{{Infobox officeholder
| name=Jack Batton
|image= Jack Batton LA.PNG
|nationality=[[United States|American]]
| office= [[Mayor]] of [[Minden, Louisiana|Minden]]<br>Webster Parish, [[Louisiana]]
| spouse= (1) Alice Shurtleff Batton (died 1973)
(2) Louise Zeagler Jones Batton (divorced)
| children=Jacqueline Dale "Jackie " Batton Reeves (1938-2023)
Jimmy Batton (1943-1997)
Dorothy Batton Smith
|relations=John D. "[[J. D." Batton ]] (brother)
|parents=James Bryant and Nolie K. Batton
|religion=[[United Methodist]]
==Background==
A Minden native, Batton was the son of James Bryant Batton (1880-1939) and Nolie K. Batton (1881-1971). The senior Batton, formerly of Dubberly in south Webster Parish, was a former Webster Parish chief deputy sheriff, a two-term Minden police chief,<ref name="Minden Herald 1947, p. 1">''Minden Herald'', October 24, 1947, p. 1.</ref> and an unsuccessful candidate for sheriff in a special election held in 1933 after a devastating [[tornado]] struck the city. Batton's brother, [[J. D. Batton]], was the Webster Parish sheriff from 1952 to 1964.
Batton graduated in 1932 from [[Minden (Louisiana) High School|Minden High School]], at which in the fall of 1931 he played [[football]].<ref>''Minden Press-Herald'', August 29, 1986, p. 24.</ref> His first wife, the former Dorothy Alice Shurtleff (December 18, 1914 – May 14, 1973), was a daughter of A. C. Shurtleff (January 15, 1882 – September 16, 1928) and Cora Belle Shurtleff (February 1, 1888 – December 16, 1960).
The Battons resided in a house made of brown rock at the intersection of Goodwill and Marshall streets in Minden. The house is across the street from the boyhood home of the [[singer]] David Houston and near the football star David Lee of the former Baltimore Colts. The Battons had three children: Jacqueline Dale "Jackie " Batton Reeves (born August 1938-2023) and husband, Henry Rogers Reeves (born May 1937-2023), of Haughton in Bossier Parish; Jackie and Rogers Reeves died two days apart, she from dementia and he from a fall;<ref>{{cite web|url=https://press-herald.com/rogers-and-jackie-reeves/|title=Rogers and Jackie Reeves obituary|publisher=''The Minden Press-Herald''|date=March 13, 2023|accessdate=March 16, 2023}}</ref>James Howard "Jimmy" Batton (1943-1997), a former Webster Parish sheriff's deputy, and Dorothy Gale Batton Smith (born 1946) and husband, Harold Eugene Smith (1940-2011)<ref>Harold E. Smith obituary, ''The Minden Press-Herald,'', November 3, 2011.</ref> of Waynesboro Stuart's Draft, [[Virginia]]. There were also five grandchildren.<ref name=obit/> At the time of his death, Batton was divorced from the former Louise Zeagler Jones (1916-2004),<ref name=louiseobit>{{cite web|url=http://boards.ancestry.com/topics.obits/14629/mb.ashx|title=Obit: Louise Jones|publisher=boards.ancestry.com|accessdate=October 19, 2012}}</ref> the widow of retired [[United States Army]] police officer and Lieutenant Colonel Rosamond Roy Jones (1912-1980) of [[Natchitoches, Louisiana|Natchitochnes]] and later Minden. A native of Caldwell Parish, Louise Jones Batton was heavily involved in the American Legion auxiliary and in various veterans causes. In 1993, she was named "Woman of the Year" in Minden.<ref>''Minden Press-Herald'', March 4, 1994, p. 1.</ref> Rosamond and Louise Jones had three children, Doris Jones Copeland, Rosamond Anne Gaston, and Phillip Lee Jones (born 1947). Rosamond and Louise Jones are interred at Gardens of Memory Cemetery in Minden.<ref name=louiseobit/>
==City council service==
In his first term as streets and parks commissioner in 1946, Batton and then newly elected Mayor [[John T. David]] moved forward a plan to blacktop eight miles of Minden municipal streets, beginning with a short link of Bayou Avenue from Pine Street west to the Minden Cemetery.<ref>"Paving Program Announced by Mayor David", ''Minden Herald'', August 2, 1946, p. 1.</ref> At the time, most city streets were unpaved, and the city had used mule-drawn equipment. Batton was the city council president at the time of his defeat in 1962. He stressed street paving, curbing and guttering, and improvements to parks in his unsuccessful reelection bid.<ref>Batton advertisement, ''Minden Herald'', May 3, 1962, p. 9.</ref>
After a four-year hiatus, Batton returned to the council in 1966, when Mayor [[Frank T. Norman]] was unseated by the [[Republican Party|Republican]] [[Tom Colten and ]]. Batton returned to the streets and parks commissioner position, which Travis Taylor did seek reelectionwas leaving after one term. Batton won his last term as streets and parks commissioner in 1974, when he defeated two intraparty opponents, Emily Doss and the businessman William J. Rabon (1922–1991), who had owned the former Star Furniture Company on the Shreveport Road in Minden.
