Charles McConnell

Gravestone of former Mayor Charles E. McConnell

Charles Emmett McConnell, also known as Jack McConnell (February 5, 1923 – December 29, 2000), was an attorney and Democratic politician, who was elected in 1954 as the mayor of Springhill in northern Louisiana,

Background

Originally from Rayville in Richland Parish in northeastern Louisiana, McConnell had seven siblings. He was a law partner of his brother Nathaniel Julius McConnell, Sr. (1918-1995), who was the Springhill ward judge from 1956 to 1986, when he was succeeded by John M. Robinson. One of his sisters, Theresa McConnell Lowe (1907-1959), was an educator for whom the former Lowe Junior High School in Minden was named.^[1][2]

After graduation from Rayville High School, McConnell attended the University of Louisiana at Monroe, then known as Northeast Louisiana Junior College in Monroe. He served for two years overseas during World War II and completed his legal education at Louisiana State University Law Center in Baton Rouge. He was the chairman of the board of Citizens Bank and Trust Company in Springhill. He was affiliated with Lions International, the American Legion, the Chamber of Commerce, Masonic lodge, the Shriners, the United Givers Fund,^[3] and the United Methodist Church.^[4]

McConnell and his wife, the former Mary Virginia Hathorn (1921-2009), had two daughters, Malinda M. Gore and Lenae M. Scott, both of the Shreveport-Bossier City metropolitan area.^[4] Mrs. McConnell, the daughter of Ernest Eldorado Hathorn and the former Claudia Waller, graduated in 1937 from Haynesville High School in Haynesville in Claiborne Parish and in 1941 from Northwestern State University in Natchitoches. Mary McConnell was for many years a business education teacher at several locations, including Springhill High School. She was Southern Baptist.^[5]

Political career

In the April 1954 municipal primary, McConnell garnered 53 percent of the vote over two primary rivals, Jesse C. Anderson and Robert J. Hughes.^[6] He was succeeded after a single term by the businessman Jesse L. Boucher. From 1960 to 1969, McConnell was an elected member of the Webster Parish School Board.^[4] He resigned from the board two years into his second term^[7] because in his words he had "too many irons in the fire to continue work on the board". A second board member, A. E. Day of Minden, a former schoolteacher, soon followed McConnell in resignation.^[8]

McConnell was engaged in a law practice in Springhill with Roy M. Fish. Johnnie Souter McMahen (1930-2012), the wife of subsequent Webster Parish Sheriff Royce L. McMahen, was their legal clerk. From 1974 to 1992, Mrs. Mahen was the Springhill city clerk.^[9] In 1962, McConnell was elected head of the Webster Parish United Way Fund.^[3]

In 1967 and 1971, McConnell waged losing campaigns for what is now the District 10 seat in the Louisiana House of Representatives, having been defeated by fellow Democrats Parey Branton of Shongaloo and R. Harmon Drew, Sr., of Minden, respectively. In the first campaign, McConnell vowed if elected to "represent all equally" and to seek the "advancement of constituents without compromising ideals and principles."^[4] In the Democratic primary held on November 4, 1967, McConnell finished in third place with 4,598 votes, behind Branton, also a former member of the Webster Parish School Board, who polled 6,127 votes. Two other candidates trailed McConnell and Branton in the primary, Minden attorney Henry Grady Hobbs (1923-2012), a native of nearby Sarepta,^[10] who had lost the seat by sixteen votes to Branton in 1960, and James William "Tinker" Volentine, a Minden small businessman and a native of Bienville Parish.^[11]

The other seat at stake was won outright in the primary with 6,904 votes by John Sidney Garrett of Haynesville in Claiborne Parish, who thereafter was tapped by Governor John McKeithen as the new Speaker of the Louisiana House of Representatives to replace the late Vail M. Delony.^[12] In the Democratic runoff primary held on December 16, 1967, Garrett remained neutral, and Branton prevailed 7,619 votes (52.6 percent) to McConnell's 6,857 (47.4 percent).^[13]

In 1971, McConnell sought the legislative seat which Branton vacated to run unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in a bid to succeed Taddy Aycock, who ran instead for governor. This time, the senior Harmon Drew led in the primary balloting with 3,026 votes (25.2 percent). McConnell trailed in second place with 2,916 ballots (24.3 percent). In third place was the Minden educator Ralph Lamar Rentz, Sr. (1930-1995), who polled 2,739 votes (22.8 percent). Rentz proposed that Webster Parish establish a two-year educational program past the twelfth grade of high school to assist students seeking four-year college degrees, a reform implemented in Bossier Parish in 1967 which eventually became Bossier Parish Community College. Minden businessman Houston Morris finished in fourth place with 2,101 votes (17.5 percent). Two other candidates, including the late Minden businessman N. J. Cone, Jr., split the remaining 1,216 votes (10.1 percent).^[14]

In the runoff election against Drew, McConnell ran on a platform advocating revision of the state tax code, greater industrial development, and the expansion of vocational technical education for the benefit of pupils unprepared for a college education.^[15] Armed with strong support in the Minden and south Webster area, Drew easily defeated McConnell, 6,774 votes (57.7 percent) to 4,965 (42.3 percent) in the runoff held on December 18, 1971.^[16]

In 1982, McConnell was named chairman of the Webster Parish Indigent Defender Board.^[17]

McConnell died in 2000 at the age of seventy-seven. His wife lived another nine years. The McConnells are interred at Springhill Cemetery.^[5]

References