The First Campaign Against Al Hortman
Robertson faced three challengers in his 2006 reelection bid. Photographer John Edward Quade, a 1966 graduate of Minden High School (born 1947) and a Democrat, was eliminated in the primary. Republican Al Hortman ran sufficiently strong to force Robertson into a general election. Hortman (born 1941) graduated in 1959 from Minden High School. He resided over the years in Dallas, St. Louis, and Atlanta but returned to Minden to care for his ailing mother, Katherine Marie Fish Hortman (1909–2003).
Hortman served in the U.S. Air Force as an intelligence operative. As part of his training, he attended Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, where he completed an intensive eight-month course in the Chinese language. He thereafter earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics, with a minor in Chinese, from Louisiana Tech University in Ruston in Lincoln Parish. He also received a master's degree from Louisiana Tech in education as well during the time of the mayoral campaign.
Hortman was the president of a concerned group of citizens who drafted the Minden 2020 Visionaries Master Plan, a 20-year proposal for long-range community progress. The plan was developed over a two-year period prior to 2000. Although some 150 Minden citizens worked on the project, it was Hortman who spearheaded the effort.
A former peace officer and a Methodist pastor, Hortman said that he could work with all aspects of the Minden community. Hortman formerly taught math and coached soccer at Huntington High School in Shreveport.
Read more about this topic: Bill Robertson (Louisiana Politician)
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