Robert J. Barham
Encyclopedia
Robert Jocelyn Barham is a large-scale farm
er from Morehouse Parish who has been appointed by Louisiana
Governor
Bobby Jindal
as the secretary of the state's Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. He is also a former Republican
member of the Louisiana State Senate
who represented District 33 (Claiborne, Morehouse, Union, and West Carroll parishes), all of which border Arkansas
in the northernmost section of his state.
In an interview published on January 1, 2008, Barham said that his major LDWF issues during the next four years are coastal restoration and controlling invasive aquatic vegetation in lakes and waterways. "We'll be on the front lines of coastal restoration. It's a huge project. It's going to have an impact on fisheries, oyster leases, the environment — but we have no choice. We have to do it."
, a Democrat
from Ferriday
, who served as a state representative from 1992 to 2006. Hammet was named to the position late in 2006 by outgoing Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco.
When Barham was a boy, his father, Erle McKoin "Ninety" Barham (1916–1976), organized a group of Morehouse Parish landowners who established the Cooley Wildlife Refuge, which became the biggest bird-banding site in Louisiana. Barham fished, hunted, and explored the rivers, streams, lakes and woods of northeastern Louisiana as a teenager and later the entire state as an adult.
Leslie L. Glasgow (1914–1980), the assistant U.S. Secretary of the Interior in the administration of U.S. President Richard M. Nixon, chose young Barham to work at Glacier National Park in northernmost Montana
. Earlier, Glasgow had been a reform director of the Louisiana Wild Life and Fisheries (1966–1968) and a professor
at Louisiana State University
in Baton Rouge. Barham told the Monroe News Star
that his experience At Glacier park was "amazing. I was mentored by people like my dad and (Glasgow), who knew the importance of our natural resources. Louisiana has 1500000 acres (6,070.3 km²) of Wildlife Management Areas. Another early mentor of Barham was Grits Gresham
(1922–2008), the sports journalist
who once hosted ABC
's The American Sportsman
and was a long-time advocate of saving the Louisiana wetlands.
Barham received the 2009 Outstanding Legislator of the Year Award from the Louisiana Wildlife Federation and the 1999 National Award for Conservation of Natural Resources from the Daughters of the American Revolution. He was also honored with the John D. Newsom Award for Wildlife Stewardship.
At the conclusion of his last regular legislative session in 2007, Barham told an interviewer that Louisiana should concentrate on anti-litter efforts and highway
construction. He lamented that his state is one of the most littered in the nation and urged a public education and law enforcement angle to tackle the problem. He also said that the state should pave the first mile of each highway connecting to Arkansas, Mississippi
, and Texas
to the highest grade possible so as to give travelers coming into Louisiana a favorable first impression.
In 2002, Barham was an unsuccessful candidate for the United States House of Representatives
, having lost to Representative Rodney Alexander
, now his fellow Republican.
Republican State Representative
Mike Walsworth
of West Monroe
was elected to succeed Barham in the October 20, 2007 jungle primary
.
to Erle Barham and the former Rosalie Smith (1913–1999). He grew up on the family plantation in Oak Ridge
in Morehouse Parish along with brother, Erle Edwards Barham
(born 1937), who held this same Senate seat as a Republican from 1976 to 1980. Edwards Barham was the first Republican elected to the Louisiana Senate since Reconstruction. Edwards and Robert Barham were cousins of the late Democratic State Senator Charles C. Barham
, who represented an adjoining district based about Ruston
from 1964 to 1972 and 1976 to 1988.
Barham graduated from Oak Ridge High Schoo]. He received a bachelor's degree
from Louisiana State University
in Baton Rouge. In 1970, he entered the United States Army
for a two-year stint as a medic
in South Vietnam
. In 1999, he became a colonel
in the Louisiana National Guard
. Barham also obtained a master's degree from the University of Louisiana at Monroe
(then Northeast Louisiana State University). In 1994, he completed the "Agricultural Leadership Program" at LSU. He began full-time farming, Robert Barham Farms, Inc., in Oak Ridge in 1972. Barham and his wife, the former Melba Pipes (born 1954), have three children, Robert Erle, Rebecca, and Henry.
of Oak Ridge (population 142 in the 2000 census
) in 1983 and served until 1988, when he became a village
council member instead. He vacated the municipal post when he took his state Senate seat late in 1994. His affiliations include Ducks Unlimited, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Rifle Association
, Louisiana Cotton Producers, and the American Legion
. He is a member of the Masonic lodge
and is also a Shriner. Barham is Baptist
.
