Leland G. Mims

Leland Garland Mims (February 7, 1901 – September 4, 1979)^[1] was a businessman and civic leader from Minden, Louisiana, who served as a member of the Webster Parish Police Jury (equivalent to county commission in other states) from 1953 to 1976 and as president of the body from 1956^[2] to 1973. In 1965 and 1966, he was elected by his colleagues statewide as president of the Police Jury Association of Louisiana. He also served on the executive committee of the statewide organization. On October 5, 1976, Minden observed "Leland Mims Day".^[3]

Webster Parish Police Jury

In February 1953, Governor Robert F. Kennon, a former mayor of Minden, appointed Mims to the police jury, the 12-member parish governing council, to fill the vacancy created by the death of Mims' distant cousin, Gilbert Calhoun Garland (1880-1953), who had begun serving on the police jury in 1925^[4] under appointment from Governor Henry Fuqua. Garland had served on every committee of the police jury but was best known for his work on the road committee. He missed only one meeting in his twenty-eight years on the board.^[5]

At the time, the members were elected at-large by wards. Mims campaigned door-to-door in each Democratic primary election, beginning in 1956. He usually led the field with a healthy majority. Four members were elected from the former Ward 4, which covered the immediate Minden area. A Ward 4 colleague, businessman William N. "Nick" Love (1909–2000), was also a strong votegetter in police jury races. The lower-polling candidates wound up either being defeated outright or placed into runoff elections among themselves.

During his tenure on the police jury, Mims ultimately served on each committee. In 1959, he was elected president of the organization of police jurors for Louisiana's 4th congressional district. The group representing seven parishes met in Homer to make the selection.^[6] In 1962, he was elected to his seventh term as police jury president.^[7]

Mims was the third vice-president,^[8] then second vice-president, and first vice-president of the state Police Jury Association, headquartered in Baton Rouge. He served from April 20, 1965, to April 2, 1967, as the president of the state organization, the only Webster Parish juror thus far to have headed the association. In 1973, partly as a result of health problems of his wife, Mims relinquished the police jury presidency to the first vice-president Morris W. McClary (1917–1988) of Sarepta, then a 17-year member of the body.^[4] When he, and McClary as well, retired from the body in 1976, the Police Jury Association of the Fourth Congressional District adopted a resolution recognizing Mims for his "excellent, energetic, and intelligent service."^[3]

James Tenney "Jim" Branch, Jr. (1927–2010), a Minden businessman originally from St. Louis, Missouri, who succeeded McClary as jury president^[9] and himself lost the 1982 race for Minden mayor to Noel Byars, said that he had "never known any juror [Mims] to be more honest, sincere, and knowledgeable ... Years ago, the jury found itself to be in bad financial shape. Then he became president, and today it is in great shape due to the financial abilities of Mr. Mims."^[3]

In addition to his watch over fiscal matters, Mims took an interest in all parish roads, including some of the lesser-travelled ones. He made sure that all such thoroughfares were well-maintained and that planning be undertaken before new roads were authorized. Daughter Linda Lee Martin (October 4, 1937 – January 23, 2011)^[10] recalled her father being a "people person. He really loved people and enjoyed working with them. He spoke with plain words and from the heart. He was easy-going and a peacemaker by nature, but he never hesitated to take a stand for what he believed was right."^[11]

Mims served until July 1, 1976, having declined to seek another term in the single-member District 8 seat created earlier by court-ordered reapportionment. Outgoing Webster Parish Clerk of Court Clarence Douglas Wiley (1909–1976)^[12] was handily elected to succeed Mims, but Wiley never joined the panel, having died as police juror-elect four months before he was to have taken office. Instead a special election was held, and the Webster Parish school administrator, Ralph Lamar Rentz, Sr. (1930–1995), defeated Minden businessman Stewart Covington (1930–1997), later of Doyline, by three votes for the right to succeed Leland Mims.

Earlier Rentz had finished a close third in the 1971 Democratic primary for the Webster Parish seat in the Louisiana House of Representatives, a position won by Judge R. Harmon Drew, Sr., of Minden and held at the time by Parey Branton of Shongaloo, who ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor. Drew in a runoff defeated former Mayor Charles McConnell of Springhill^[9][13]

Early years and education

Mims was born in Evergreen southwest of Shongaloo and north of Minden in central Webster Parish north of Minden to Henry Nathaniel Mims (February 3, 1851 – June 25, 1900) and the former Ella Olivia Garland (July 31, 1859 – May 25, 1920). A successful farmer, Henry Mims, died suddenly at the age of forty-nine, some seven months before his wife gave birth to Leland. Henry Mims was a native of the Darlington district of South Carolina; Ella, from nearby Sumter County in central South Carolina. Henry and Ella are interred at Pine Grove Cemetery north of Minden. Leland Mims was the youngest of seven children; his oldest sister was already nineteen when Leland was born. The second youngest sibling was seven years Leland's senior. The older siblings were more like surrogate parents or doting aunts and uncles than brothers and sisters, and Leland was close to all of them, recalled daughter Linda Martin.^[14]

