Lether Frazar

Lether Edward Frazar ​
44th Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana​
In office May 8, 1956​ – May 10, 1960​
Governor	Earl Kemp Long​
Preceded by	C. E. "Cap" Barham ​
Succeeded by	Clarence C. "Taddy" Aycock​
Louisiana State Representative for Beauregard Parish​
In office 1936​ – 1940​
Preceded by	Monette Jones
Succeeded by	Stuart S. Kay
President of McNeese State University in Lake Charles
In office 1944–1955
Preceded by	Rodney Cline
Succeeded by	Wayne N. Cusic
President of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette
In office 1938–1941
Preceded by	Edwin Lewis Stephens
Succeeded by	Joel L. Fletcher
Born	December 1, 1904​ DeRidder, Beauregard Parish Louisiana​
Died	May 15, 1960 (aged 55)​
Resting place	Woodlawn Cemetery in DeRidder
Political party	Democrat​
Spouse(s)	Lily Hooper Frazar (1904–1994)​
Children	Lily Ann Frazar Margaret Brenda Frazar Malone
Alma mater	Merryville High School University of Louisiana at Lafayette Louisiana State University Columbia University ​
Occupation	Educator; College president​

​ Lether Edward Frazar (December 1, 1904 – May 15, 1960)^[1] was the Democratic lieutenant governor of his native Louisiana under Governor Earl Kemp Long, with service from 1956 to 1960. Earlier, as a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives for Beauregard Parish from 1936 to 1940,^[2] he authored the state teacher retirement law.^[3]

Frazar was also the fourth president of McNeese State University, then known as McNeese State College, in Lake Charles. He served at McNeese from 1944 to 1955, when he resigned to prepare to become lieutenant governor. He was also from 1938 to 1941 the second president of his alma mater, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, then known as Southwestern Louisiana Institute.​^[3]

Background[edit]

Frazar was born in DeRidder in Beauregard Parish, to Moses Edward Frazar and the former Letha Perkins. Mrs. Frazar died when Lether (named for his mother) was twelve days old. Moses Frazar then married the former Nina May Bland in 1906. There were two children from the second marriage, Lether Frazar's half-siblings, Marvin Edward Frazar and Ruby Frazar Harrison.^[3]

Lether Frazar was a nephew by marriage — his maternal aunt was Ellen Perkins Herford — to Drew Dow Herford, I (1871-1943), a Texas native educator who was the first mayor of DeQuincy in northern Calcasieu Parish and a state representative.^[4] Frazar spent many summers during his childhood at the home of the Herfords.​

Frazar graduated in 1923 from Merryville High School in Beauregard Parish ad was educated at the then Southwestern Institute in Lafayette having received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1928. He obtained a Master of Arts from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge in 1932. In 1942, he obtained his Ph.D. from Columbia University in New York City.^[3]​

On August 22, 1929, Frazar married the former Lily Hooper (December 12, 1904 – November 5, 1994), who was living in Baton Rouge at the time of her death. She graduated in 1926 from Louisiana Tech University in Ruston in Lincoln Parish. At the time, Tech was known as Louisiana Polytechnic Institute. The Frazars had two daughters, Lily Ann Frazar and Margaret Brenda Frazar Malone (born 1941) of Baton Rouge.^[3]

Frazar was a high school principal at Longville (1928-1931) and Merryville (1933-1938), both in Beauregard Parish. From 1931 to 1933, he was a principal in Jackson in East Feliciana Parish.​^[3] ​

Legislative service and the OPA[edit]

Frazar was elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives in 1936 and served one term until 1940. In addition to his leadership in the adoption of the Louisiana teacher retirement law, Frazar worked for the establishment of the T. H. Harris scholarship foundation, named for his friend, the Louisiana superintendent of education, T. H. Harris, who held the post from 1908 to 1940.^[3]

During the time that he completed his graduate studies at Columbia, he was also employed in Washington, D.C., by the new Office of Price Administration, one of the World War II federal agencies.^[3] Future U.S. Vice President Richard M. Nixon of California also worked for the OPA at the time that Frazar was an agency officer. In 1942, Frazar assumed the position of Louisiana director of the OPA.​ ​

President of two colleges[edit]

