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Robert Floyd "Bob" Kennon ( August 12 , 1902 - January 11 , 1988 ) was a "good-government" reform Democratic Governor of the state of Louisiana , who served from 1952-1956. He failed to win a second nonconsecutive term in the 1963 Democratic primary. After the '' Brown V. Board Of Education '' decision of May 17 , 1954 , Governor Kennon ordered the enforcement of laws relating to Segregation . He vowed that the state would provide a Public School system "which will include segregation in fact." Desegregation, however, began under Kennon's successors, Earl Kemp Long and James Houston "Jimmie" Davis , but it was a long process, not completed in Louisiana until August 1970. The Conservative Kennon grew disillusioned with his national party and endorsed Republican presidential nominees Dwight D. Eisenhower , Barry M. Goldwater , and Gerald R. Ford . EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION "Kennon was the fifth child of Floyd and Annie Laura Bopp Kennon. An avid Boy Scout , he Attained The Rank of Eagle Scout . He grew up in Minden, Louisiana , the seat of Webster Parish , and graduated from Minden High School in 1919. According to one of his classmates, Maude Bullock (1905-1987), a veteran Webster Parish educator, Kennon told his skeptical high school friends that he would one day be governor. After high school, he attended Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge , where he received many honors. At the end of his freshman year, he received an award for the best academic record. He was captain of his company in ROTC , as well as the vice president of the Interfraternity Council. He was on the debate team and wrote for the school newspaper. He earned his first letter playing center for the LSU Football team. He helped organize LSU's Tennis team and was one of the first two people to letter in tennis at LSU. He graduated in June 1923. Three years later, Kennon graduated from the LSU Law School. The next month, Jujne 1925, he passed the bar exam at the age of twenty-two. By the time he was twenty-three, he had successfully challenged Minden Mayor Connell Fort and became for a time the youngest mayor in the United States. Although his term was considered to be successful, Kennon did not seek reelection. He was a commander in the National Guard during his stint as mayor. DISTRICT ATTORNEY AND THEN JUDGE In 1930, he won the election for District Attorney for the 26th Judicial District and served for eleven years. He married Eugenia Sentell, a graduate of Louisiana Tech University (then "Louisiana Polytechnic Institute") in Ruston , who taught Home Economics . She was a wonderful hostess and was able to cultivate several friendships that would later play key roles in her husband's race for governor. During his time as the D.A., he chose not to seek Indictment s for several high profile cases, even though there was enough evidence to support criminal prosecution. During this time, he attained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the National Guard , making him one of the highest ranked officers. Active with the Masonic Lodge , Kennon was named "Most Worshipful Grand Master" in 1936. Kennon took advantage of his growing circle of influential friends and ran for justice of the state's Second Circuit Court of Appeal in 1940. With 46 percent of the ballots, he nearly won outright in the primary. In the Democratic runoff, his opponent was the Incumbent Judge Harmon Caldwell Drew, a fellow resident of Minden. He was a powerful opponent, for the Drew family has held judicial positions in north Louisiana for five generations. The race was close, with considerable mudslinging. Kennon won by a margin of 9,000 votes, but he did not carry either his home parish of Webster or neighboring Bossier Parish . The seat would not become vacant until 1942. As an active member of the National Guard, Kennon was called to duty in 1941. Although he did not see active combat, Kennon did not return home from World War II until May 1945. Judge Drew hence served as justice until Kennon returned to claim his seat. Drew died of Lung Cancer five years later. A QUICK U.S. SENATE CAMPAIGN, 1948 When U.S. Senator John Overton died in office, a Special Election was called to fill the seat for a two-year term. Kennon's opponent, Russell B. Long , the oldest son of the legendary Huey Pierce Long, Jr. , was not quite thirty, still a few days too young to take office at the time of the election. The outcome was close, but Long won, 264,143 (51 percent) to Kennon's 253,668 (49 percent). Long's plurality was hence 10,475 votes. Based on the Senate returns, many in the anti-Long faction began to consider Kennon as a possible Gubernatorial candidate in 1951. Long held the seat without a serious challenge until he announced his retirement, effective January 1987. RUNNING FOR GOVERNOR, 1951-1952 Kennon therefore ran for governor in the 1951 Democratic primary. He won his party's nomination over Judge Carlos Spaht of Baton Rouge, who had the backing of the Long organizers. Kennon polled 482,302 votes (61.4 percent) to Spaht's 302,743 (38.6 percent). Spaht's running-mate for lieutenant governor was a future governor, John Julian McKeithen , then a 33-year-old State Representative from Columbia , the seat of Caldwell Parish , in northeastern Louisiana. McKeithen was defeated for lieutenant governor by C.E. "Cap" Barham (born 1905), a State Senator and an attorney from Ruston, the seat of Lincoln Parish . In the low-turnout General Election in the spring of 1952, Kennon trounced Republican Harrison Bagwell, 118,723 (96 percent) to 4,958 (4 percent). Until 1952, Louisiana Republicans had not even offered a token name on gubernatorial general election ballots. In addition to his interest in state sovereignty, Kennon was the governor who worked to provide voting machines to all Louisiana precincts to replace paper ballots still used in some rural parishes. Such machines were designed to eliminate the periodic problem of vote-stealing. A SECOND GUBERNATORIAL CAMPAIGN, 1963 ''Main article: Louisiana Gubernatorial Election, 1963-64 '' Kennon's term ended in the spring of 1956, and he was succeeded by his long-time foe, Earl Long. He unsuccessfully