Bill Robertson
Encyclopedia
Billy Henry Robertson, known as Bill Robertson (born May 5, 1938), is the Democratic
mayor
of the small city of Minden
, the seat of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana
, United States
, having served since his initial election on November 6, 1990. On August 9, 2008, Robertson was elected president of the Louisiana Municipal Association at the group's annual convention in Lafayette
. He succeeded outgoing LMA President Clarence R. Fields, the mayor of Pineville
.
Robertson won his sixth consecutive four-year term on October 2, 2010. He polled 1,885 votes (53 percent) against the Republican
candidate, Alton Monroe "Al" Hortman, who also ran in 2006, and two "No Party" candidates, Deric Tate and Larry Botzong. Hortman fnished with 737 votes; Tate, 749 (both 21 percent), and Botzong, 170 (5 percent).
In the 2006 general election, Robertson polled 2,054 votes (56 percent) and carried nine of the city's fifteen precinct
s. Hortman then trailed with 1,596 ballots (44 percent) and led in the six other precincts. Hortman hence received less than half the support in 2010 as he had in 2006.
, the seat of Independence County, in northern Arkansas
. Homer Robertson was born in 1910 and died in Minden in 1981. After a divorce
, Homer Robertson married Jean Kimmer Stanfield (1925–2008), who was formerly married to Robert Stanfield, Sr. The couple had a son, Eddie Robertson (born 1962) of Minden, the half-brother of Bill Robertson and his brother, Bobby Gerald Robertson (born ca. 1944), subsequently of Branson, Missouri
. After their parents' divorce, Bill and Bobby Robertson were reared primarily by their late mother, a clerk in a shoe store.
Robertson and his wife, the former Barbara Kimmer, have three children. Robertson was an employee of Talbot's Shoe Store in Magnolia
, Arkansas. He was sent to Minden to operate a Talbot's outlet and thereafter purchased the store from Ben Talbot and his father, D.O. Talbot, having renamed it "Robertson's Shoes".
For a time, Bill and Barbara Robertson had two stores in Minden, one in Homer
, the seat of Claiborne Parish, and a fourth in Shreveport, the seat of Caddo Parish in the northwestern corner of the state. Robertson put forth a budget for each store based on the past year's sales with growth projected in the totals.
In the meantime, Robertson also became involved in local politics: he was elected to the Minden City Council in September 1974, having defeated fellow Democrat Patrick Cary Nation (1918–2005), a retired educator, coach, and principal, for the specific position of sanitation commissioner. Nation's father, Abraham Brisco Nation, Sr. (1886-1933), had served as a city councilman from 1932 until he was shot to death on Armistice Day
, 1933, during a heated political argument, by John L. Fort (1906-1992), a son of then Mayor Connell Fort
, with whom the senior Nation had quarreled.
Robertson took office in January 1975 and served until the abolition of the city commission government
in 1978, when it was replaced by the current single-member-district mayor-council
format. Thereafter, Robertson served from 1980-1988 in the District 6 seat on the Webster Parish Police Jury, the governing body of the parish, usually called the county commission
in other states. In 1981, he survived a recall
petition filed against him and several other jurors.
. Robertson and two preceding Democratic mayors, J.E. "Pat" Patterson (1974–1978) and Jack Batton
(1978–1982), contributed money to the recall against Byars. Byars hence left Minden and took a job in educational administration in Beaumont
, the seat of Orange County
, Texas
.
African American
City Councilman Robert T. Tobin
filled in temporarily after Byars vacated the mayoral office and became Minden's first black mayor since Reconstruction. Tobin was unseated, however, in the November 7, 1989 special election by the GOP
newcomer Paul Aaron Brown
(1932–1996) for the year remaining in Byars' term. Brown had been the chamber-of-commerce executive director in Minden after coming to the city as a counselor to alcoholics. Robertson hence ran unsuccessfully against both Brown and Tobin that year.
In the 2000 census
, Minden was declared 52.1 percent African-American in population. Blacks constituted the majority in three of the five city council districts.
.
