Clyde Fant - Fant's Legacy

Fant's Legacy

The Clyde E. Fant Memorial Award for Community Service is given annually in honor of the late mayor. Past winners include Virginia Kilpatrick Shehee, the first woman to garner the honor.

On his death, the Shreveport Times eulogized the former mayor:

"Clyde Fant, more than any other person, was Shreveport. He poured his life into our community, and the community responded with respect and love.

"There was no more powerful force in Northwest Louisiana during the past quarter-century than Clyde Fant. Additionally, the accomplishment of the Fant years in office would rank him as one of the chief top executives in Shreveport history.

"He was a kind, gentle, Christian man, but his politics were laced with bare-knuckled toughness when he felt it necessary.

"That combination marked continuing progress for Shreveport throughout Mr. Fant's two decades of service.

"When he was first elected to office at the end of World War II, he inherited a city in a desperate financial condition. Using his immense personal powers, he turned the city around and left a legacy of industrial growth and quality services for Shreveport.

"Clyde Fant was a man of unusual vision, and the consequences of that vision will long be felt by the people here. His programs helped to build our city, not only in a mortar and stone fashion, they also gave Shreveport an aura of humanity. . . .

"If he was Shreveport's shining star, then he was also Louisiana's mayor of mayors. . . .

"He needs no monument to mark his resting place because Shreveport is the better reminder of his life."

Fant was a long-term member of the board of directors of Broadmoor Baptist Church and was chairman of the board for seven years. He taught a men's Bible class. He resided at 340 Ockley Drive in the Broadmoor neighborhood. Services were held at the Broadmoor Baptist Church, with the then pastor, Dr. Scott Lamar Tatum (born 1920), officiating. Fant is interred at Forest Park Cemetery in Shreveport. His papers are in the archives of Louisiana State University at Shreveport, a four-year branch campus which opened in 1967.