W. L. Rambo

Infobox_State Senator
name= Willard Lloyd Rambo
office= Louisiana State Senator for Winn, Caldwell, La Salle, and Grant parishes
term_start=1964
term_end=1968
preceded=Speedy O. Long
succeeded=J.C. "Sonny" Gilbert; Cecil R. Blair in revised district
office2=Louisiana State Representative for Grant Parish
term _start2=1952
term_end2=1960
preceded2=Richard Elmer Walker
succeeded2=W.K. Brown
birth_place=Georgetown, Grant Parish, Louisiana
birth_date=birth date |1917|3|22
death_place=Houston, Harris County, Texas
death_date=death date and age|1984|11|28|1917|3|22
party=Democrat
religion=Baptist
spouse= Second wife, Mary Alice Long Rambo
children=William Larry Rambo (first marriage)
Kitty Rambo Calabrese
Willard Ransom Rambo
Henrietta Rambo Evans
footnotes=(1) Rambo was one of the few successful Long politicians in Louisiana who married into the family.

(2) Rambo lost the state Senate election to McKeithen ally Speedy O. Long in 1960 but claimed the seat four years later when Long ran unsuccessfully for insurance commissioner but was thereafter elected to the United States House of Representatives.

(3) To gain his Senate seat, Rambo in 1964 defeated Republican William Stewart Walker of Winnfield, who later in the same year would also unsuccessfuly oppose Speedy Long for Congress.

4) Rambo became a close ally of then Governor John McKeithen during the one term in which Rambo served in the state Senate.

Willard Lloyd Rambo (March 22, 1917 - November 28, 1984) was a Democratic member of both houses of the Louisiana State Legislature, having represented districts in the north central portion of the state during the 1950s and the 1960s. As a native and lifelong resident of tiny Georgetown in Grant Parish north of Alexandria, Rambo was a member of the Long political dynasty through his second marriage to the former Mary Alice Long (born August 1, 1928).

Rambo was born to Simeon Royal Rambo (1885-1961) and the former Rosa Barrett (1891-1964). Mary Alice, also a Georgetown native, was the daughter of Olney Andrew Long (1894-1967) and the former Zuleia Puckett (1907-1992). She was the granddaughter of William Jefferson Long (1849-1943) and the former Sarah Lucy Wright (1860-1948). Mary Alice Long Rambo's grandfather was a half brother of Huey Pierce "Hugh" Long, Sr., the father of the Louisiana "Kingfish".

Rambo attended several U.S. Army Air Force training schools in Montgomery, Alabama. He served during World War II in the China-Burma theater under General Claire Chennault. He was a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion.

Rambo was a successful oilfield drilling contractor in Georgetown. He was a member of the Masonic lodge. He was Baptist.

Rambo flew his own plane. Mary Rambo became a pilot herself and entered competitions known as the Powder Puff Derby, having last competed in 1968. The Rambos launched a popular Saturday night rodeo in Georgetown to provide entertainment for rural youth. Rambo was also a strong supporter of the 4-H Club, a creation of the Extension Service of the United States Department of Agriculture.

With his wife as his campaign manager, Rambo was elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives in 1952. The anti-Long Robert F. Kennon was elected governor in the same election. Rambo won his second term in 1956, when he became the House floor leader for his wife's kinsman, Governor Earl Kemp Long, who returned to office after a four-year hiatus.

In 1960, Rambo ran unsuccessfully for the Louisiana State Senate, having lost to another of his wife's kinsmen, the incumbent Senator Speedy O. Long (1928-2006) of Jena in La Salle Parish. Rambo was, however, elected to the Senate in 1964, when Speedy Long opted not to seek a third Senate term but to run unsuccessfully on the John McKeithen ticket for insurance commissioner. The district included Winn, Caldwell, La Salle, and Grant parishes. In the general election held on March 3, 1964, Rambo defeated the Republican William Stewart Walker (1914-1999), a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel from Winnfield, by a lopsided 81-19 percent vote. Walker was a cousin of prominent Alexandria businessman Morgan Wailes Walker, Sr., a former president of Trans-Continental Bus Lines, which reached into forty states; a member and president of the Rapides Parish School Board, and chairman of the board of the former Guaranty Bank and Trust Company, since Capital One. Later that year, Stewart Walker carried the GOP banner in a hard-fought and competitive congressional general election against Speedy Long.

As a senator, the cigar-chomping Rambo worked closely with the McKeithen administration and was considered among the governor's most loyal allies in the upper chamber. Rambo served until 1968, when he was succeeded in revised districting by two anti-Long state senators, Cecil R. Blair of Lecompte in Rapides Parish, and J.C. "Sonny" Gilbert of Sicily Island in Catahoula Parish in a revised districting plan. Ironically, Blair was also a native of Sicily Island. Rambo ran unsuccessfully for the Louisiana House in 1968 in an at-large multi-parish race. He ran again in a single-member district in 1976 but was defeated by the conservative Democrat Richard S. Thompson (1916-1997) of Colfax, the seat of Grant Parish.

Rambo died of heart failure in a hospital in Houston. He is interred in the Georgetown Cemetery in Georgetown. Rambo had four children, including from his first marriage, eldest son William Larry Rambo (born 1939) of Houston, Texas. From his marriage to Mary, Rambo was the father of Kitty Rambo Calabrese (born 1947) of Baton Rouge, Willard Ransom Rambo (born 1949) of Memphis, Tennessee, and Henrietta Rambo Evans (born 1958) of Pineville in Rapides Parish.

On January 28, 2006, Mary Long Rambo, who resides in Alexandria, was presented with the "Friends of Earl K. Long Award" by the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Long's hometown of Winnfield.

References

http://www.legis.state.la.us/members/s1880-2004.pdf#search='c.c.%20taddy%20aycock'

http://www.house.legis.state.la.us/H_PDFdocs/HouseMembers1812_2008.pdf

http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/ramacitti-rampton.html

http://www.libertychapelcemetery.org/files/family/long02.html

http://www.thepineywoods.com/BlancoHall.htm

James Ronald Skains, [e-mail]

http://sonlite.dnr.state.la.us/sundown/cart_prod/cart_con_wellinfo2?p_wsn=191049

http://ssdi.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi?lastname=Walker&firstname=William&middlename=S&start=21