W. Fox Mc Keithen - Premature Obituary

Premature Obituary

After a fall in the garage of his home in Baton Rouge in February 2005, McKeithen was hospitalized with paralysis from the neck down. Trouble struck again and he re-entered the hospital on June 21 with a serious infection caused from the fall. He resigned as secretary of state on July 15, 2005, and died just a few hours later. He left his state pension to his former wife, Yvonne Y. McKeithen.

Alan Ray Ater, a former state representative from Ferriday in Concordia Parish became the acting secretary of state on McKeithen's death by virtue of having been the first deputy secretary of state. Ater did not seek the position in the special election held on September 30, 2006, to fill the remaining fifteen months of McKeithen's term. Late in 2006, Ater hence turned over the office to Republican state Senator Jay Dardenne (pronounced DAR DEN) of Baton Rouge. Dardenne was declared the winner of the special election after the runner-up candidate, outgoing Democratic state Senator Francis C. Heitmeier of New Orleans withdrew from a pending runoff election, which would have coincided with the November 7 national general election. In the September 30 election, Dardenne led with 30 percent of the vote. He ran up large margins in the greater Baton Rouge area and finished second in other portions of the state. Heitmeier, who ran best in liberal and labor areas of the state, trailed with 28 percent.

A third candidate, the conservative former Louisiana Republican State Chairman Mike Francis of Crowley in Acadia Parish, finished with 26 percent of the ballots. He ran well in Acadiana and his native north Louisiana—he is originally from Jena, the seat of La Salle Parish -- but trailed badly in Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and the Florida Parishes.