Eugene Eason

Eason is listed on the plaque at the Webster Parish Library in Minden because of his service on the board at the time of the completion of the new library in 1996.

Fulton Eugene Eason (May 28, 1928 – March 25, 2007) was a businessman from Springhill, Louisiana, who ran as a Republican in four elections for the Louisiana House of Representatives in calendar year 1991. He won the special election runoff on March 23 for a 9-month unexpired term from District 10, then encompassing all of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana. Eason was the first Republican ever to seek election to the heavily Democratic Webster Parish seat in the Louisiana House.

Political campaigns

Two educators, both since deceased, sought the representative's position, Ralph Lamar Rentz, Sr. (1930-1995), the former Webster Parish School Board personnel director, and Faye Newsome, the principal of Minden High School, but neither polled sufficient votes to enter the determining runoff election. In the first balloting Eason trailed Patti Lou Cook Odom of Minden. She is the daughter of the late H. Boe Cook, former co-owner of the Minden radio station KASO. Her husband is Charles Odom, a Webster Parish police juror. In the runoff campaign, Eason challenged Odom from the political right. He questioned her backing for affirmative action, minority set-aside arrangements on public contracts, abortion, the Second Amendment, the 1984 Mondale-Ferraro ticket. Eason said that he had been supporting Ronald W. Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush while Odom was backing liberal Democratic candidates.^[1] Odom had been elected in 1987 to the Louisiana Democratic State Central Committee,^[2] which Eason denounced as a liberal political group.^[1]

Eason defeated Odom, 3,659 to 3,309 votes. He had little time to accumulate a legislative record. He had concentrated his attention to efforts to promote economic and highway expansion within District 10. On November 16, 1991 Eason was unseated in the regular general election by the Democrat Everett Doerge, a retired school administrator from Minden. Doerge polled 8,389 ballots to Eason's 8,318, a margin of 71 votes. This election occurred at the same time that the Democrat Edwin Washington Edwards staged his fourth-term comeback in a nationally-watched race against outgoing State Representative David Duke of Jefferson Parish.^[3]

In 2003, two members of the Webster Parish Police Jury, including Charles Odom, the husband of Eason's former legislative opponent, and Daniel Thomas, questioned Eason's long-term tenure as the chairman of the North Webster Industrial Park. The two jurors proposed that Charles Jacobs, then the city attorney for Springhill and later a judge of the Louisiana 26th Judicial District Court, be appointed to replace Eason on the industrial park board. Odom and Thomas claimed that Eason had been unwilling to cooperate with other industrial park members and municipal and parish officials in the administration of the facility. However, jurors voted 8-2 to retain Eason in the position. "The park speaks for itself. It is growing and successful. We've done a lot and we have a lot of good things on the horizon. ... All someone has to do is take a drive through the area and see how good things are going. I think I've done a damn good job and trust me, it hasn't been easy," Eason said.^[4]

Eason remains the only Republican since Reconstruction to have represented this particular legislative seat, which is currently held by the Democrat Harlie Eugene Reynolds of Dubberly, another retired educator.

Personal life

Eason was born in Clarks, a lumbering town in Caldwell Parish, to Fulton Filmore Eason (1898–1968) and the former Jewel Parker (1901–1974), but he lived most of his life in Springhill, where he managed Stauffer Chemical Company for thirty-seven years.^[5] Prior to his legislative service, Eason was a member of the Springhill City Council, having served from 1966 to 1970 and 1987 to 1991. Eason was a member of the Webster Parish Library Board from 1975 to 2006,^[6] with Henry Grady Hobbs (1923-2012) of Minden having been president of the board for much of that time.^[7]

Eason served too on the Louisiana Highway 7 Corridor Commission, the Office of Community Services, and the North Webster Parish Industrial Board. He was a member of Rotary International and the Central Baptist Church of Springhill.^[6]

Eason and his wife, the former Frances Smith, an educator, married on July 15, 1951, and had four children, John Wesley Eason of Victoria, Texas, Joy Kathleen Langston of Magnolia, Arkansas, David Eugene Eason of Houston, Texas, and Barbara Jean Dees of Springhill, Louisiana.^[6]

The Easons are interred at Springhill Cemetery.^[6]

Eason grave at Springhill Cemetery

References