Barham was first elected as a Democrat
in a special election for an unexpired term held on November 8, 1994, a heavily Republican election year nationally. He defeated then fellow Democrat Johnny Dollar, 13,932 votes to 10,765 He was reelected with 93 percent of the vote in the fall of 1995 for a full four-year term and was unopposed in 1999. Thereafter, he switched parties. In 2002, he ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for the vacant Fifth District U.S. House seat. He was unopposed again for the state Senate in 2003. Barham was term-limited and was ineligible to have sought reelection to the Senate in 2007.
As a lawmaker, Barham was particularly identified with efforts to halt the dissolution of Louisiana's coastal wetlands. He noted in a Senate speech that people in his section of the state often work offshore by the week and commute to their homes. Barham and other members of his family are known as strong conservationists. His father helped to establish the Tensas Wildlife Refuge near Delhi
in Richland Parish.
of Monroe in 2002, when Cooksey made an ill-fated run for the U.S. Senate. He entered the jungle primary with two other major Republican candidates, former Congressman Clyde C. Holloway
of Forest Hill
in Rapides Parish, who had served in the defunct Eighth District from 1987 to 1993, and the young Monroe businessman Dewey Lee Fletcher
, who had been Cooksey's former chief of staff. Barham ran fourth in the primary, with 34,522 (19 percent). The seat went to the then Democrat Rodney Alexander of Jackson Parish, who less than two years later switched his affiliation to Republican.
Farm
A farm is an area of land, or, for aquaculture, lake, river or sea, including various structures, devoted primarily to the practice of producing and managing food , fibres and, increasingly, fuel. It is the basic production facility in food production. Farms may be owned and operated by a single...
er from Morehouse Parish who has been appointed by Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
Governor
Governor
A governor is a governing official, usually the executive of a non-sovereign level of government, ranking under the head of state...
Bobby Jindal
Bobby Jindal
Piyush "Bobby" Jindal is the 55th and current Governor of Louisiana and formerly a member of the United States House of Representatives. He is a member of the Republican Party....
as the secretary of the state's Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. He is also a former Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
member of the Louisiana State Senate
Louisiana State Legislature
The Louisiana State Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is bicameral body, comprising the lower house, the Louisiana House of Representatives with 105 representatives, and the upper house, the Louisiana Senate with 39 senators...
who represented District 33 (Claiborne, Morehouse, Union, and West Carroll parishes), all of which border Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
in the northernmost section of his state.
In an interview published on January 1, 2008, Barham said that his major LDWF issues during the next four years are coastal restoration and controlling invasive aquatic vegetation in lakes and waterways. "We'll be on the front lines of coastal restoration. It's a huge project. It's going to have an impact on fisheries, oyster leases, the environment — but we have no choice. We have to do it."
His environmental background
As LDWF secretary, Barham succeeds Bryant HammettBryant Hammett
Bryant O'Dare Hammett, Jr. , is a civil engineer and land surveyor from Ferriday in Concordia Parish in eastern Louisiana, who served as a Democratic member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1992-2006....
, a Democrat
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
from Ferriday
Ferriday, Louisiana
Ferriday is a town in Concordia Parish in northeastern Louisiana, United States. The population, which is three-fourths African American, was 3,723 at the 2000 census....
, who served as a state representative from 1992 to 2006. Hammet was named to the position late in 2006 by outgoing Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco.
When Barham was a boy, his father, Erle McKoin "Ninety" Barham (1916–1976), organized a group of Morehouse Parish landowners who established the Cooley Wildlife Refuge, which became the biggest bird-banding site in Louisiana. Barham fished, hunted, and explored the rivers, streams, lakes and woods of northeastern Louisiana as a teenager and later the entire state as an adult.
Leslie L. Glasgow (1914–1980), the assistant U.S. Secretary of the Interior in the administration of U.S. President Richard M. Nixon, chose young Barham to work at Glacier National Park in northernmost Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
. Earlier, Glasgow had been a reform director of the Louisiana Wild Life and Fisheries (1966–1968) and a professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
at Louisiana State University
Louisiana State University
Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, most often referred to as Louisiana State University, or LSU, is a public coeducational university located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The University was founded in 1853 in what is now known as Pineville, Louisiana, under the name...
in Baton Rouge. Barham told the Monroe News Star
Monroe News Star
The News-Star is the principal newspaper of Monroe and northeastern Louisiana. Its circulation area ranges over some dozen parishes from Ruston, the seat of Lincoln Parish, on the west, to Tallulah in Madison Parish on the east, to the Arkansas state line on the north, and to Ferriday in Concordia...
that his experience At Glacier park was "amazing. I was mentored by people like my dad and (Glasgow), who knew the importance of our natural resources. Louisiana has 1500000 acres (6,070.3 km²) of Wildlife Management Areas. Another early mentor of Barham was Grits Gresham
Grits Gresham
Claude Hamilton "Grits" Gresham, Jr. was an internationally-known American sportsman, author, photographer and television personality who hosted ABC's The American Sportsman series from 1966-1979...
