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{{Infobox person
{{Infobox person
|name=Hall McCord Lyons
|birth_date=December 22, 1923
| name =Hall McCord Lyons<br>
|birth_place=[[Shreveport]], [[Louisiana]]
(Louisiana oilman and political activist)
|death_date=July 22, 1998
| birth_date =December 22, 1923
|death_place=Jefferson Parish, Louisiana
| birth_place=[[Shreveport]], [[Louisiana]], USA
|spouse=(1) Betty Sue Buffington McKeever (divorced)<br>
|Principal residences:<br>
(2) Ann B. Barras (divorced)<br>
[[San Antonio, Texas|San Antonio]], [[Texas]]<br>
(3) Rosamond Rosholt Lyons (married 1975-1998, his death)<br>
Shreveport, Louisiana<br>
Children:<br>
[[Lafayette]], Louisiana<br>
Marjorie Scott Lyons<br>
Grand Isle, Louisiana
Cheryl Despain<br>
| death_date=July 22, 1998 (aged 74)
| death_place=Jefferson Parish, Louisiana<br>
Resting place:<br>
Forest Park East Cemetery in Shreveport
Troy Dominic Lyons
| party=[[Republican Party|Republican]] candidate for Louisiana's 3rd congressional district]] (1966)<br>
American Independent Party nominee for [[United States Senator]] for Louisiana (1972)
| spouses= (1) Betty Sue Buffington (married 1948-1960, divorced)<br>
(2) Ann B. Barras (married 1962, divorced)<br>
(3) Rosamond Jane Rosholt "Roz" Lyons (married 1975-1998, his death)<br>
Children from marriage:<br>
Culver Hall Lyons, Sr.<br>
Marjorie Scott Lyons<br>
Cheryl Lyons Despain<br>
Michael Glen Lyons<br>
From second marriage:<br>
Troy Dominic Lyons<br>
Blythe Ann Lyons<br>
Parents:<br>[[Charlton Lyons]]]<br>
Marjorie Gladys Hall Lyons
|religion=[[Episcopalian]]-turned-[[Mormon]]}}
|religion=[[Episcopalian]]-turned-[[Mormon]]}}
'''Hall McCord Lyons''' (December 22, 1923 – July 22, 1998) was a [[Shreveport]] and, later, [[Lafayette]] oilman who for a short time was a pioneer in the establishment of a competitive [[Republican Party]] in [[Louisiana]]. He was the son of the party's 1964 gubernatorial nominee, [[Charlton Lyons]]. However, in 1972, despite his father's wishes, Hall Lyons left the GOP to run as the American Independent Party—the former [[George Wallace]] organization—nominee for the [[United States Senate]].
'''Hall McCord Lyons''' (December 22, 1923 – July 22, 1998) was an [[oil]]man who worked during the 1960s to establish a competitive [[Republican Party]] in his native [[Louisiana]]. However, in 1968, Lyons left the Louisiana GOP and joined the American Independent Party, through which he waged in 1972 an unsuccessful campaign for the [[United States Senate]]. Lyons's father, [[Charlton Lyons]], had been the Republican [[governor|gubernatorial]] nominee in 1964 and then the state party chairman from 1964 to 1968.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/lyons-lytle.html#784.74.27|title=Lyons to Lyversa: Charlton Havard Lyons, Sr., and Hall McCord Lyons|publisher=The Political Graveyard|accessdate=April 7, 2019}}</ref>
==Background==
===Family ancestry===
Lyons was born in Shreveport to Charlton Havard Lyons, Sr. (1894-1973), and the former Marjorie Gladys Hall (1895-1971), an actress originally from [[Wisconsin]]. He attended the private Southfield School in Shreveport. He then transferred to the Lawrenceville School, in Lawrenceville, [[New Jersey]], and then attended [[Louisiana Tech University]] (at the time "Louisiana Polytechnic Institute") in [[Ruston, Louisiana|Ruston]].
Born in [[Shreveport]], where his parents had relocated in 1921, Lyons was given his mother's maiden surname as a first name and his great-aunt's married name as a middle name.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=McCord&GSbyrel=all&GSdyrel=all&GSst=20&GScntry=4&GSob=n&GRid=17170082&df=all&|title=Dot Hall McCord|publisher=findagrave.com|accessdate=August 17, 2014}}</ref>
Lyons volunteered for the U.S. Navy in World War II. Commissioned an ensign, Lyons was posted in the Leyte Gulf in the [[Philippines]] and participated in the liberation of [[Okinawa]]. After the war ended, he returned home to attend [[Louisiana State University]] in [[Baton Rouge]], from which he obtained a degree in arts and sciences in June 1949.
