Political Activities
On November 5, 1974, Lenard lost a race for the 4th congressional district seat on the Louisiana State Board of Education, a position vacated by Robert H. "Bob" Curry. The Democratic nominee, F.A. "Red" Davis, handily prevailed in a heavily Democratic year.
Lenard’s Republican activities steadily increased, and he served on the 144-member Republican State Central Committee, which meets in Baton Rouge. He was the state party treasurer for seven years.
On December 11, 1984, he began the first of his three four-year terms on the newly-formed Caddo Parish Commission, formerly known as the Police Jury. His first term was actually three years. Other Republicans serving on the new 12-member panel were W.D. “Rusty” George and Tommy Gene Armstrong. The commission chairman at the time, Roy M. “Hoppy” Hopkins, was later elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives. Tommy Armstrong served a one-year unexpired term in the Louisiana House as well from 1991-1992.
Lenard became commissioner more than a year after the defeat of Governor David C. Treen, Louisiana’s first Republican governor since Reconstruction, who was handily unseated in the fall of 1983 by Democratic former Governor Edwin Washington Edwards. Though Ronald W. Reagan twice won Louisiana’s electoral votes for president, the Louisiana GOP grew slowly during the 1980s, hurt badly by its failure to win the election for U.S. senator in 1986.
Jerry C. Spears of Keithville, the clerk of the Caddo Parish Commission, recalls Lenard, who held the District 8 seat, as “kind of a watchdog over spending. A budget hawk.” During his tenure, Lenard worked with fellow commissioners to revamp the animal control ordinance and was involved in the efforts to obtain a new juvenile services building and jail.
Lenard was succeeded on the commission by fellow Republican John P. Escude. In the jungle primary held on October 21, 1995, Escude defeated Republican Jeffrey D. Sadow, a political science professor at LSU in Shreveport, 4,697 votes 56.4 percent to 3,628 (43.6 percent).
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