(1922–2008), the sports journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
who once hosted ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
's The American Sportsman
The American Sportsman
The American Sportsman was a television series from 1965 to 1986 on ABC which presented filmed highlights of hunting and/or fishing trips involving the program's hosts and celebrities. It was typically presented on Sunday afternoons, frequently following coverage of live sporting events...
and was a long-time advocate of saving the Louisiana wetlands.
Barham received the 2009 Outstanding Legislator of the Year Award from the Louisiana Wildlife Federation and the 1999 National Award for Conservation of Natural Resources from the Daughters of the American Revolution. He was also honored with the John D. Newsom Award for Wildlife Stewardship.
At the conclusion of his last regular legislative session in 2007, Barham told an interviewer that Louisiana should concentrate on anti-litter efforts and highway
Highway
A highway is any public road. In American English, the term is common and almost always designates major roads. In British English, the term designates any road open to the public. Any interconnected set of highways can be variously referred to as a "highway system", a "highway network", or a...
construction. He lamented that his state is one of the most littered in the nation and urged a public education and law enforcement angle to tackle the problem. He also said that the state should pave the first mile of each highway connecting to Arkansas, Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
, and Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
to the highest grade possible so as to give travelers coming into Louisiana a favorable first impression.
In 2002, Barham was an unsuccessful candidate for the United States House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
, having lost to Representative Rodney Alexander
Rodney Alexander
Rodney McKinnie Alexander is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 2003. He is a member of the Republican Party. The district covers twenty-two parishes in roughly the northeast quadrant of the state...
, now his fellow Republican.
Republican State Representative
Louisiana State Legislature
The Louisiana State Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is bicameral body, comprising the lower house, the Louisiana House of Representatives with 105 representatives, and the upper house, the Louisiana Senate with 39 senators...
Mike Walsworth
Mike Walsworth
Michael Arthur "Mike" Walsworth is a Republican member of the Louisiana State Senate, elected in the October 20, 2007 jungle primary. Prior to this he represented District 15 in the Louisiana House of Representatives until he was unable to seek reelection due to term limits...
of West Monroe
West Monroe, Louisiana
West Monroe is a city in Ouachita Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 13,250 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Monroe Metropolitan Statistical Area....
was elected to succeed Barham in the October 20, 2007 jungle primary
Jungle primary
A nonpartisan blanket primary is a primary election in which all candidates for elected office run in the same primary regardless of political party. Under this system, the top two candidates who receive the most votes advance to the next round, as in a runoff election...
.
Early years, education, military
Barham was born in MonroeMonroe, Louisiana
Monroe is a city in and the parish seat of Ouachita Parish, Louisiana, United States. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 53,107, making it the eighth largest city in Louisiana. A July 1, 2007, United States Census Bureau estimate placed the population at 51,208, but 51,636...
to Erle Barham and the former Rosalie Smith (1913–1999). He grew up on the family plantation in Oak Ridge
Oak Ridge, Louisiana
Oak Ridge is a village in Morehouse Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 142 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Bastrop Micropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:Oak Ridge is located at ....
in Morehouse Parish along with brother, Erle Edwards Barham
Edwards Barham
Erle Edwards Barham is an American farmer and conservationist in Oak Ridge, a village in Morehouse Parish in north Louisiana, best known for having been the first Republican elected—by a 29-vote margin—to the Louisiana State Senate since the era of Reconstruction. Barham represented the...
(born 1937), who held this same Senate seat as a Republican from 1976 to 1980. Edwards Barham was the first Republican elected to the Louisiana Senate since Reconstruction. Edwards and Robert Barham were cousins of the late Democratic State Senator Charles C. Barham
Charles C. Barham
Charles Clem "Charlie" Barham was an attorney in private practice for thirty-nine years in Ruston, Louisiana, and a Democratic member of the Louisiana State Senate from District 35, nonconsecutively, from 1964 to 1972 and 1976 to 1988.He was the older son of Lieutenant Governor C.E...
, who represented an adjoining district based about Ruston
Ruston, Louisiana
Ruston is a city in and the parish seat of Lincoln Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 20,546 at the 2000 census. Ruston is near the eastern border of the Ark-La-Tex and is the home of Louisiana Tech University. Its economy caters to its college population...
from 1964 to 1972 and 1976 to 1988.
Barham graduated from Oak Ridge High Schoo]. He received a bachelor's degree
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
from Louisiana State University
Louisiana State University
Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, most often referred to as Louisiana State University, or LSU, is a public coeducational university located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The University was founded in 1853 in what is now known as Pineville, Louisiana, under the name...
in Baton Rouge. In 1970, he entered the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
for a two-year stint as a medic
Medic
Medic is a general term for a person involved in medicine, especially emergency or first-response medicine, such as an emergency medical technician, paramedic, or a military member trained in battlefield medicine. Also the term is used toward a Nurse in pre-hospital care and/or emergency...
in South Vietnam
South Vietnam
South Vietnam was a state which governed southern Vietnam until 1975. It received international recognition in 1950 as the "State of Vietnam" and later as the "Republic of Vietnam" . Its capital was Saigon...