In 1977, as a council member, Batton abstained on a proposal to increase the salary of the mayor from $16,000 to $19,000 annually, effective January 1979. City employees were given an 8 percent pay increase.<ref>"Batton abstains on pay raises", ''Minden Press-Herald'', October 4, 1977, p. 1</ref> Ironically, Batton benefited from the higher mayoral pay, as he assumed the office on January 1, 1979.
==Tenure as mayor==
In 1978, Batton ran for mayor, when the one-term incumbent [[J. E. "Pat" Patterson]] opted to run instead for a vacancy in the Louisiana House of Representatives. During the campaign, U. S. District Judge Benjamin Cornwell Dawkins, Jr., ordered the ciity commission government abolished and replaced by the mayor-council format, with five single-member council districts.<ref name=mpoe/> Batton won the post by an 88-vote margin in nonpartisan blanket primary held on September 16, 1978. He defeated his fellow Democrat, the late Orris R. Long, former president of the Minden [[Chamber of Commerce]].<ref>"O. R. Long is new chamber president", ''Minden Press-Herald'', December 12, 1977, p. 1.</ref> Batton polled 2,633 votes (50.8 percent) to Long’s Long's 2,545 (49.2 percent).<ref>"Batton new Minden mayor; council runoff next", ''Minden Press-Herald'', September 18, 1978, p. 1.</ref>
Judge Dawkins ordered the mayor-council government in response to a civil suit filed by the [[NAACP]], which sought the establishment of at least two black majority districts.<ref name=mpoe>Mike Poe, "Council to White: 'Draw up the Plan'", ''Minden Press-Herald'', August 8, 1978, p. 1.</ref> In the same primary in which Batton defeated Long, [[Robert T. Tobin]], a retired educator, became the first member of his race to sit on the city council; he defeated fellow [[African-American]] Democrat John D. "J. D." Hampton, Jr. (1935-2015), 519 votes (69.8 percent) to 225 (30.2 percent). On November 7, 1978, Peggy J. Staples (1933–2009) became the first woman ever elected to the city council. She defeated fellow Democrat Ben Kinel, 733 (67 percent) to 359 (33 percent). And Republican Felix Roby Garrett (1922-1987), formerly the public utilities commissioner and a professor at the University of Louisiana at Monroe who had vacillated over seeking another term on the council, became the first member of his party to fill a single-member district seat on the council.<ref>"Garrett, Staples, McCowen, Kirk all gain city council seats Tuesday", ''Minden Press-Herald'', November 8, 1978, p. 1.</ref><ref>Garrett was himself unseated in 1982 by the Democrat James Leonard "Jim" Starkey (1955-2012), a paramedic and former ambulance company owner who subsequently relocated to Walker in Livingston Parish near [[Baton Rouge]].</ref> Batton did not seek reelection in 1982, when the [[educator]], [[Noel Byars|Noel "Gene" Byars]], won the mayoral position.