===Education, military, and oil industry===
Young Lyons was educated in Shreveport at the public South Highlands Elementary School and the private Southfield School with instruction through the eighth grade. He graduated from the college preparatory Lawrenceville School, a boarding school in Lawrenceville in Mercer County in central [[New Jersey]]. After enlistment in the United States Naval Reserve, Lyons studied at Centenary College in Shreveport, where the Marjorie Lyons Playhouse is named for his mother, and then [[Louisiana Tech University]] in [[Ruston, Louisiana|Ruston]].<ref name=obit/><ref name=lyonsfamily/>
==Challenging Edwin Willis for Congress==
Lyons received his commission as an [[ensign]] in the [[United States Navy]] through the Naval Station Great Lakes near North Chicago, [[Illinois]]. Lyons was then assigned to duty at [[Leyte Gulf]] in the [[Philippines]]. While headed to Leyte, his plane developed engine trouble and was compelled to land at Peleliu Island. The noted newspaperman [[Ernie Pyle]] was aboard the altered flight. Upon reaching Leyte, the small ship to which Lyons had been assigned had already departed for the [[Battle of Okinawa|invasion of Okinawa]] off the [[Japan]]ese coast. He finally reached [[Okinawa Island]], where he remained for eighteen months. At the end of the war, Lyons was in command of the ship called ''USS Landing Craft Tank 1326''. While in Okinawa, he found relief from military duties to plan a duck hunt, the story of which was carried on June 1, 1946, in the sporting-dog magazine, ''American Field''.<ref name=lyonsfamily>{{cite web|url=http://lyonsfamilytree.com/2007/11/20/hall-mccord-lyons/|title=Hall McCord Lyons|date=November 20, 2007|publisher=WordPress|accessdate=August 15, 2014}}</ref>
In 1966, Hall Lyons challenged the reelection of veteran Third District Democratic Congressman Edwin Edward Willis, a member of the Long political faction. The atmosphere of 1966 seemed encouraging to Republicans in Lafayette. Roderick Miller of Lafayette had just become only the third Republican in modern times to win a state legislative seat in a special election. Lyons painted Willis as subservient to President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] and the [[Great Society]] programs. Willis nevertheless won, but never before had he faced such a competitive Republican. Willis received 46,533 votes (59.7 percent) to Lyons' 31,444 (40.3 percent).
After the war, Lyons completed his studies at [[Louisiana State University]] in [[Baton Rouge]], from which in 1949 he received a degree in arts and sciences. After the war, Lyons lived for several years in [[San Antonio]], [[Texas]], where he was employed in the petroleum business with his father and a cousin, Newton Hall McCord (born in 1915 in [[New Orleans]]), who later settled in [[Houston, Texas|Houston]], Texas. Lyons returned to Shreveport to become a partner in his family-owned C. H. Lyons Petroleum Company, formerly known as the Lyons, McCord & Logan company.<ref name=lyonsfamily/> When he lived in Shreveport, Lyons was, like his mother, active in the musical community there. A former president of the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra, which was founded in 1948, Lyons often sang in [[opera]] presentations.<ref name=obit>Hall M. Lyons obituary, ''The Shreveport Times'', July 26, 1998.</ref>
In 1960, Lyons relocated to [[Lafayette]], Louisiana, to become an independent oil producer.<ref name=lyonsfamily/> He also operated at least two wells in Pointe Coupee Parish in south Louisiana,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.drillingedge.com/louisiana/pointe-coupee-parish/leases/glaser-et-al/102316-3|title=Glaser et al, Lease #102316-3|publisher=drillingedge.com|accessdate=August 20, 2014}}</ref> the second from January 1977 to October 1978.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.drillingedge.com/louisiana/pointe-coupee-parish/leases/lottie-land-development-co/029138-1|title=Lottie Land & Development Co,. Lease #029138-1|publisher=drillingedge.com|accessdate=August 20, 2014}}</ref> In 1985, Lyons was listed as president of Golden Eagle Mining, Inc., in Lafayette, a company since inactive.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bizapedia.com/people/LOUISIANA/LAFAYETTE/HALL-LYONS.html|title=Hall Lyons in Lafayette, Louisiana|publisher=bizapedia.com|accessdate=August 24, 2014}}</ref>
==Do conservatives have a home in the GOP?==
==Political life==
===Republican House campaign===
