Hazel Beard

Hazel Fain Tilley Beard
Mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana
In office December 27, 1990 – December 27, 1994
Preceded by	John Brennan Hussey
Succeeded by	Robert Warren "Bo" Williams
Shreveport City Council member
In office 1986–1990
Succeeded by	Robert Warren "Bo" Williams
Born	September 16, 1930 Franklin Parish, Louisiana
Died	December 22, 2022 Marble Falls, Texas
Nationality	American
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Charles Carroll Beard
Occupation	Businesswoman

Hazel Fain Tilley Beard (September 16, 1930 – December 26, 2022), was the first woman and the first Republican to have served as mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana, since the era of Reconstruction. A fiscal conservative, Beard grappled with many economic and social problems during her single term as mayor from 1990 to 1994. Prior to her mayoralty service, Beard was a small business owner and a member of the Shreveport City Council from the southwest portion of the city. She was also the first woman to have been chairperson of the city council. She is the first of only three Republican mayors in city history.

Career

Beard entered the mayoral race against three major, including the African-American dentist C. O. Simpkins, Sr., a Democrat civil rights activist, and two fellow council members, Republican Carolyn Calhoun Whitehurst and Democrat Bill Bush, a businessman, led in the pre-election polls. Whitehurst, a real estate broker, later Carolyn C. Huckabay (1935-2022), is descended from a prominent DeSoto Parish: her father, Riemer Calhoun, was a Democratic state senator for two terms from 1944 to 1952. Whitehurst, who represented a southeast Shreveport council district, had the support of The Shreveport Times.

Simpkins led in the primary with 31 percent of the ballots cast, but Beard secured the second slot to proceed to the general election. In the second round of balloting, Beard prevailed, 38,604 votes (59 percent) to Simpkins' 26,341 (41 percent).

Soon after taking office, Beard appointed her nephew, Steve Prator, then a 17-year member of the Shreveport Police Department as chief of police, a position that he held until 1999. Prator successfully sought the office of Caddo Parish sheriff and became the first Republican since Reconstruction to hold that position. He was a successful candidate for a sixth term in the primary held on October 12, 2019.

In 1992, when Mayor Beard welcomed U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush to Shreveport during Bush's ill-fated reelection campaign, the president mistakenly referred to her as "Nasal" Beard. The mayor accepted the slip of tongue with humor.

As mayor, Beard appointed the Republican activist Harriet Belchic to the Shreveport Women's Commission and the Riverfront Redevelopment Advisory Committee. The panel completed Riverfront Park although it was poorly designed and unable to withstand seasonal overflows of the nearby Red River. Rising waters would flood the fountains in the park and interfere with the operation of the water pumps.

Mayor, Beard had often expressed her opposition to any form of riverboat gambling legislation which then Governor Edwin Edwards had pushed for legislative approval. Shreveport-Bossier received five gaming licenses, and the area stood potentially to benefit financially from such efforts. Beard hence changed her position and announced her support for one riverboat operation in Shreveport. But as legislative dealmaking resumed, Beard recanted her support once a limited gambling operation began. When once asked about her political legacy, Beard said, "I hope it's not gambling.

It was widely anticipated that former Mayor John B. Hussey, the man whom Beard had succeeded, would challenge her for reelection in 1994, but Beard surprised political observers by not seeking reelection. Hussey ran as expected, but two city council members, Republican Robert Warren "Bo" Williams, and Democrat Roy Cary, an African-American, went into the general election, which Williams won by a comfortable margin. Former Mayor Gardner, in his memoirs, Jim Gardner and Shreveport, Vol. II describes Beard as:

"... [A] large woman physically and had been a high school basketball player ... totally self-assured, [this] gave her strength as mayor. Her public appearances and demeanor were of one who was acting under a voter mandate to change everything. She began her term in office by asking for the resignation of all board and commission members, something not done before or since. At her inauguration, she had stated that 'the era of darkness was gone, the era of light had begun.'... This made me uncomfortable with Mayor Beard ... but we did develop a comfortable working relationship."

Personal life

Beard was reared in Franklin Parish, south of Monroe. After the death of her first husband, Ira James Tilley, Hazel Beard married Charles Carroll Beard (November 24, 1920 - May 30, 2002). After her term as mayor ended, the Beards moved to Kingsland, Texas. She died in Marble Falls, Texas, at the age of ninety-two, just a few months after the passing of her husband.

Beard did not receive her college degree until 1985, when at the age of fifty-five, she graduated from Louisiana State University Shreveport with a degree in education. In 2007, she received the LSUS "Distinguished Alumnus Award" when she delivered the commencement address in a ceremony at the CenturyTel Center in Bossier City.