Charlton Lyons - Early Years

Early Years

Lyons was born in Abbeville in Vermilion Parish in southwestern Louisiana, to a middle-class couple, Ernest John Lyons and the former Joyce Bentley Havard. He was reared in Melville in St. Landry Parish on the banks of the Atchafalaya River. The community was accessible not by railroad but by steamboat. As a teenager, Lyons worked in a Melville soda fountain and during two summers as a water boy for a railroad gang. He attended Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge but completed his Bachelor of Arts at Tulane University in New Orleans. In 1916, he earned a degree from Tulane University Law School and was admitted to the Louisiana bar. However, he lacked the funds at the time to establish his own legal practice.

On August 28, 1917, Lyons married his college sweetheart, the former Marjorie Gladys Hall, who graduated from Newcomb College, the then-female counterpart to Tulane. She was an aspiring actress. In the spring of 1917, Maurice Fromkes painted a portrait of Marjorie Hall displayed at the Marjorie Lyons Playhouse (established 1956) at Centenary College in Shreveport. Mrs. Lyons was born on March 27, 1895, in Eagle Point, Wisconsin. The marriage ended on Marjorie's death on July 11, 1971.

From 1916-1917, he was a teacher and an assistant principal at Glenmora High School in Glenmora in southern Rapides Parish. From 1917-1918, Lyons was briefly the principal of Pollock High School in the community of Pollock in southeastern Grant Parish. He then entered the United States Army as a private near the end of World War I. Marjorie Lyons taught at Pollock High while her husband was away.

The Lyonses relocated to Winnfield, center of the Long dynasty, where the legendary Huey Pierce Long, Jr., was rising to prominence. There Lyons practiced law for several years. The couple then relocated in 1921 to Shreveport, where Lyons practiced law for an additional nine years. In 1930, however, he entered the oil business through his "C. H. Lyons Petroleum". By the 1950s, Lyons had become so successful in his field that he was named president of the Independent Petroleum Association of America. He was also a director of two other interest groups Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association and the National Association of Manufacturers. He operated a 240-acre (0.97 km2) cattle ranch west of Shreveport near Greenwood in Caddo Parish.

Lyons was appointed by United States Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay to the National Petroleum Council.