===Recall attempt over low-income housing===
In the spring of 1981, Minden resident Joe Holemon launched an unsuccessful recall petition against Batton over the proposed construction of a low-income housing complex, Webster Manor Apartments, adjacent to the Pecan View neighborhood between Shirley Drive and the Lewisville Road. The project contractor was [[Jamar Adcock ]] of [[Monroe, Louisiana|Monroe]], a former member of the Louisiana State Senate who ran unsuccessfully in 1971 for ieutenant governor.<ref>"Petition filed today to recall Mayor Batton", ''Minden Press-Herald,'', March 6, 1981, p. 1.</ref> Holeman moved against Batton on the premise that the mayor did not inform the city council on April 7, 1980 that it had thirty days thereafter to consider objections to the apartments and that his failure to have done so implicitly meant the approval of the project. Holeman also accused Batton of having needlessly delayed the 1980-1981 city budget by more than six months.<ref>"Holemon outlines reason for mayoral recall attempt", ''Minden Press-Herald,'', March 17, 1981, p. 1.</ref>
When the city council voted 3-2 3–2 to rescind Adcock's building permit, Batton vetoed the measure on grounds that the project was needed and that the city would otherwise be sued for breach of contract if it halted construction of the apartments.<ref>"Mayor says building permit stands", ''Minden Press-Herald'', December 10, 1981, p. 1.</ref> Batton's veto was tested in a ruling from state Attorney General [[William J. "Bill" Guste]], who declared that the mayor could veto a 3-2 or 4-1 council vote but not a unanimous one.<ref>"Batton's interpretation of veto power upheld", ''Minden Press-Herald'', February 26, 1982, p. 1.</ref>
Batton said that he had no actual knowledge of any objections to the apartments until the recall attempt was launched. He also voiced a lack of concern about the recall effort, which failed to garner the needed 2,468 signature to bring forth a special election.<ref>"Batton answers citizens' complaints", ''Minden Press-Herald,'' March 18, 1981, p. 1.</ref><ref>"Mayor glad: Recall bid fizzles", ''Minden Press-Herald'', September 3, 1981, p. 1.</ref> After two lawsuits and months of delays,<ref>"Government and Politics", ''Minden Press-Herald'', December 31, 1982, p. 1.</ref> the council worked with Adcock to allow construction of the Webster Manor Apartments at two other sites, rather than in the Pecan View subdivision. Thirty-one apartments were built at the intersection of Bayou Avenue and Miller Street, and fifty-five others followed further west at the intersection of Bayou Avenue and Weston Street near the Town and Country Nursing Home. There were questions about acceptable sewerage facilities, but Batton said the needed services were adequate at both sites.<ref>"Shirley Drive project relocated to Cemetery Street and Bayou Avenue", ''Minden Press-Herald'', December 23, 1982, p. 1; though the newspaper refers to "Cemetery Street" for part of the project, the correct address is 300 Miller Street adjacent to Bayou Avenue.</ref>
In 1949, Batton became a director of Hunter's Playground and Playhouse, located near his home on Goodwill Street. The complex was opened for the entertainment of young people in the city by Larry B. Hunter (1896–1971) and his wife, Gladys Powell Hunter (1899–1973), the owners of the local [[Coca-Cola]] franchise.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mindenmemories.org/Hunter's%20Park%20and%20Playhouse.htm|title=Hunter's Playhouse|publisher=mindenmemories.org|accessdate=June 5, 2011}}</ref>
Batton was a director of the Webster Parish Free Fair Board, since the Bossier/Webster Fair and Forest Festival.<ref>"Webster Parish, La., Picks New Directors of Free Fair", " ''The Billboard,'', February 19, 1949, p. 53.</ref>
In November 1990, Batton was shot and hospitalized in a holdup attempt at his grocery store. An eighteen-year-old male from [[Tulsa]], [[Oklahoma]], who was visiting Minden during the [[Thanksgiving Day]] holidays, shot the former mayor when Batton hesitated to turn over money demanded by the culprit.<ref>"Former mayor shot during holdup try. Batton reportedly in stable condition at local hospital", ''Minden Press-Herald'', November 27, 1990, p. 1.</ref>