Liz Swaine

Elizabeth Swaine Culp, known as Liz Swaine (born May 11, 1960),^[1] is an American journalist and former civil servant. Formerly a television anchorwoman with the ABC affiliate KTBS-TV, she ran unsuccessfully in 2006 for the office of mayor of Shreveport, the seat of Caddo Parish and the third largest city in Louisiana.

A native of Chipley in Washington County in the Florida Panhandle, Swaine was the daughter of Albert M. Swaine (1914-1983). She holds an Associate of Arts degree in broadcast journalism from the University of West Florida in Pensacola, Florida, which she attended from 1978 to 1980.^[2] She was employed by WEAR-TV, which covers the Pensacola and Mobile, Alabama, media market.

In 1981, the 21-year-old relocated to Shreveport to join the KTBS news department, having been personally recruited for the position by station manager Edwin Wray, who saw her on WEAR-TV while he was vacationing in the area. She remained at KTBS, having worked alongside such journalists as Al Pierce and Ed Baswell,^[3] until she resigned in 1998 to become executive assistant to then Shreveport Mayor Keith Hightower, who was subsequently term limited in 2006 after consecutive elections in 1998 and 2002.^[4] Swaine’s annual salary as executive assistant was $108,526.56, only $1,100 less than Hightower’s $109,623.84.^[5]

Swaine then sought to succeed Hightower in the nonpartisan blanket primary held on September 30, 2006, against ten opponents, including fellow Democrat and eventual winner, Cedric Glover, an African American, then a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives. Other mayoral candidates included Ed Bradley, former vice president and general manager of KSLA-TV, businesswoman Arlena Acree, retiree Vernon Adams, and outgoing Republican State Senator Max Malone.

Swaine promised if elected to implement more stringent enforcement of the municipal code and to make city government more responsive to the residents. With 6,600 votes (13.1 percent), Swaine ran third in the primary, finishing behind eventual winner Cedric Glover and attorney Jerry Jones, a Republican.

After her municipal service, Swaine became communications director for Calumet Lubricants Company, an oil and natural gas concern which maintains a large plant in Cotton Valley in central Webster Parish. She has also engaged in podcasting and free-lance journalism.^[2]

Swaine and her husband, Steve S. Culp (born 1954), reside in Shreveport. She is a motorcycle enthusiast^[6] and former triathlete. Swaine was named “Best Journalist in the Nation” by the American Journalism Review magazine, then known as the Washington Journalism Review.^[2] She is the first female to have emceed the Congressional Medal of Honor Convention. She was named winner of the VIP Award of the Shreveport Chamber of Commerce.^[2]

Swaine left the Calumet position in November 2010, to become the director of the Downtown Shreveport Development Authority, replacing Don Shea. Swaine formerly headed a citizens committee that examined whether Shreveport should pursue a bond issue in 2011. She also handles public relations duties for local nonprofit organizations.^[7]

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