John Cooksey obit

Former Louisiana Congressman John Cooksey dies

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Former Louisiana Congressman John Cooksey, who served in the U.S. Air Force, earned a master's in business administration and treated thousands of patients as an eye surgeon, has died. He was 80.

Cooksey, a Republican, served as the 5th District Congressman with Monroe and Alexandria as the population hubs from 1997-2003.

Cooksey was born in Alexandria in Rapides Parish in Central Louisiana. He grew up in Olla, Louisiana and graduated from LaSalle High School. His is father operated a sawmill outside of town where John learned the value of hardwork. He attended Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and received his M.D. degree from the LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans in 1966. In 1994, he received a Master of Business Administration from the University of Texas at Austin. From 1967 until 1969, he served in the United States Air Force, where he was stationed in Texas and Thailand. He served in the Air Force Reserve from 1969 until 1972.

Cooksey was elected to Congress in 1996 and represented Louisiana's Fifth District for three terms, traditionally based in the northeastern quadrant of the state about Monroe, but since reconfigured to reach deep into South Louisiana as well. Cooksey first won the seat by defeating Democratic state legislator Francis C. Thompson of Delhi in Richland Parish. Cooksey had edged past former U.S. Representative Clyde C. Holloway of Forest Hill in Rapides Parish in the nonpartisan blanket primary. In that campaign, Cooksey pledged to serve no more than three terms in the House, a pledge that he kept.

In 2002, Cooksey was an unsuccessful candidate in the Republican primary for the United States Senate seat held until 2015 by Democrat Mary Landrieu. In that campaign, Cooksey made a derogatory remark about Arabs — comparing traditional Arab headdresses like turbans and keffiyehs to diapers fastened by fan belts — which was attacked by his opponents as racist. He never overcame the blunder. In the November general election, the losing Republican candidate was Cooksey's intra-party rival, Suzanne Haik Terrell of New Orleans.

In addition to the reelection of Landrieu, the Democrats temporarily regained Cooksey's House seat in the same general election balloting.

After his Senate campaign, Cooksey retired from politics and resumed his medical practice. He and his wife, the former Ann Grabill (born 1943), had three children. He was Methodist and a member of Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity.

Cooksey died in Columbia, Louisiana on June 4, 2022, at the age of 80.