In 1944, after he lost a statewide race to John Easterly Coxe, T. H. Harris' successor as Louisiana superintendent of education,^[5] Frazar was named the McNeese State University president in Lake Charle. Technically, he was the first president of the institution because his three predecessors were known as "deans," not presidents. Under his leadership, many new buildings and programs were established on the campus of what had originally been Lake Charles Junior College, which had opened its doors in 1939.​^[3] ​ Frazar left McNeese when he was elected lieutenant governor. He unseated incumbent fellow Democrat C. E. "Cap" Barham, an attorney from Ruston in the party primary, 327,679 votes (44.9 percent) to 195,616 (26.8 percent). Frazar won the position without a majority because at the time Louisiana did not require Democratic runoff primaries if there was also no contested primary election for governor at the same time. Because Earl Long had won his nomination outright in the gubernatorial primary, Long's ticket-mate Frazar avoided a second race.

Another lieutenant governor candidate was A. Brown Moore, a 1934 Tulane University Law School graduate who had fought under General George S. Patton in World War II, was a member of the New Orleans City Council, and carried the endorsement of the third-place gubernatorial candidate, Fred Preaus of Farmerville in Union Parish.^[6] Frazar then overwhelmed his Republican opponent, Harry R. Hill, in the general election held in the spring of 1956. Hill was the only candidate offered by the state GOP in the statewide races that year. Months later, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower became the first Republican candidate to win Louisiana' then ten electoral votes since Reconstruction.​ ​ Frazar came to McNeese with three years experience as the president of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, then Southwestern Institute.^[3]​ ​

Earl Long loyalist[edit]

​ As lieutenant governor, Frazar was known for his steadfast loyalty to Earl Long. Barham, however, had often quarreled with certain policies of Governor Robert F. Kennon and had established the office of lieutenant governor independently of the governor.​ Barham sought reelection on the intra-party ticket of Mayor deLesseps Story "Chep" Morrison, Sr. (1912-1964) of New Orleans, who also fared poorly in his race against Earl Long.

In the-late summer of 1959, Long actually considered resigning as governor, a move which would have made Frazar the Louisiana chief executive for some seven months. Under the scenario, Long would then run for governor himself in the December 1959 Democratic primary and thereby avoid Louisiana's ban (at the time) on governors succeeding themselves.​^[7]

Frazar did not seek a second term as lieutenant governor in the 1959 Democratic primary. Instead Long ran to succeed Frazar as lieutenant governor, but he fell far short of primary victory. Long ran on an intra-party "ticket" with former Governor James Albert Noe, Sr. (1890-1976) with whom Long had previously quarreled in public.^[7]

On one occasion as acting governor when Long was out of the state, Frazar signed death warrants for two African-Americans from New Orleans, Edgar Labat and Clifton Poret, who were on Death Row at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola in West Feliciana Parish for the aggravated rape of a white woman on November 12, 1950. They were scheduled to have been executed on September 20, 1957. The executions were never implemented because the night before the new court-appointed attorneys for the men obtained a stay of execution from a federal judge. The men declared their innocence, and their cases remained in the federal courts until Louisiana stopped executions between 1961 and 1983.​

Frazar died five days after he vacated the office of lieutenant governor.^[1] That same month, Clarence C. "Taddy" Aycock (1915-1987) of Franklin in St. Mary Parish, a conservative Democrat, succeeded Frazar in the office. Some four months later, Earl Long himself was dead after having won the Democratic nomination in the now defunct 8th congressional district.

Legacy[edit]

Frazar was a Methodist; he died before the formation of the United Methodist Church. He was a member of the Southern Regional Education Board, National Education Association, the Kiwanis Internationaland its Blue Key organization, Pi Sigma, Alpha Sigma Phi, the Masonic lodge, and the Shriners.​^[3]

Lether and Lily Frazar are interred in Woodlawn Cemetery in his native DeRidder, Louisiana.^[1]​

McNeese State University honored Frazar through the naming of its Lether Edward Frazar Memorial Library. The Frazar Collection, including his correspondence from 1935 to 1959, is housed at McNeese. There is also a Lether E. Frazer Memorial Trophy given annually to the outstanding offensive football player for the McNeese University Cowboys.​

References[edit]

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