Before the primary, Brown was seriously injured on September 28, 1990, in an accident on the Minden High School football
field—he was moving the yardage chains. He remained hospitalized throughout the campaign. Minden physician John Hill declared Brown's condition as "conscious and hopeful . . . an answer to prayer". As fears persisted that the still disabled Brown could not discharge his duties in a full term, voters handily elected Robertson, 2,529 votes (59 percent) to 1,758 (41 percent). Brown hence polled 872 fewer votes in the second round of balloting than he had in the first. The 1990 general election launched Robertson into a long career as his city's chief municipal official.
In 1994, Robertson won a second term over his fellow Democrat Douglas "Doug" Frye and the Independent Lydianne Vulliamy Scallorn Hammons (born 1936), the wife of Minden businessman Orville Hammons (1915-2011). Robertson received 2,019 (55 percent) to Frye's 1,285 ballots (35 percent), and 369 votes (10 percent) for Mrs. Hammons,
a former city clerk who had certified the recall petition signatures against former Mayor Byars.
In 2005, Wright was convicted and sentenced to ten years imprisonment for video
voyeurism
. He was found to have filmed female customers using the dressing room in his clothing store in Minden. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
in Shreveport upheld the conviction in June 2006 but vacated the sentence because of error. Wright was also arrested on March 18, 2004, on an allegation of having threatened to murder a child protection agent in connection with a child custody dispute. City police stopped Wright to arrest him for public intimidation
. They found videotapes inside his vehicle and later child pornography
on Wright's computer disks. He was found guilty on November 14, 2006, of twenty-three of twenty-four counts of possessing child pornography
.
As a result of his strong showing in the election of 1998, no opponent filed against Robertson in 2002.
(born 1947) and a Democrat, was eliminated in the primary. Republican Al Hortman ran sufficiently strong to force Robertson into a general election. Hortman (born 1941) graduated in 1959 from Minden High School. He resided over the years in Dallas
, St. Louis
, and Atlanta
but returned to Minden to care for his ailing mother, Katherine F. Hortman (1909–2003), a former Webster Parish educator. Hortman served in the U.S. Air Force as an intelligence operative. As part of his training, he attended Yale University
in New Haven
, Connecticut
, where he completed an intensive eight-month course in the Chinese language
. He thereafter earned a bachelor's degree
in mathematics
, with a minor in Chinese
, from Louisiana Tech University
in Ruston
, the seat of Lincoln Parish. He also received a master's degree
from Tech in education as well during the time of the mayoral campaign.
Hortman was the president of a concerned group of citizens who drafted the Minden 2020 Visionaries Master Plan, a 20-year proposal for long-range community progress. The plan was developed over a two-year period prior to 2000. Although some 150 Minden citizens worked on the project, it was Hortman who spearheaded the effort.
A former peace officer and a Methodist pastor, Hortman said that he could work with all aspects of the Minden community. Hortman formerly taught math and coached soccer at Huntington High School in Shreveport
.
The city partnered with the Minden/South Webster Chamber of Commerce to establish an office to conduct economic development services. A new director has been hired to work on the expansion of local businesses and to attract new employers. Robertson said that the city will seek to attract new industry and entice such new businesses as a movie theatre, skating rink, bowling alley, and new restaurants. At one time, Minden had two sit-down theaters and a drive-in theater
. The last theater closed in the 1970s. Studies show that communities which cannot sustain a theater have difficulty with growth and development.
Robertson was elected by his fellow mayors as first vice-president at the 2007 LMA convention in Monroe
. A year later, he was elected president of the association. He is a former second vice-president and a district vice-president of the LMA. As mayor, Robertson is also an ex officio board member of the Louisiana Energy and Power Authority. LEPA was established by the Louisiana legislature in 1979 as an action agency for the eighteen Louisiana cities and towns which maintain their own independent municipal power system. He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce
and a former member of the Jaycees.
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
mayor
Mayor
In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
of the small city of Minden
Minden, Louisiana
Minden is a city in the American state of Louisiana. It serves as the parish seat of Webster Parish and is located twenty-eight miles east of Shreveport, the seat of Caddo Parish. The population, which has been stable since 1960, was 13,027 at the 2000 census...
, the seat of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, having served since his initial election on November 6, 1990. On August 9, 2008, Robertson was elected president of the Louisiana Municipal Association at the group's annual convention in Lafayette
Lafayette, Louisiana
Lafayette is a city in and the parish seat of Lafayette Parish, Louisiana, United States, on the Vermilion River. The population was 120,623 at the 2010 census...