. In 1999, he became a colonel
Colonel
Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...
in the Louisiana National Guard
United States National Guard
The National Guard of the United States is a reserve military force composed of state National Guard militia members or units under federally recognized active or inactive armed force service for the United States. Militia members are citizen soldiers, meaning they work part time for the National...
. Barham also obtained a master's degree from the University of Louisiana at Monroe
University of Louisiana at Monroe
The University of Louisiana at Monroe is a coeducational public university in Monroe, Louisiana and part of the University of Louisiana System.-History:...
(then Northeast Louisiana State University). In 1994, he completed the "Agricultural Leadership Program" at LSU. He began full-time farming, Robert Barham Farms, Inc., in Oak Ridge in 1972. Barham and his wife, the former Melba Pipes (born 1954), have three children, Robert Erle, Rebecca, and Henry.
Barham in municipal and state politics
Barham was elected mayorMayor
In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
of Oak Ridge (population 142 in the 2000 census
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...
) in 1983 and served until 1988, when he became a village
Village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...
council member instead. He vacated the municipal post when he took his state Senate seat late in 1994. His affiliations include Ducks Unlimited, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Rifle Association
National Rifle Association
The National Rifle Association of America is an American non-profit 501 civil rights organization which advocates for the protection of the Second Amendment of the United States Bill of Rights and the promotion of firearm ownership rights as well as marksmanship, firearm safety, and the protection...
, Louisiana Cotton Producers, and the American Legion
American Legion
The American Legion is a mutual-aid organization of veterans of the United States armed forces chartered by the United States Congress. It was founded to benefit those veterans who served during a wartime period as defined by Congress...
. He is a member of the Masonic lodge
Masonic Lodge
This article is about the Masonic term for a membership group. For buildings named Masonic Lodge, see Masonic Lodge A Masonic Lodge, often termed a Private Lodge or Constituent Lodge, is the basic organisation of Freemasonry...
and is also a Shriner. Barham is Baptist
Baptist
Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...
.
Barham was first elected as a Democrat
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
in a special election for an unexpired term held on November 8, 1994, a heavily Republican election year nationally. He defeated then fellow Democrat Johnny Dollar, 13,932 votes to 10,765 He was reelected with 93 percent of the vote in the fall of 1995 for a full four-year term and was unopposed in 1999. Thereafter, he switched parties. In 2002, he ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for the vacant Fifth District U.S. House seat. He was unopposed again for the state Senate in 2003. Barham was term-limited and was ineligible to have sought reelection to the Senate in 2007.
As a lawmaker, Barham was particularly identified with efforts to halt the dissolution of Louisiana's coastal wetlands. He noted in a Senate speech that people in his section of the state often work offshore by the week and commute to their homes. Barham and other members of his family are known as strong conservationists. His father helped to establish the Tensas Wildlife Refuge near Delhi
Delhi, Louisiana
Delhi, originally called Deerfield, is a town in Richland Parish, Louisiana, in the United States. As of the 2000 census, the town population was 3,066.-History:...
in Richland Parish.
The congressional race of 2002
Barham sought to succeed U.S. Representative John CookseyJohn Cooksey
John Charles Cooksey, M.D. is an ophthalmologist who was a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Louisiana from 1997 to 2003.-Early life:...
of Monroe in 2002, when Cooksey made an ill-fated run for the U.S. Senate. He entered the jungle primary with two other major Republican candidates, former Congressman Clyde C. Holloway
Clyde C. Holloway
Clyde Cecil Holloway is an American small business owner from Forest Hill in the southern part of Rapides Parish who is one of five members of the Louisiana Public Service Commission. He also served as a conservative Republican member of the U.S...
of Forest Hill
Forest Hill, Louisiana
Forest Hill is a village in Rapides Parish, Louisiana, United States. It is part of the Alexandria, Louisiana Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 456 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Forest Hill is located at ....
in Rapides Parish, who had served in the defunct Eighth District from 1987 to 1993, and the young Monroe businessman Dewey Lee Fletcher
Lee Fletcher
Dewey Lee Fletcher, Jr. , was an American political consultant and a talk radio host and blogger in Monroe, who was defeated by 974 votes in a 2002 race for the United States House of Representatives from the Fifth Congressional District in northeast Louisiana...
, who had been Cooksey's former chief of staff. Barham ran fourth in the primary, with 34,522 (19 percent). The seat went to the then Democrat Rodney Alexander of Jackson Parish, who less than two years later switched his affiliation to Republican.