Charlton Lyons - Lyons Passes The GOP Baton To Treen

Lyons Passes The GOP Baton To Treen

Lyons had stepped down as party chairman in 1968 and was succeeded by his friend and fellow oilman Charles deGravelles, Jr., of Lafayette. Charles' wife, Virginia Gravelles, had been the national committeewoman from 1964 to 1968.

In 1972, Lyons supported Republican gubernatorial candidate David Treen of suburban New Orleans even though Lyons's younger son, Hall Lyons, was running for governor on the American Independent Party ticket, an organization founded in 1968 by Alabama Governor George C. Wallace. Hall Lyons withdrew from the race and endorsed Treen, who lost the general election to Democrat Edwin Washington Edwards. Unlike his son, Charlton Lyons had opposed Wallace, who had carried Louisiana's then ten electoral votes in 1968. Charlton Lyons supported the Nixon-Agnew elector slate, which fared poorly in the state. Lyons had also held most in the Louisiana delegation for Nixon at the 1968 Republican National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida, despite Lyons's personal friendship with Ronald Reagan, who launched a brief presidential run on the Monday of the national convention.