Lether Frazar - President of Two Colleges

President of Two Colleges

In 1944, after he lost a statewide race to John E. Coxe for Louisiana superintendent of education, Frazar was named the McNeese College president in Lake Charles, the seat of Calcasieu Parish. Technically, he was the first president of the institution because his three predecessors were known as "deans", not presidents. Under his leadership, many new buildings and programs were established on the campus of what had originally been Lake Charles Junior College, which had opened its doors in 1939.

Frazar left McNeese when he was elected lieutenant governor. He unseated incumbent fellow Democrat C. E. "Cap" Barham of Ruston in the party primary, 327,679 votes (44.9 pecent) to 195,616 (26.8 percent). Frazar won the position without a majority because at the time Louisiana did not require Democratic runoff primaries if there was also no contested primary election for governor at the same time. Because Earl Long had won his nomination outright in the gubernatorial primary, Long's ticket-mate Frazar avoided a second race. Another lieutenant governor candidate was A. Brown Moore, a 1934 Tulane Law School graduate who had fought under General George S. Patton in World War II, was a former member of the New Orleans City Council, and carried the endorsement of the third-place gubernatorial candidate, Fred Preaus of Farmerville in north Louisiana. Frazar then overwhelmed his Republican opponent, Harry R. Hill, in the general election held in the spring of 1956. Hill was the only candidate offered by the Louisiana GOP in the statewide races that year. Months later, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower became the first Republican candidate to win in Louisiana since Reconstruction.

Frazar came to McNeese with three years experience as the president of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, then Southwestern Institute.