. He succeeded outgoing LMA President Clarence R. Fields, the mayor of Pineville
Pineville, Louisiana
Pineville is a city in Rapides Parish, Louisiana, United States. It is adjacent to the city of Alexandria, and is part of that city's Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 13,829 at the 2000 census....
.
Robertson won his sixth consecutive four-year term on October 2, 2010. He polled 1,885 votes (53 percent) against the Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
candidate, Alton Monroe "Al" Hortman, who also ran in 2006, and two "No Party" candidates, Deric Tate and Larry Botzong. Hortman fnished with 737 votes; Tate, 749 (both 21 percent), and Botzong, 170 (5 percent).
In the 2006 general election, Robertson polled 2,054 votes (56 percent) and carried nine of the city's fifteen precinct
Precinct
A precinct is a space enclosed by the walls or other boundaries of a particular place or building, or by an arbitrary and imaginary line drawn around it. The term has several different uses...
s. Hortman then trailed with 1,596 ballots (44 percent) and led in the six other precincts. Hortman hence received less than half the support in 2010 as he had in 2006.
Early years and business success
Robertson was born to Mr. and Mrs. Homer Floyd Robertson in BatesvilleBatesville, Arkansas
Batesville is the county seat and largest city of Independence County, Arkansas, United States, 80 miles northeast of Little Rock, the state capital. According to 2005 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the city was 9,556...
, the seat of Independence County, in northern Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
. Homer Robertson was born in 1910 and died in Minden in 1981. After a divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
, Homer Robertson married Jean Kimmer Stanfield (1925–2008), who was formerly married to Robert Stanfield, Sr. The couple had a son, Eddie Robertson (born 1962) of Minden, the half-brother of Bill Robertson and his brother, Bobby Gerald Robertson (born ca. 1944), subsequently of Branson, Missouri
Branson, Missouri
Branson is a city in Taney County in the U.S. state of Missouri. It was named after Reuben Branson, postmaster and operator of a general store in the area in the 1880s....
. After their parents' divorce, Bill and Bobby Robertson were reared primarily by their late mother, a clerk in a shoe store.
Robertson and his wife, the former Barbara Kimmer, have three children. Robertson was an employee of Talbot's Shoe Store in Magnolia
Magnolia, Arkansas
Magnolia is a city in Columbia County, Arkansas, United States, that was founded in 1853. At the time of its incorporation in 1858, the city had a population of about 1,950. The city grew slowly as an agricultural and regional cotton market until the discovery of oil just east of the city in March,...
, Arkansas. He was sent to Minden to operate a Talbot's outlet and thereafter purchased the store from Ben Talbot and his father, D.O. Talbot, having renamed it "Robertson's Shoes".
For a time, Bill and Barbara Robertson had two stores in Minden, one in Homer
Homer, Louisiana
Homer is present day parish seat of Claiborne Parish, Louisiana, United States. The town was named after the Greek poet Homer and was laid out around the Courthouse Square in 1850 by Frank Vaughn. The present day brick courthouse, built in the Greek Revival style of architecture, is one of only...
, the seat of Claiborne Parish, and a fourth in Shreveport, the seat of Caddo Parish in the northwestern corner of the state. Robertson put forth a budget for each store based on the past year's sales with growth projected in the totals.
In the meantime, Robertson also became involved in local politics: he was elected to the Minden City Council in September 1974, having defeated fellow Democrat Patrick Cary Nation (1918–2005), a retired educator, coach, and principal, for the specific position of sanitation commissioner. Nation's father, Abraham Brisco Nation, Sr. (1886-1933), had served as a city councilman from 1932 until he was shot to death on Armistice Day
Armistice Day
Armistice Day is on 11 November and commemorates the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany at Compiègne, France, for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front of World War I, which took effect at eleven o'clock in the morning—the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day...
, 1933, during a heated political argument, by John L. Fort (1906-1992), a son of then Mayor Connell Fort
Connell Fort
Connell Fort was a businessman and newspaperman who served as the Democratic mayor of the small city of Minden, the seat of Webster Parish in north Louisiana, from 1922 to 1926 and again from 1932 to 1934....
, with whom the senior Nation had quarreled.