Both Charlton and Hall Lyons were originally [[Democratic Party|Democrats]]. In 1966, having resided for nearly six years in Lafayette, Lyons entered the first of his two political races as a candidate. He challenged the reelection of the nine-term Democratic]] [[U.S. Representative]] Edwin Edward Willis (1904-1972) of St. Martinville Louisiana's 3rd congressional district seat, now held by the Republican [[Clay Higgins]]. Willis had first defeated two fellow Democrats in the 1966 party primary, State Representative Richard Guidry of Lafourche Parish and state Senator Dudley J. LeBlanc of Vermilion Parish, who had made a fortune in the patent medicine called Hadacol.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/1592776/|title=Everyone gets into state politics|publisher=''Lake Charles American Press''|date=August 12, 1966|location=[[Lake Charles]], [[Louisiana]]|page=15|accessdate=September 11, 2014}}</ref>
Lyons accused Willis of being too closely aligned with [[U.S. President]] [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] and the [[Great Society]] social policy.<ref>''The Lafayette Daily Advertiser'', November 9, 1966, p. 1.</ref> Republicans also claimed that Willis's health had diminished after he sustained in February 1966 a series of strokes which required surgery.<ref>''[[Shreveport Journal]]'', November 9, 1966, p. 2</ref> Lyons polled 31,444 votes (40.3 percent) in a district in which no Republican had been elected since [[Reconstruction era in the United States|Reconstruction]]. Despite health issues, Willis received 46,533 votes (59.7 percent). Lyons obtained a slim majority in [[Iberia Parish, Louisiana|Iberia Parish]] and finished with 46 percent in [[Lafayette Parish, Louisiana|Lafayette Parish]].<ref>[[Louisiana Secretary of State]], Louisiana general election returns, November 8, 1966</ref> His defeat of Lyons marked Willis's last victory at the polls; he was unseated in the 1968 Democratic [[primary election]] by Patrick Thomson Caffery, Sr. (1932-2013), who retained the seat for two terms before retiring to return to his law practice in New Iberia, Louisiana.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=c000017|title=Caffery, Patrick Thomson (1932-2013)|publisher=bioguide.congress.gov|accessdate=August 15, 2014}}</ref> Charlton Lyons had waged a campaign in December 1961 for Louisiana's 4th congressional district seat against the incoming Democrat [[Joe Waggonnerr]] of Bossier Parish, who won the right to succeed Thomas Overton Brooks (1897-1961) of Shreveport, who had died in office three months earlier.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/1417765/|title=GOP Challenge Turned Back by Waggonner|publisher=''Lake Charles American Press''|date=December 20, 1961|accessdate=August 15, 2014}}</ref>
Running with Lyons in the same Third Congressional District in 1966 was [[Charles and Virginia deGravelles|Charles deGravelles]], an oil landman from Lafayette and the successor of Charlton Lyons as state Republican chairman. DeGravelles failed to unseat Harvey Peltier, Sr. (1899-1977), in a race for the since reconfigured Louisiana State Board of Education, now the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.<ref>State of Louisiana: Secretary of State, ''Election Returns, 1965-1966'', p. 28.</ref>
===American Party===
Unlike his father, who was a staunch supporter of [[U.S. President]] [[Richard M. Nixon]] in all three presidential campaigns and helped to deliver critical delegates to Nixon at the 1968 [[Republican National Convention]], Hall Lyons grew disillusioned with the [[liberal]] influence within the national Republican Party and the large number of [[Moderate Republicans]] in positions of leadership..<ref>Hall Lyons was particularly critical of such [[Moderate Republican]]s as [[Hugh Scott]] of [[Pennsylvania]], who led the Republican minority in the U.S. Senate from 1969 to 1977 and was usually at odds with party conservatives. Senators [[Jacob Javits]] of [[New York]], [[Clifford Case]] of New Jersey, [[Edward Brooke]] of [[Massachusetts]], and [[Charles Mathias]] of [[Maryland]] and Governo [[Nelson A. Rockefeller]] of New York..</ref>
==Lyons' obituary==
