Riemer Calhoun

Maurice Riemer Calhoun, Sr., known as Riemer Calhoun (April 5, 1909 – August 4, 1994),^[1] was a Democrat from Mansfield, Louisiana, who represented a combined DeSoto and Caddo parish district in the Louisiana State Senate from 1944 to 1952.^[2]

After he left the Senate, Calhoun in October 1952 managed the DeSoto Parish campaign for Dwight D. Eisenhower, the successful Republican presidential nominee. Eisenhower received 57.8 percent of the vote in DeSoto Parish^[3] but lost the electoral vote of Louisiana.

Family background

Calhoun was the second youngest of five children born to Murry A. (born c. 1873) and Ruby Calhoun (born c. 1877). He was reared in Ward 4 of DeSoto Parish. A farmer and real estate broker, he graduated in 1930 from the Methodist-affiliated Centenary College in Shreveport.^[4]

Little is known about Calhoun's career, but considerable information is available about his family. Calhoun's first wife, the former Clista Andrews (c. 1914 – February 1952), a native of Arkansas, was reared in Texarkana, Texas.^[5] Clista had been orphaned at the age of ten.^[6] The couple had a daughter, Carolyn Huckabay (born March 9, 1935), a real estate broker in Shreveport,^[7] and two sons, both businessmen, Riemer Calhoun, Jr. (born 1937), of Mansfield, and Thomas Allen "Tommy" Calhoun (born May 1943) of Shreveport.^[6] Calhoun's second wife and surviving widow is Evelyn Hope Ryder Calhoun (born February 1924).^[8][9]

When the former Mansfield Female College, which had been constructed during the early 1850s, was offered for sale by the town of Mansfield, the Calhouns purchased the property. They made extensive renovations to the main building, removed the top two floors, and converted the structure into their own family home. In 2002, Hope Calhoun and the Calhoun children from the first marriage donated the building and grounds for use as a state museum. After a $1.2 million reconstruction, the building, known as the Clista A. Calhoun Center, opened in September 2012. A foundation fund is also established in Clista's memory.^[6] The mothers of both Riemer Calhoun, Sr., and Hope Calhoun attended the Mansfield Female College.^[8]

In June 1966, Calhoun became an original stockholder in the firm Modern Electronics, Inc., which manufactured equipment for use in pecan-shelling plants. In 1971, Tommy Calhoun acquired the shares of the company owned by his father and his sister to obtain majority ownership. The company underwent reorganization after the death of a partner in 1974.^[10]

In 1990, Carolyn Huckabay, then married to Douglas Whitehurst and known as Carolyn C. Whitehurst, ran as a Republican candidate for mayor of Shreveport, but she was eliminated with 7.5 percent of the vote in a 12-candidate field by another Republican woman, Hazel Beard, who won the runoff election to become the first woman mayor of Shreveport and the first of only two Republican mayors of the city since Reconstruction.^[11]

Older son Riemer Calhoun, Jr., developed and managed hundreds of apartment complexes throughout Louisiana and the American South.^[12] He was from 1990 to 1992 the president of the Texas Longhorn Breeders Association of America, the first person from Louisiana to head the organization. In his capacity as president, Calhoun established an outreach program to enhance communications. He adopted the motton, "Tell the Longhorn story".^[13] Calhoun, Jr., is married to the former Marcia Copeland (born 1938), the daughter of Nile Bailey Copeland (1909-1953) and Marian Smith Copeland Cooper (1913-2002) of Mansfield.^[14]

In 2003, Calhoun, Jr., pleaded guilty to bilking the U.S. government and various investors out of $2.5 million;^[12] specifically, two counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit equity skimming. He was fined $1 million and served two five-year prison sentences consecutively.^[15] Some of Calhoun's investors faced the loss of Internal Revenue Service tax credits received through the illegal business practices.^[12] Calhoun was released from the Bureau of Prisons on February 19, 2008.^[16]

The senior Calhoun died in 1994 at the age of eighty-five. His burial site is unknown.

References