Robertson took office in January 1975 and served until the abolition of the city commission government
City commission government
City commission government is a form of municipal government which once was common in the United States, but many cities which were formerly governed by commission have since switched to the council-manager form of government...
in 1978, when it was replaced by the current single-member-district mayor-council
Mayor-council government
The mayor–council government system, sometimes called the mayor–commission government system, is one of the two most common forms of local government for municipalities...
format. Thereafter, Robertson served from 1980-1988 in the District 6 seat on the Webster Parish Police Jury, the governing body of the parish, usually called the county commission
County commission
A county commission is a group of elected officials charged with administering the county government in local government in some states of the United States. County commissions are usually made up of three or more individuals...
in other states. In 1981, he survived a recall
Recall election
A recall election is a procedure by which voters can remove an elected official from office through a direct vote before his or her term has ended...
petition filed against him and several other jurors.
Defeat in 1989
Robertson ran unsuccessfully for mayor in the 1989 special election held to fill the remaining months of the term of another fellow Democrat, Noel Eugene "Gene" Byars (born 1939). Byars was recalled from the position in a "Yes" or "No" vote after a citizens' audit revealed that he had charged personal expenses to his municipal credit cardCredit card
A credit card is a small plastic card issued to users as a system of payment. It allows its holder to buy goods and services based on the holder's promise to pay for these goods and services...
. Robertson and two preceding Democratic mayors, J.E. "Pat" Patterson (1974–1978) and Jack Batton
Jack Batton
Jack Batton was a small businessman who served as the Democratic mayor of the small city of Minden, the seat of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana, for a single term from 1978–1982.-Early years:...
(1978–1982), contributed money to the recall against Byars. Byars hence left Minden and took a job in educational administration in Beaumont
Beaumont, Texas
Beaumont is a city in and county seat of Jefferson County, Texas, United States, within the Beaumont–Port Arthur Metropolitan Statistical Area. The city's population was 118,296 at the 2010 census. With Port Arthur and Orange, it forms the Golden Triangle, a major industrial area on the...
, the seat of Orange County
Orange County, Texas
Orange County is one of 254 counties of the State of Texas and its county seat is the city of Orange, Texas. In the year 2000, the population of Orange County was about 85,000. Orange County is the county in the very southeastern corner of Texas, with a boundary with Louisiana and a seacoast on the...
, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
.
African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
City Councilman Robert T. Tobin
Robert T. Tobin
Robert Terry Tobin was an African-American educator who became the first and, to date, only member of his race to have served as mayor of Minden, a small city of about 13,000 residents and the seat of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana...
filled in temporarily after Byars vacated the mayoral office and became Minden's first black mayor since Reconstruction. Tobin was unseated, however, in the November 7, 1989 special election by the GOP
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
newcomer Paul Aaron Brown
Paul A. Brown
Paul Aaron Brown was only the second Republican since Reconstruction to have served as mayor of the small north Louisiana city of Minden, the seat of Webster Parish. Brown served an unexpired term created by the recall of Democratic Mayor Noel "Gene" Byars...
(1932–1996) for the year remaining in Byars' term. Brown had been the chamber-of-commerce executive director in Minden after coming to the city as a counselor to alcoholics. Robertson hence ran unsuccessfully against both Brown and Tobin that year.
In the 2000 census
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...
, Minden was declared 52.1 percent African-American in population. Blacks constituted the majority in three of the five city council districts.
Toppling Paul Brown, 1990
Robertson entered the race for a full term as mayor in 1990. He and Minden businessman Billy Sherman Cost (born 1948) challenged Brown, who was seeking his first full term in the position. Cost and Thomas L. Hathorn (born 1951), another Minden businessman, had led the citiznes' panel advocating the recall of Byars. Brown nearly won in the first round: 2,630 ballots (48 percent) to Robertson's 1,729 (32 percent), and Cost's 1,064 votes (20 percent). Robertson and Brown therefore advanced to the general electionGeneral election
In a parliamentary political system, a general election is an election in which all or most members of a given political body are chosen. The term is usually used to refer to elections held for a nation's primary legislative body, as distinguished from by-elections and local elections.The term...
.
