Charles T . Beaird Charles Thomas Beaird ( July 17 , 1922 - April 18 , 2006 ) was an industrialist , newspaper publisher , philanthropist , and civic leader from Shreveport , Louisiana . A self - identified " liberal Republican " , Beaird was an early champion of civil rights legislation . Born to James Benjamin Beaird and the former Mattie Connell Fort , his mother died six weeks after his birth , and his father succumbed when he was sixteen . According to his obituary , Beaird had to grow up quickly but developed a fierce intellectual independence . Military service . On February 5 , 1943 , he was commissioned into the United States Marine Corps in Corpus Christi , Texas . He married the former Carolyn Williams ( August 8 , 1923 – January 27 , 2006 ) in Shreveport the next day and reported for duty in Fort Worth , on February 8 . He served first as a pilot instructor and then led a fighting squadron assigned to the recapture and holding of the Philippine Islands flying B - 25 s and the OS 2U torpedo bomber . He attained the rank of captain and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Decorated Air Medal . Early business ventures . In 1946 , Beaird returned to Shreveport , where he became vice president of the J . B . Beaird Company , which his father had begun as a welding service in 1918 . During the war , the company had grown to be a major manufacturer of metal products , with his older brother , J . Pat Beaird , Sr . , as president . Charles Beaird worked there as a youth sweeping floors , so he knew the business , a process that he would duplicate in his future enterprises . Following the sale of that company , Beaird purchased a small chainsaw company founded by Claude Poulan and his brothers and renamed it Beaird - Poulan . Beard built the company into the fourth largest maker of chainsaws in the world . When it was purchased by Emerson Electric in 1973 , Beaird became chairman of the Beaird - Poulan Division of Emerson , known for its WeedEater products . Political career . In 1952 , Beaird joined childhood friends in an effort to create a viable GOP in Shreveport , which had been an all - Democratic city since Reconstruction . Beaird became chairman of the Caddo Parish Republican Executive Committee in 1952 . In 1956 , he was elected to the Caddo Parish Police Jury ( equivalent of county commission ) . He was one of the first Republicans elected to public office in Louisiana since Reconstruction . He was elected at the local level as there was no Republican gubernatorial candidate running in the 1956 general election . Later that year , he managed the unsuccessful campaign of then Republican Littleberry Calhoun Allen , Jr . , who challenged incumbent Overton Brooks of Louisiana ' s 4th congressional district . After switching to Democrat , Allen won election as Shreveport ' s public utilities commissioner ( 1962 – 1970 ) and mayor ( 1970 – 1978 ) . Beaird attracted national attention in 1956 , when he gave a seconding speech for the renomination of President Dwight D . Eisenhower at the Republican National Convention at the Cow Palace in San Francisco , California . In 1960 , he was one of the ten elector candidates in Louisiana for the unsuccessful Nixon / Lodge ticket . Though he entered politics as a conservative , his wife and children and experiences gradually changed him into a liberal . However , unlike Calhoun Allen , he did not join the Democratic Party — he remained a liberal voice in the more conservative Louisiana GOP . Education . He graduated from C . E . Byrd High School in Shreveport and attended Culver Military Academy in Culver , Indiana , where he joined the Black Horse Troop . He enrolled at the University of Michigan and joined Alpha Tau Omega fraternity and transferred to the University of Texas . With the outbreak of World War II , Beaird returned to Shreveport and enrolled at Centenary College . He met Carolyn there while waiting to enlist in the Naval Air training program . Fascinated with philosophy , he re - enrolled at Centenary College , where he was already a trustee , earning his B . A . in 1966 . He became a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and was accepted in Columbia University where he earned his Ph . D . in philosophy in 1972 at the age of 50 . He returned as assistant professor of philosophy at Centenary College , where he taught for seven years and was inducted into the Centenary Alumni Hall of Fame . Civic leadership . Beaird was a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas , Texas ; a director of Winthrop Rockefeller ' s Winrock Enterprises in Arkansas , a member of the Young Presidents Organization ; a partner in Westport Real Estate ; a founder of the Centenary College Committee of 100 ; chair of the Citizens Committee on Desegregation for the Caddo Parish Schools ; chair of the United Fund Campaign ; vice president of the Shreveport Chamber of Commerce , and co - chair of Shreveport ' s Biracial Commission . The " Shreveport Journal " . A trustee for the American Rose Foundation , his affection for the rose figured prominently in his next enterprise , the now defunct " Shreveport Journal " which he bought in 1976 from Douglas F . Attaway . He changed it from a conservative paper , which , under former editor George W . Shannon endorsed conservative Democratic and Republican candidates , into a liberal one , edited by Stanley R . Tiner and rarely endorsing Republicans for office . " The Journal " ' s symbol , the rose , adorned the brief , complimentary verbal " roses " that the publication awarded on its editorial page . Beaird usually wore a rose on his lapel . Under his leadership , the " Journal " crusaded for the fluoridation of Shreveport ' s water supply , accomplished through the efforts of the Republican Utilities Commissioner Billy J . Guin , who served from 1977 to 1978 . Unlike other Louisiana newspaper publishers , Beaird championed organized labor , a rare phenomenon in the South . When the " Shreveport Journal " , an afternoon paper , ceased daily publication in 1991 , Beaird won a unique agreement with Gannett Co . , owner of the morning " Shreveport Times " with which the " Journal " had a joint operating agreement , to run " Journal Page " an editorial opinion page six days a week in " The Times . " " Journal Page " was a 1994 finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in Editorial Writing for a series on decriminalization of narcotics . The " Journal Page " was edited by Jim Montgomery ( 1945 - 2013 ) , former managing editor of the " Shreveport Times " . The " Journal Page " ended its run on December 31 , 1999 . Philanthropy . Beaird ' s last career was in real estate , including the downtown Shreveport Beaird Tower , with one of his symbolic roses at its top . He and Carolyn were philanthropists ] , but the extent of their personal giving may never be fully known because much was done anonymously . They endowed two chairs at Centenary College and one at Union Theological Seminary in New York . They helped to restore the historic Strand Theatre in downtown Shreveport and supported the McAdoo Hotel , serving the homeless , and the Buckhalter Hotel , for recovering alcoholics . They endowed the educational building at Galilee Baptist Church . They were leaders in the American Rose Center endowment trust . He served on the board of the D . L . Dykes , Jr . , Foundation ( in memory of the pastor of the First United Methodist Church , who was Beaird ' s friend ) . He fought to improve housing and living conditions in Ledbetter Heights , one of Shreveport ' s most impoverished neighborhoods . The nonprofit Charles T . Beaird Foundation , created in 1960 , is guided by a board drawn from the Beaird family , has donated millions to local nonprofit organizations . Beaird received : While Carolyn was a devoted Presbyterian , Beaird was an atheist , or as he call himself , " a nontheist , " meaning that the concept of God was not among the ideas on which he based his beliefs . Beaird died from an infection that resulted after months of declining health . His death came fewer than three months after that of Carolyn , who died ten days before their 63rd anniversary . Beaird ' s survivors included three children : Susan Lynn Beaird ( born 1943 ) of Shreveport ; Marjorie Beaird Seawell ( born 1947 ) of Denver , and John Benjamin Beaird ( born 1950 ) . The Beairds are interred at Shreveport ' s Forest Park Cemetery off St . Vincent Avenue .