Buddy Leach obit

Buddy Leach, a wealthy businessman who served in Congress and the state House, dies at 88

 

He was not on the list.

Anthony Claude “Buddy” Leach Jr., a plumber’s son who amassed a fortune in land, cattle and oil and gas holdings while winning and losing big races at the highest levels of state politics during the Louisiana Democratic Party’s heyday, died Saturday of congestive heart failure in Baton Rouge, said his daughter Mary Werner. He was 88.

Leach was a courtly gentleman from Leesville who also had a common touch that he parlayed into winning three state House races and one congressional election, in 1978, in a district that covered northwest Louisiana.

But after an indictment on vote-buying charges, he lost his 1980 reelection to Buddy Roemer, who was elected governor seven years later.

After being acquitted, Leach easily won back his state House seat in 1983 but then lost the 1987 state treasurer’s race to Mary Landrieu.

Leach never again held public office. He finished fourth in the 2003 governor’s race, narrowly lost a 2007 state Senate election and served for two years as chairman of the state Democratic Party from 2010 to 2012 when he was defeated for the position. But he continued to donate and raise money for Democrats, especially playing a key early role for then-state representative John Bel Edwards, a long-shot candidate in the 2015 governor’s race, when he desperately needed credibility.

“Buddy worked to make life better for all Louisianans,” Edwards said in a statement on Sunday.

Although he could be imperious at times, Leach’s humble background taught him the fine art of retail politics. When he met someone, he would ask about their momma and papa, and he would remember what he learned.

“He knew everybody and knew the backstory of everybody,” said Roy Fletcher, his Baton Rouge-based media consultant. “He would walk into a restaurant, go into the back and meet all the help and remember those people the next time he went there. He was always kind to people in lesser stations.”

Son of a plumber

Born on March 30, 1934, Leach was poor as a boy, with his father, a plumber and gas station owner with a seventh grade education, struggling to raise four children after the death of his wife.

Leach had an uncommon ability to synthesize lots of information and to put it to good use. He won election to the state House in 1968, became the no-nonsense chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee after his reelection in 1972 and chaired the committee until his election to Congress in 1978.

But Leach couldn’t overcome the vote-buying indictment and lost his reelection in 1980. After winning back his state House seat, he was named chairman of the Ways and Means Committee again by then-Gov. Edwin Edwards and Speaker John Alario.

“He was a very capable chair and capable legislator,” Alario said Sunday. “He was a strong leader and wanted to get the work done on a timely basis. If he saw there was something important needed for the state, he would get it done.”

A big discovery

Leach, an attorney, married into the Chalkley family, which owned Sweet Lake Land and Oil Co. in Cameron and Calcasieu parishes. At the urging of his wife, Laura, he took over the company in 1987 and oversaw a discovery by Exxon in 1988 that was the biggest natural gas field in North America at that time. He used his extensive legal background and knowledge of taxes to ensure that the family benefitted from the find.

It exponentially expanded the family’s wealth, and with some of the proceeds, Leach developed the Indigo Hotel and the Kress-Levy building in downtown Baton Rouge that houses the Little Village restaurant.

Leach expanded Sweet Lake’s cattle herd to become the largest in Louisiana, and the company continued to be a major grower of rice.

Leach also developed the family’s camp in Cameron Parish, turning a double-wide trailer where he had invited senators, congressmen and governors to hunt with him, into Grosse Savanne Lodging, with a 12,000-square-foot mansion that serves as a hotel surrounded by acres and acres of marsh.

Now living in Lake Charles, Leach didn’t forget his hometown. He served on the board of Leesville-based Merchants & Farmers Bank for over 40 years, including 19 as chairman.

During that time, Merchants’ assets grew from $20 million to $500 million, and the bank expanded out of Vernon Parish to the Lake Charles market.

“Buddy had enjoyed a tremendous amount of success in life. That exposed him to a great deal of complicated financial situations and was a terrific skill for him to have in a small community,” said Mike Reese, a Republican state senator from Leesville who sits on the bank board.

Leach is survived by his wife, Laura, and his three children: Lucy Davenport, an educator who lives in Baton Rouge; Mary Werner, who lives in Lafayette, is a vice president of Sweet Lake and serves as a member of the LSU Board of Supervisors; and Claude, who is president of Sweet Lake and lives in Lake Charles. He has nine grandchildren.

Funeral services are pending.

Leach ran an old-style populist campaign for governor in 2003 that he mostly funded himself. He called for raising the minimum wage to $1 above the national wage, higher teacher pay and universal prekindergarten classes. Kathleen Blanco won the election. Afterward, Leach continued to help the Democratic Party.

“He told me four or five times during the last 20 years what he’d want on his gravestone,” said Fletcher. “It was: ‘He tried. He always tried.’