attempted to run for governor again in 1963. In the Democratic primary, Kennon ran fourth (127,870 votes or 14.1 percent). He was therefore eliminated from a runoff between Public Service Commissioner John McKeithen of Columbia in Caldwell Parish and the more liberal contender, former New Orleans Mayor DeLesseps Story Morrison, Sr. Some observers theorized that the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy , which occurred just days before the primary election, may have weakened Kennon's prospects because Kennon had in a televised address criticized policies of both President Kennedy and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy . He called the Kennedys "young, misguided men." Kennon was also harmed by the presence of the fifth-place candidate, veteran Education Superintendent Shelby M. Jackson , a native of Concordia Parish in eastern Louisiana, whose votes are believed to have come primarily at the expense of Kennon and therefore worked to deny Kennon the coveted runoff position against Morrison. Jackson was the vocal Segregationist among the five candidates, and Kennon discussed "state sovereignty," which some saw as a code word for segregation. Even if half of Jackson's votes had otherwise gone to Kennon, then Kennon, and not McKeithen, would have entered the runoff. Jackson's supporters were also believed in many cases to have been previous backers of the 1959 segregationist gubernatorial hopeful, William M. Rainach of Claiborne Parish . McKeithen won the runoff and the ensuing general election. Kennon did not endorse either runoff candidate, but his nephew, Francis Edward Kennon , later a Democratic member of the Louisiana Public Service Commission from Minden, stumped for the Roman Catholic and pro-Kennedy Morrison, known by the nickname "Chep", much to the consternation of many of his uncle's conservative and Protestant supporters in north Louisiana. Morrison had endorsed Kennon in the 1951-52 election cycle, after the elimination of his first choice, his former law partner, then Congressman Thomas Hale Boggs, Sr. , of New Orleans. BILL DODD'S EULOGY OF KENNON One of Kennon's 1951 primary opponents, William J. "Bill" Dodd (1909-1991), offered this eulogy in the form of a letter to the editor of the ''Baton Rouge Morning Advocate'' on the passing of Kennon: "As a personal friend and colleague of one whose death deserves more than a routine news story and a short obituary, I am writing this letter in the hope that its contents will be made available to the citizens of Louisiana. "Recently, Louisiana lost one of its greatest citizens, Robert F. "Bob" Kennon. He was the kind of person most often mentioned in sermons as a role model for those seeking perfection in their daily lives. Also he was the kind of politician professors of government describe as a good public official. "In both his personal and public life, he proved that the preachers and the political science professors were right. "At LSU, he was an honor student, colonel of the cadet corps, and a varsity football player. As a young lawyer, he was successful in his practice of law, which led him into politics, {and} he became mayor of Minden, a district attorney, a District Court of Appeals judge, and a Supreme Court judge. "When World War II came, though married and the father of young children, he volunteered into the U.S. Army and served with distinction, at home and overseas in Europe. "Bob Kennon was elected governor of Louisiana in 1952. During his tenure as governor, he reenacted Civil Service for state employees, put voting machines in every voting precinct (which ended vote stealing forever) and took slot machines and gambling out of Louisiana. {Instead of running up deficits, Governor Kennon ended each fiscal year with a surplus and was the only governor I can recall who actually reduced taxes. "For his four years, there were not only no scandals in state government, but there were no hints of wrongdoing by the governor or his department heads. "From 1952 until he went out of office {1956}, Governor Kennon, his lovely and gracious wife, and three fine sons lived in the Governor's Manson and made it a real home for the first family as well as a model for the whole state. "Governor Kennon's appointments were men and women of the highest moral standards and possessed of excellent government experience. Like their governor, they regarded their public offices as public trusts. "Governor Kennon was never tried and acquitted of wrongdoing because he didn't break the law or do anything suggesting he ever acted illegally or even unethically. He never spent any time with AA or in a CDU for he didn't drink alcohol and didn't snort cocaine. And when he took trips on boats, he went fishing or to a hunting camp with his boys and not to a hideaway like Bimini. His family was exemplary and made no waves that called for suppressing hospital or police records or anything else. "Perhaps the fact that Kennon was honest and efficient and ran the state and his life according to the laws of God and man, he missed out on the press coverage that goes to those who have to be rehabilitated and forgiven for their unethical and illegal conduct; coverage that often praises those rascals for their courage and fortitude to face the public after disgracing themselves and their friends who elected them. "Whatever the reason for Governor Kennon's lack of recognition for having been a model father, soldier, judge, and governor, the cold base record shows that he was exactly the kind of man the public, the preachers, and the press say they want but seldom get in the governor's office. "Bob Kennon was, with all his success, a humble man and, if living, he would not want credit for what he did. He regarded his going a good job as his duty, and Bob was a man who always did his duty. . . . "In 2001, Kennon was posthmuously inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield . REFERENCES Billy Hathorn, "The Republican Party in Louisiana, 1920-1980," Master's thesis (1980) at Northwestern State University at Natchitoches http://www.mindenmemories.com/Governor%20Robert%20Floyd%20Kennon%20II.htm http://www.cityofwinnfield.com/museum.html EXTERNAL LINKS
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