Lyons hence left his father's Republican Party to join the American Independent Party, an organization founded by Bill Shearer in [[California]] in 1967 and known for its nomination of [[George Wallace]], the former governor of [[Alabama]] at the time, as its presidential candidate in 1968 against Nixon and the Democratic nominee, [[Vice President of the United States|Vice President]] [[Hubert Humphrey]]. Hall Lyons supported Wallace in 1968 and planned to run for governor himself in the Louisiana general election held on February 1, 1972. He faced the prospect of running on the American Party label without his father's support, as the elder Lyons was the finance chairman for Republican nominee [[David C. Treen]],<ref>"Charlton Lyons Is Named Treen Finance Chairman," ''Minden Press-Herald,'' July 13, 1971, p. 1.</ref> then of Jefferson Parish, where Hall Lyons subsequently spent his later years.<ref>[[Grover Rees]], ''Dave Treen of Louisiana'' (Baton Rouge: Moran Publishing Company, 1979), p. 47.</ref> Lyons cited "corruption in high places in Louisiana ... a cancer that must be cut out in an emergency operation."<ref>"Hall M. Lyons Is Candidate," ''Minden Press-Herald," November 11, 1971, p. 1.</ref> However, a few weeks before the election, Lyons abandoned his candidacy and endorsed Treen, in his words, "so the cause of conservative unity might best be served."<ref>''Shreveport Journal'', January 3, 1972, p. 1.</ref><ref>"Lyons Says Conservatives Should Unite With Treen", ''Minden Press-Herald'', January 4, 1972, p. 1.</ref> Treen went on to lose the general election that year to Democrat [[Edwin Edwards]], then the U.S. Representative for the since defunct 7th congressional district. Treen nevertheless later became the first Louisiana Republican since 1891 to hold a seat in the [[United States House of Representatives]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=C000619|title=Coleman, Hamilton Dudley|publisher=bioguide.congress.gov|accessdate=August 17, 2014}}</ref> Treen represented the same but revised Third District in which Lyons had run six years earlier against Edwin Willis.<ref>''New Orleans Times Picayune'', November 8, 1972, p. 1.</ref> In 1979, Treen was elected as his state's first Republican governor since 1877.<ref>Official election returns, December 1979", ''Baton Rouge State-Times,'' December 22, 1979, p. 16C.</ref>
In 1972, Lyons ran as the American Party Senate candidate though the state GOP offered its own nominee, [[Ben Toledano]], a lawyer and conservative author from New Orleans who had run unsuccessfully for [[mayor]] early in 1970 against the Democrat [[Moon Landrieu]]. The Senate seat had been occupied since 1936 by the Democrat [[Allen J. Ellender]] of Houma in Terrebonne Parish, who died during the primary campaign. Victory in the November 7 general election went to the regular Democratic candidate, [[J. Bennett Johnston, Jr.]], a former member of the Louisiana state Senate, a gubernatorial runoff candidate against Edwin Edwards in 1971, and an attorney from Lyons's native Shreveport.<ref>''The Shreveport Times'', November 8, 1972, p. 1.</ref> Former Governor [[John J. McKeithen]], who had defeated Charlton Lyons for governor in 1964, ran as an [[Independent voter||Independent]] but remained a registered Democrat in the general election because filing in the primary was not reopened after Ellender's death. With 250,161 votes (23.1 percent), McKeithen finished second to Johnston, who prevailed with 598,987 (55.2 percent).<ref>Coincidentally, both [[Charlton Lyons]] and Hall Lyons were ballot opponents of [[John J. McKeithen]] some eight years apart.</ref> Lyons drew 28,910 votes statewide (2.6 percent); Toledano, 206,846 (19.1 percent). Neither Lyons nor Toledano polled a plurality in a single parish, but Toledano's best showing was his 30 percent in Jefferson Parish. In his 49-state sweep that year, President Nixon secured Louisiana's then ten [[electoral vote]]s, having won all parishes except for West Feliciana.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/electioninfo/1972election.pdf |title=Statistics of the Presidential and Congressional Election of November 7, 1972 |author=Benjamin J. Guthrie & W. Pat Jennings |year=1973 |page=18 |accessdate=September 5, 2011}}</ref><ref>Louisiana Secretary of State, General election returns, November 7, 1972.</ref> Nixon was only the third Republican to have won in Louisiana since Reconstruction.<ref>The first Republicans to win in Louisiana for U.S. President since [[Reconstruction era in the United States|Reconstruction]] were [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] in 1956 and [[Barry Goldwater]] in 1964.</ref>
===With Lyndon LaRouche===
Lyons's subsequent political activities are murky. In 1984, he did not return to the Republican Party to support [[Ronald W. Reagan]], who had campaigned for Lyons's father in the Louisiana governor's race in 1964,<ref>Perry H. Howard, ''Political Tendencies in Louisiana Revised and Expanded Edition'' ([[Baton Rouge]]
