Joe Waggonner - Waggonner's Legacy

Waggonner's Legacy

Waggonner's papers are at his alma mater, Louisiana Tech. Shreveport Times columnist Wiley W. Hilburn, also then chairman of the Louisiana Tech journalism department, described Waggonner as the strongest advocate ever for Louisiana Tech. "Particularly athletics. He came to every game — football, basketball, and baseball. He was a tremendous commencement speaker and spoke often at Tech graduations," Hilburn added.

In 1977, Waggonner was named a charter recipient of the Tower Medallion for distinguished Louisiana Tech alumni. He was also Alumnus of the Year in 1992. There are two Joe D. Waggonner Scholarships at Louisiana Tech—one in Political Science and the other in Engineering. Louisiana Tech is establishing the Waggonner Center for Bipartisan and Public Policy.

Waggonner skillfully used this influence to secure funding for Interstate 49 and the Inner and Outer Loop, as well as funding for the Red River Waterway. There would presumably be no navigable Red River or Shreveport-Bossier City port without his pioneering work. Furthermore, he was instrumental in persuading General Motors to build a plant in Shreveport.

Representative Waggonner worked to support Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City. Not only was Barksdale spared the ax while other bases closed, but Waggonner's work set the stage for the cyberspace provisional command there, according to former Bossier City Mayor Don Jones, a Waggonner family friend.

The previous federal courthouse in Shreveport was named for Waggonner, but that facility has since been abandoned and replacedied Louisiana College of Pineville will place its forthcoming Judge Paul Pressler School of Law in the former Waggonner building. Waggonner is instead honored through the Joe D. Waggonner Lock and Dam on the Red River.

Waggonner was active in the Great Bossier Economic Foundation, the American Legion, and the March of Dimes. In 1998 he was inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield, along with his former congressional colleague Speedy O. Long of Jena, who died on October 5, 2006, almost exactly one year prior to Waggonner's death.

In the spring of 1976, Waggonner was arrested in Washington on a charge of soliciting a police decoy for purposes of prostitution. He was released without formal charges because of a provision of the United States Constitution which forbids the arrest of a congressman on a misdemeanor charge while Congress is in session. Waggoner's arrest prompted a change in prodceedure allowing Congressmen to be arrested and prosecuted to the same extent as other citizens. Despite the incident, voters overwhelmingly renominated Waggonner in the August 14, 1976, primary, which turned out to have been his last election victory. In that same primary, Jerry Huckaby of Ringgold in Bienville Parish had unseated Waggonner's colleague Otto Passman. Huckaby went on to defeat Frank Spooner to win the seat.

(See: http://www.worldfreeinternet.net/news/nws137.htm http://www.sodomylaws.org/usa/dc/dceditorials06.htm http://georgearchibald.typepad.com/george_archibald/2006/10/09/index.html)