Changes

Boucher first attended Springhill High Schoo] but graduated in 1927 from a three-member class in a one-room school in Asherton in Dimmit County,  midway between [[Laredo]] and Eagle Pass in south [[Texas]], where Robert Boucher had temporarily relocated the family to become an onion [[farmer]]. (Since 1999, Asherton has had no high school; students are bused to the nearby county seat of Carrizo Springs.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wmich.edu/evalctr/rsi/CarrizoSprings.htm | title= A Case Study of Carrizo Springs Consolidated Independent School District and its role as a partner in the NSF-supported Texas Rural Systemic Initiative|author=Kenneth H. McKinley|publisher=The Evaluation Center, Western Michigan University|accessdate=May 11, 2009; no longer on-line.}}</ref>) Boucher procured a scholarship to Sul Ross State University]] in Alpine, Texas, from which he received in 1932 a Bachelor of Science]] degree in [[biology]]. He was thereafter a lifelong promoter of his "alma mater] and on occasion visited former professors in Alpine.<ref name=autob>Drayton Boucher autobiographical manuscript, 8 pages, held by his late second wife, Evelyn Aydell Boucher of [[Baton Rouge]], [[Louisiana]]</ref>

Boucher first attended Springhill High Schoo] but graduated in 1927 from a three-member class in a one-room school in Asherton in Dimmit County,  midway between [[Laredo]] and Eagle Pass in south [[Texas]], where Robert Boucher had temporarily relocated the family to become an onion [[farmer]]. (Since 1999, Asherton has had no high school; students are bused to the nearby county seat of Carrizo Springs.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wmich.edu/evalctr/rsi/CarrizoSprings.htm | title= A Case Study of Carrizo Springs Consolidated Independent School District and its role as a partner in the NSF-supported Texas Rural Systemic Initiative|author=Kenneth H. McKinley|publisher=The Evaluation Center, Western Michigan University|accessdate=May 11, 2009; no longer on-line.}}</ref>) Boucher procured a scholarship to Sul Ross State University]] in Alpine, Texas, from which he received in 1932 a Bachelor of Science]] degree in [[biology]]. He was thereafter a lifelong promoter of his "alma mater] and on occasion visited former professors in Alpine.<ref name=autob>Drayton Boucher autobiographical manuscript, 8 pages, held by his late second wife, Evelyn Aydell Boucher of [[Baton Rouge]], [[Louisiana]]</ref>

==Political career==​

==Political career==

After college, Boucher was a [[United States Army]] Air Corps cadet for a year at March Field in [[Riverside]], [[California]]. From 1934 to 1936, he was a school principal and teacher at a one-room school in Taylor in south [[Arkansas]], an experience which prompted him as a future legislature to advocate higher teacher pay. He also sold patent medicine. While placing an advertisement in the [[newspaper]] in Minden, forerunner of the ''Minden Press-Herald],'' Boucher was urged by the editor to run for the Webster Parish seat in the state legislature in the 1935–1936 election cycle. Days later, the legendary [[Huey Long|Huey Pierce Long, Jr.]], was dead from an assassin’s bullets, and Boucher, at the age of twenty-eight, several months thereafter won the House seat. He had visited nearly every home in Webster Parish to achieve his relatively narrow victory<ref name=autob/> over the incumbent Eddie Nuton Payne (1873-1951), also of Springhill, 2,778 to 2,474.<ref>"Boucher, Garrison, Thomas Nominated: Young Politician Is Victorious in Race for Representative," ''Minden Herald,'' March 6, 1936, p. 1.</ref>​

After college, Boucher was a [[United States Army]] Air Corps cadet for a year at March Field in [[Riverside]], [[California]]. From 1934 to 1936, he was a school principal and teacher at a one-room school in Taylor in south [[Arkansas]], an experience which prompted him as a future legislature to advocate higher teacher pay. He also sold patent medicine. While placing an advertisement in the [[newspaper]] in Minden, forerunner of the ''Minden Press-Herald],'' Boucher was urged by the editor to run for the Webster Parish seat in the state legislature in the 1935–1936 election cycle. Days later, the legendary [[Huey Long|Huey Pierce Long, Jr.]], was dead from an assassin’s bullets, and Boucher, at the age of twenty-eight, several months thereafter won the House seat. He had visited nearly every home in Webster Parish to achieve his relatively narrow victory<ref name=autob/> over the incumbent Eddie Nuton Payne (1873-1951), also of Springhill, 2,778 to 2,474.<ref>"Boucher, Garrison, Thomas Nominated: Young Politician Is Victorious in Race for Representative," ''Minden Herald,'' March 6, 1936, p. 1.</ref>​