B. F. O'Neal, Jr.

Benjamin Franklin O'Neal Jr. (June 23, 1922 – April 29, 2004), known as B. F. O'Neal Jr., was a Shreveport businessman and a pioneer in the development of the modern Republican Party in the U.S. state of Louisiana. O'Neal was a member of the Caddo Parish Police Jury (now the Caddo Parish Commission) from 1964 to 1968 and the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1972 to 1988.

Background
O'Neal was born in Shreveport to Benjamin F. O'Neal Sr. (1889–1968) and the former Abbie Hendrick. O'Neal's grandfather, also Benjamin Franklin O'Neal of Benton, was the sheriff of Bossier Parish from 1871 to 1877, and thereafter the U.S. marshal for the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana. The grandfather was a delegate to the 1900 Republican National Convention, which renominated President William McKinley and then New York Governor Theodore Roosevelt for vice president. The grandfather died in New Orleans in 1910, while he was visiting a son. Hence, unlike most Louisiana Republicans, who were former Democrats, O'Neal came from an old Republican family. B. F. O'Neal Sr. was involved in real estate and property development and from 1910 to had been the advertising manager of The Shreveport Times. O'Neal Jr. had two older sisters, Mary Steele Cooper and Jane Hendrick Kleine, both of whom died in 1999.

O'Neal graduated from Southern Baptist-affiliated Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Thereafter, he enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps Reserve, forerunner to the Air Force. After flight training, he became an instructor in the pilot training program and, later, he was assigned duty as a pilot for the commander of the Western Flying Training Command. He was released in 1946 as a first lieutenant.

He returned to Shreveport after World War II and entered the real estate business with his father in the firm known as "B. F. O'Neal & Son, Realtors." In 1960, he was elected president of the Shreveport-Bossier Board of Realtors and was named "Realtor of the Year." He was a vice president of the National Association of Realtors and was a member of the "Build America Better" Committee.

Caddo Parish police jury
O'Neal was elected to the police jury (now called the Caddo Parish Commission) in the March 3, 1964, general election. He was aided in his victory by coattails provided by the Republican gubernatorial candidate Charlton Lyons of Shreveport. He and the engineer Owen D. Adams of Greenwood, later of Houston, Texas, were the first two Republicans to serve on the police jury since Charles T. Beaird, who had been elected in 1956.

On the police jury, O'Neal worked for equalization of tax assessments, which resulted in most parish homeowners having their assessments lowered from 40 percent to 25 percent. He was chairman of the special committee responsible for the development of an industrial park on the site of the former Caddo Parish Penal Farm.

Four terms in the legislature
In 1968, O'Neal first ran at-large for the state legislature but was defeated when the Democrats swept the state and local offices in Caddo Parish, except for Police Juror Owen Adams. Still, O'Neal led the GOP legislative ticket with 13,709 votes that year.

In 1972, aided again by coattails from the Republican gubernatorial candidate, David C. Treen, O'Neal was elected to the state legislature in a single-member district. The previous legislators had run at-large. One of them, P. J. Mills, a Shreveport banker, opted not to seek a second term but to run, unsuccessfully, for lieutenant governor. O'Neal polled 7,065 votes (54.9 percent) in a race against Democratic nominee Gard Russell Wayt Sr. (born 1939), a Shreveport insurance agent and lay leader in the United Methodist Church, who drew 5,606 votes (43.6 percent). The American Party choice, Maud C. Walton, received 193 ballots, or 1.5 percent.

O'Neal was one of only four Republicans in the 105-member body at that time. His GOP colleagues included Art Sour, also of Shreveport, who upset Democratic incumbent Frank Fulco. Sour polled 5,564 votes (53.2 percent) to Fulco's 4,886 (46.8 percent). Sour served until 1992, having been defeated in the 1991 primary.

The other Republican lawmakers were Clark Gaudin of Baton Rouge, who polled 51 percent of the vote in his race against the Democrat Lillian W. Walker, and Charles D. Lancaster Jr., who defeated Democrat Calvin P. "Chuck" Lee in a Jefferson Parish contest. Gaudin had won the House seat in a special 1967 election, lost it in 1968, and rebounded with his 1972 victory. Lancaster was defeated after a single term in 1975 but returned to the state House in 1979.

Meanwhile, O'Neal was unopposed in the first-ever nonpartisan blanket primary of 1975. At that time, he had only four Republican colleagues, and one of those, A. J. McNamara of Jefferson Parish, was actually elected as a Democrat but switched affiliation in 1977.

He was also reelected without opposition in 1979, when Treen won the governorship for one term. In 1981, the conservative O'Neal addressed the House Education Committee on the limitations of government, a persistent theme of his political thinking. He remarked:

Government doesn't do anything very well. Take government housing. It's almost a complete failure, and anyone who can afford to be out of public housing is out. ... Public education is in serious disrepair. The youngster, parents, teachers, and administrators are all unhappy.... Government has the power to use force to compel, to coerce, and to oppress, and government uses that power at every opportunity ... as in the case of forced busing to achieve racial balance in school ...

O'Neal was elected to his fourth and final term in 1983. He retired from the House in 1988 and was succeeded by his fellow conservative Republican, a young attorney, and later judge, Roy Brun.

O'Neal was a member of the Education Commission of the States, the American Legislative Council, the National Conference of State Legislators, the Council for National Policy, and the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry. His favorite hobby was hunting on his family farm.

O'Neal's obituary
O'Neal was mortally injured in an automobile accident on April 4, 2004; he died twenty-five days later. Survivors included his wife, Nancy Johns O'Neal (born 1925), and their children, Jane O'Neal de Bessonet (born 1950) of Baton Rouge, Dr. Barron Johns O'Neal (born 1952) of Shreveport, Lisa O'Neal Childs (born 1955) of Shreveport, and Mary (Mimi) O'Neal Johnson (born 1960) of Jackson, Mississippi, and twelve grandchildren.



A memorial service was held on May 1, 2004, at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in Shreveport, with the Very Reverend M. L. Agnew Jr., dean of the cathedral, officiating. Interment was at Shreveport's Forest Park Cemetery. Pallbearers included Charlton H. Lyons Jr. and former Caddo Parish legislative colleague Bruce Lynn. Honorary pallbearers included Judges Tom Stagg and Roy Brun, both of Shreveport. O'Neal is listed as a "Baptist" by Who's Who in American Politics, 2003-2004 though his service was in the Episcopal Church.

O'Neal's legislative colleague, Woody Jenkins of Baton Rouge, who waged three unsuccessful races for the United States Senate, praised his friend in a 1981 newspaper column: '''No man in the legislature has been a more effective and principled spokesman for individual liberty. His eloquent speeches both in committee and on the House floor have frequently been responsible for carrying the day for free enterprise, limiting the powers of government, and protecting the rights of the individual citizen.'''