: [[Louisiana State University]] Press, 1977), p. 392.</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypv7etrd_lI|title=Gore Vidal wrecks Ronald Reagan|publisher=YouTube|date=Uploaded September 9, 2010|accessdate=August 24, 2014}}</ref> Instead, Hall Lyons contributed $2,600 in four checks that summer to the National Democratic Policy Committee, a group backing political activist [[Lyndon LaRouche]], a former [[Leon Trotsky|Trotskyite]] who pursued the Democratic presidential nomination that year against [[Walter Mondale]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.city-data.com/elec2/84/elec-LAFAYETTE-LA-84.html|title=Lafayette, LA Political Contributions by Individuals: Hall M. Lyons|publisher=city-data.com|accessdate=August 24, 2014}}</ref> In June 1985, Lyons made a small contribution to LaRouche, the fifth donation in less than a year.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.city-data.com/elec2/86/elec-LAFAYETTE-LA-86.html|title=Lafayette, LA Political Contributions by Individuals: Hall M. Lyons|publisher=city-data.com|accessdate=August 24, 2014}}</ref>
==Family and death==
Lyons died at the age of seventy-four after a brief illness in Jefferson, a census-designated place in Jefferson Parish. He had been in semi-retirement at nearby Grand Isle in the [[Gulf of Mexico]] for a number of years.<ref name=obit/>
Lyons was preceded in death by his first wife, Betty Sue Buffington (1925-1993),<ref name=obit/> the daughter of Culver W. Buffington and the former Nevva Scott. Betty Sue and Hall Lyons had four surviving children. After their divorce in 1960, she married Billy Carl McKeever (1930-2002). The McKeevers are interred together at Forest Park East Cemetery in Shreveport.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=McKeever&GSiman=1&GScnty=1117&GRid=37481042&|title=Billy Carl McKeever|publisher=findagrave.com|author=Lyn St. Peters|accessdate=August 17, 2014}}</ref>
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lyons, Hall M.}}
Lyons's second wife from whom he was divorced, Ann B. Barras (born October 1936) of Lafayette, is the oldest of three children of Herbert Paul and Hazel Marie Barras. She was briefly a music teacher at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and a private piano instructor.<ref name=wordpress>{{cite web|url=http://lyons.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/the-lyons-family.pdf|title=The Lyons Family|author=George Mason Graham Stafford (1875-1958), son of [[Sheriff]] David Theophilus Stafford of Rapides Parish|date=February 15, 1965|publisher=wordpress.com|accessdate=August 16, 2014}}</ref> She is the mother of his two youngest children.<ref name=obit/>
Lyons was also survived by his third wife, the former Rosamond Jane Rosholt, known as "Roz" Lyons (born 1922) of Grand Isle, whom he married in 1975; his brother, Charlton Havard Lyons, Jr. (born 1921), a native of New Orleans and an attorney and oilman who has spent most of his life in Mendocino County in northwestern [[California]], Cheryl Lyons Despain (born 1955) of [[Salt Lake City]], [[Utah]], and Blythe Ann Lyons (born 1968 in Lafayette), a [[veterinarian]] in Baton Rouge; three sons, Culver Hall Lyons, Sr. (born 1950), of Alpharetta, [[Georgia]], Michael Glen Lyons (born 1958) of Humble, Texas, and Troy Dominic Lyons (born 1965) of Centreville, Mississippi, and two stepsons.<ref name=lyonsfamily/>
Though the senior Lyons and his wife were [[Episcopalians]], Hall Lyons turned [[Mormon]]. Services were held at a Latter Day Saints meetinghouse in Shreveport.<ref name=obit/> Burial was in the Lyons family plot at Forest Park East Cemetery in Shreveport.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Lyons+&GSfn=Hall&GSbyrel=all&GSdyrel=all&GSob=n&GRid=64566884&df=all&|title=Hall McCord Lyons|author=John Andrew Prime|publisher=findagrave.com|accessdate=August 17, 2014}}</ref> Pallbearers included Lyons' boyhood friend, Republican former state Represenatives Benjamin F. "Ben" O'Neal, Jr. (1922-2004), of Shreveport and Lyons's son-in-law, Wayne Kent Despain (born 1953).<ref name=obit/>
==References==
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Political Figures]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lyons, Hall}}
[[Category:Louisiana People]]
[[Category:Louisiana People]]
[[Category:Business People]]
[[Category:Business People]]
[[Category:Politicians]]
[[Category:Former Democrats]]
[[Category:Former Democrats]]
[[Category:Republicans]]
[[Category:Republicans]]
[[Category:Conservatives]]
[[Category:Independent voters]]
[[Category:United States Navy]]
[[Category:World War II]]
[[Category:Music]]
[[Category:Mormons]]
[[Category:Mormons]]