Mims graduated in 1921 from Minden High School. He was the athletic editor of the yearbook, The Grig, a member of the football track and field, and basketball teams as well as the basketball captain. Among his MHS classmates were the artist Ben Earl Looney (1904–1981) and the future Minden educator Kirtley J. Miles (1904–1993).^[15] After high school, Mims attended Louisiana Tech University, then Louisiana Polytechnic Institute in Ruston, on an athletic scholarship, but he did not graduate. He then ran a store for a period of time.^[11]

Business and civic affairs

Thereafter, Mims headed the sales department for the former Standard Chevrolet Company, then owned by banker Castle O. Holland (1895–1981) and businessman Earl Long (1898–1980, no relation to the late Louisiana Governor Earl K. Long);^[4] some thirteen years later, Mims opened his own used-car business. At times he was in business with M. O. "Mop" Powell and Thomas Cameron Bloxom, Sr. (1896–1978), who moved to Minden during the 1930s from Mansfield in DeSoto Parish.^[12] Bloxom's son, T. C. Bloxom, Jr. (1929-2014), was a sheriff's deputy (1956-1983), city fire chief (1971-2008), police chief (1990-2010), and widely known civic figure in Minden, .^[16] Mims' used-car operation was first on Pearl Street across from the former Joy Theater and thereafter on East Union Street.^[11]

No man has done more for his home parish than Leland Mims. -- Governor Robert F. Kennon, who in 1953 appointed Mims to the Webster Parish Police Jury^[17]

Mims was named Minden Man of the Year in 1960. He was an honorary lifetime Boy Scout and an active member of the Masonic lodge.^[4] Though he had no musical training, Mims sang tenor at band concerts in the park and also in the choir of the First United Methodist Church, of which he was also a member of the board of stewards.^[11] Mims was active in the Minden Lions Club and was selected "Boss of the Year" by the local Business and Professional Women's club.^[4]

The Lowe family

Mrs. Mims, the former Rubye Lowe (February 16, 1904 – March 14, 1975), was the daughter of W. Matt Lowe and the former Clara Dorcas Hodges (1880-1954), a native of Cotton Valley in central Webster Parish. Lowe, a merchant, served as mayor of Minden from 1916 to 1920 and was thereafter a member of the police jury from 1940 to 1954.^[18] He died at a Shreveport hospital at the age of eighty-three.^[19]

Former residence of Leland Mims at 103 Germantown Road in Minden, Louisiana

Rubye Lowe Mims^[20] procured a teacher's certificate from Louisiana Tech and taught for a year before the couple married on January 15, 1925.^[11] Hence, Rubye Mims' father and husband were both police jurors, but their terms coincided only for the year extending from February 1953 until January 1954.^[18] Mrs. Mims was a diabetic. She and her husband both died four years apart of congestive heart failure. After Mims's passing, the Mims residence at 103 Germantown Road residence was sold to Minden photographer Stanley B. Quade (1914–2002).^[11]

Mims's nephew by marriage, George Benjamin Spencer, Jr. (1925-2007), a native of Minden, was a United States Army officer in World War II, a power company executive, and a twice elected member of the Quorum Court in Jefferson County, Arkansas, equivalent to the police jury in Louisiana. The junior Spencer retired to Paducah, Kentucky. He is interred at Graceland Cemetery in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.^[21]

Linda Lee Mims Martin, years earlier a librarian, was the only child of Leland and Rubye Mims. She and her husband, Robert Oliver Martin, Jr. (1937–2010), graduated from Minden High School in 1955 and resided in Houston, Texas, at the time of their deaths, some five months apart.^[22] The Martins lived in Connecticut from 1976 to 2001, where Rob was employed by International Business Machines. He retired in 1993 with thirty years service as portfolio manager of the IBM Retirement Fund.^[23]

Retirement

On June 8, 1973, on the occasion of Mims' relinquishing of the police jury presidency after seventeen years, the Minden Press-Herald quoted his advice to aspiring politicians: "The main person that can help you is the Good Lord -- you've got to put Him there. There's not much that can be done unless we give praise to Him and look to Him for guidance."^[24] In his farewell speech to the jury, Mims said simply, "This is my time to bow out" as jury president. He remained on the jury itself for another two years.^[25]

Grave of Leland G. Mims at Minden Cemetery

In 1975, when Mims announced his decision to retire from his jury seat, he told the Press-Herald: "I loved every minute of it. It was the high spot of my life. And I have worked with a lot of good men.”^[4] Linda Martin added: "He loved Minden with all his heart -- it was his town!"^[11]

The Mimses are interred at Minden Cemetery. Rob and Linda Mims Martin are interred at Gardens of Memory Cemetery in Minden.^[10]

References