Keith Hightower

Keith Paul Hightower (born January 14, 1957) is a businessman who is the former Democratic mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana.

Hightower graduated from Captain Shreve High School in 1975 and from Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, the seat of Lincoln Parish, in 1979. He was one of the relatively few graduates in his college class from Shreveport who returned to live and work in their hometown. First, however, Hightower was employed by Acme Brick Co. in Baton Rouge; the firm transferred him to Shreveport. In 1990, Hightower was elected to the first of two terms on the Shreveport City Council. He left the brick company and thereafter smade his living in automobile sales.

In 1998, Councilman Hightower unseated Republican Mayor Robert Warren "Bo" Williams in the municipal jungle primary. Hightower led with 20,250 votes (42 percent) to Williams' 13,637 (28 percent). Three other candidates, two Democrats and another Republican, divided the remaining 30 percent of the ballots. Williams, who trailed by nearly 7,000 votes, declined to proceed to a general election, and Hightower hence won the position outright.

Hightower was reelected with 75 percent of the vote in 2002 over the conservative Republican Vernon D. Adams (born August 6, 1929). Hightower polled 31,054 votes to Adams' 10,611.

In the jungle primary held on September 30, 2006, voters sent a Republican attorney, Jerry Jones, and a black candidate, state Representative Cedric Bradford Glover, into the November 7 general election to choose Hightower's successor. Jones initially led the balloting with 39 percent, and Glover trailed with 32 percent, but Glover emerged the ultimate winner, 54-46 percent over Jones. Democrat Liz Swaine, a former television newswoman and one of Hightower's assistants, and Republican Vernon Adams and State Senator Max T. Malone were among nine contenders who were eliminated in the primary.

Hightower had considered seeking the open secretary of state's position in the September 30 balloting but never filed his candidacy papers. On November 29, 2006, Hightower returned to his old job as vice president of the Holmes Auto Group. Speculation now centers on whether he may challenge Republican U.S. Representative Jim McCrery
James Otis McCrery, III, in the 2008 congressional election. The Hightowers have two daughters, both of whom attend the University of Mississippi at Oxford.

External links

* Keith Hightower Campaign (2002). " [http://www.keithhightower.com/about-keith.html About Keith Hightower] ". Retrieved Jan. 26, 2006.
* http://www.sos.louisiana.gov:8090/cgibin/?rqstyp=elcpr&rqsdta=10039809
* http://www.sos.louisiana.gov:8090/cgibin/?rqstyp=elcpr&rqsdta=10050209
* http://www.sos.louisiana.gov:8090/cgibin/?rqstyp=elcpr&rqsdta=09300609
* http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061125/NEWS01/611250333