's been a tough, tough few days we've had here," Hines said. Hines had succeeded Hainkel as president of the Senate.
[edit] "The ultimate in courage"
In 2003, the Louisiana Senate gave the ailing Bean a standing ovation after his colleague Robert J. Barham, an Oak Ridge (Morehouse Parish) recalled the circumstances that led to Bean's health problems.
During the Senate's farewell bid to Bean in 2003, then-Senate president Hainkel called Bean "the ultimate in courage." He referred not only to Bean's work to expand insurance coverage for transplant patients and to encourage organ donations, but also to May 1973, when Bean, then a U.S. Army chief warrant officer, was piloting Army One, the helicopter that carried the president.
Bean carried Secret Service agents to the Bahamas to replace the crew assigned to then-President Richard M. Nixon; the helicopter developed problems and ditched in the water. Bean injested jet fuel that brought about his later health problems. He continued to dive and saved six of the seven Secret Service agents.
[edit] A low-key campaigner
Consultant Jerry Parnell Payne (born 1942) recalled that Bean did not want his military heroism to be used in campaigns. "It was the third campaign I ran for him before I even found out about his military stories," said Payne. "Then he threw a fit and didn't want us to use any of that; we did anyway. Of all the campaigns I've run, and that's 150 or so, I never worked for a man more earnest, more honest, a guy who exhibits integrity more than Ron Bean."
Bean was elected as a Republican to the Caddo Parish Police Jury in 1975 and served a four-year term from 1976-1980. He was defeated for reelecton in the 1979 general election by the Democrat Ponder F. McInnis (born 1940).
Bean lost his first race for the state Senate in 1987 when he was defeated by incumbent Democrat Richard Grady Neeson (born 1946). Bean was also defeated by fellow Republican Hazel F. Beard (born 1930) in the race for mayor of Shreveport in 1990. He received only 5,056 votes (8 percent) in the primary for mayor.
In the 1991 primary for state senator, Bean secured a general election berth against fellow Republican Tommy Gene Armstrong (born 1941), the most conservative candidate in the race. Armstrong led with 13,354 votes (40 percent). Bean trailed with 8,866 votes (26 percent). Ken Wright, with 6,088 votes (18 percent) ran third, and Bobby Bruce Shofner (born 1948), with 5,494 votes (15 percent) ran fourth. In the second contest, Bean narrowly upset Armstrong, 20,474 (51 percent) to 19,720 (49 percent).
"The third time around [1991; actually fourth time counting the police jury loss] was the charm, and the citizens were smart enough to elect him," said Diana M. Simek, another of Bean's campaign managers. "Even in the losses, he never lost his sense of humor . . . " For twelve years he served District 38, which includes Shreveport and parts of De Soto Parish.
In 1995, the conservative Christian Coalition and Family Research Council attempted to unseat Bean in the jungle primary. In the first round, Bean led with 15,044 votes (49.6 percent) to 12,636 ballots (41.7 percent) for fellow Republican Judy Dawson Boykin (born 1952), a school board member and the favorite of many conservatives in the district. A third candidate, Democrat Jim Crowley, polled 2,652 votes (8.7 percent). In the general election, Bean was a narrow winner: 16,550 (50.8 percent) to Boykin's 15,995 (49.2 percent).
In 1999, Bean overwhelmed fellow Republican Daniel Eugene "Dan" Perkins (born 1953), another candidate of the religious right, 17,866 (71 percent) to 7,368 (29 percent). It was his last victory -- and by far his most convincing. Health problems forbade his running again in 2003.
"He's got an 'R' behind his name and I've got a 'D' behind mine, but that didn't mean a thing," said Kelly, whose apartment was next to Bean's in the Pentagon, which houses legislators in Baton Rouge not far from the Capitol. "Ron was out to do what was right. He didn't follow this philosophy or that; he'd look at something, analyze it and then do what's best for his constituents and what's best for Louisiana."
[edit] President pro tempore of Louisiana Senate
In 1999, the Senate named Bean the President Pro Tempore, after Dennis Bagneris left the state legislature to become a state appeals court judge. Bean was the first Republican to hold the pro tempore post since Reconstruction. "I am delighted that my peers thought enough of me to vote for me," Bean said. "I consider myself a moderate Republican, who can get along with folks on both sides of the fence. I hope I can contribute in a positive way to the bipartisan effort in the Senate to move the state forward."
[edit] Loss of his son
Bean lost his only son, John E. Bean (February 4, 1961 - June 15, 2000), the victim of a traffic accident. Sherri Smith Cheek, his legislative assistant and his Republican successor in the state senate, said that Bean didn't "break down" until after he left the hospital, where he'd been "trying to take care of John's children and his daughter-in-law."
"I think one of the most defining statements I ever heard him make was when we were driving away and he was crying," said Cheek, after talking of how close the father and son were. "He said, 'I have to remember that for 40 years I've had what some people never have in a lifetime.' That's Ron. He was always able to take a negative and make something positive out of it."
Bean was survived by his wife, Carol Grady Bean (born 1946), and a daughter, Mary Elizabeth Bean of Shreveport. His funeral was in the temporary quarters of Summer Grove Baptist Church in South Park Mall in Shreveport, with his former pastor, Wayne L. DuBose of the First Baptist Church of Minden, officiating. One of the speakers, Huntington "Hunt" Downer, brigadier general of the Louisiana Army National Guard, a former Speaker of the Louisiana House of Representatives, and a failed 2003 gubernatorial contender, noted that Bean had risked his life to save nearly all of the men otherwise doomed in the helicopter crash. He presented a flag to Carol and Mary Bean.
[edit] References
- Billy Hathorn, "The Republican Party in Louisiana, 1920-1980," Master's thesis (1980), Northwestern State University at Natchitoches