Before the primary, Brown was seriously injured on September 28, 1990, in an accident on the Minden High School football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
field—he was moving the yardage chains. He remained hospitalized throughout the campaign. Minden physician John Hill declared Brown's condition as "conscious and hopeful . . . an answer to prayer". As fears persisted that the still disabled Brown could not discharge his duties in a full term, voters handily elected Robertson, 2,529 votes (59 percent) to 1,758 (41 percent). Brown hence polled 872 fewer votes in the second round of balloting than he had in the first. The 1990 general election launched Robertson into a long career as his city's chief municipal official.
In 1994, Robertson won a second term over his fellow Democrat Douglas "Doug" Frye and the Independent Lydianne Vulliamy Scallorn Hammons (born 1936), the wife of Minden businessman Orville Hammons (1915-2011). Robertson received 2,019 (55 percent) to Frye's 1,285 ballots (35 percent), and 369 votes (10 percent) for Mrs. Hammons,
a former city clerk who had certified the recall petition signatures against former Mayor Byars.
Defeating Benjamin Wright
In 1998, Robertson overwhelmed the Minden businessman, Benjamin Franklin Wright, Jr. (born 1959), a Claiborne Parish native who ran for mayor as an Independent. Robertson polled 2,697 votes (89 percent) to 331 votes (11 percent) in a low-turnout election.In 2005, Wright was convicted and sentenced to ten years imprisonment for video
Video
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
voyeurism
Voyeurism
In clinical psychology, voyeurism is the sexual interest in or practice of spying on people engaged in intimate behaviors, such as undressing, sexual activity, or other activity usually considered to be of a private nature....
. He was found to have filmed female customers using the dressing room in his clothing store in Minden. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals...
in Shreveport upheld the conviction in June 2006 but vacated the sentence because of error. Wright was also arrested on March 18, 2004, on an allegation of having threatened to murder a child protection agent in connection with a child custody dispute. City police stopped Wright to arrest him for public intimidation
Intimidation
Intimidation is intentional behavior "which would cause a person of ordinary sensibilities" fear of injury or harm. It's not necessary to prove that the behavior was so violent as to cause terror or that the victim was actually frightened.Criminal threatening is the crime of intentionally or...
. They found videotapes inside his vehicle and later child pornography
Child pornography
Child pornography refers to images or films and, in some cases, writings depicting sexually explicit activities involving a child...
on Wright's computer disks. He was found guilty on November 14, 2006, of twenty-three of twenty-four counts of possessing child pornography
Child pornography
Child pornography refers to images or films and, in some cases, writings depicting sexually explicit activities involving a child...
.
As a result of his strong showing in the election of 1998, no opponent filed against Robertson in 2002.
The first campaign against Al Hortman
Robertson faced three challengers in his 2006 reelection bid. Photographer John Edward Quade, a 1966 graduate of Minden High SchoolMinden High School (Minden, Louisiana)
Minden High School is the public secondary educational institution in Minden, a small city of 13,000 and the seat of Webster Parish located twenty-eight miles east of Shreveport in northwestern Louisiana...
(born 1947) and a Democrat, was eliminated in the primary. Republican Al Hortman ran sufficiently strong to force Robertson into a general election. Hortman (born 1941) graduated in 1959 from Minden High School. He resided over the years in Dallas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
, St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
, and Atlanta
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...
but returned to Minden to care for his ailing mother, Katherine F. Hortman (1909–2003), a former Webster Parish educator. Hortman served in the U.S. Air Force as an intelligence operative. As part of his training, he attended Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
in New Haven
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is the second-largest city in Connecticut and the sixth-largest in New England. According to the 2010 Census, New Haven's population increased by 5.0% between 2000 and 2010, a rate higher than that of the State of Connecticut, and higher than that of the state's five largest cities, and...
, Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
, where he completed an intensive eight-month course in the Chinese language
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
. He thereafter earned a bachelor's degree
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
in mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
, with a minor in Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
, from Louisiana Tech University
Louisiana Tech University
Louisiana Tech University, often referred to as Louisiana Tech, LA Tech, or Tech, is a coeducational public research university located in Ruston, Louisiana. Louisiana Tech is designated as a Tier 1 school in the national universities category by the 2012 U.S. News & World Report college rankings...
in Ruston
Ruston, Louisiana
Ruston is a city in and the parish seat of Lincoln Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 20,546 at the 2000 census. Ruston is near the eastern border of the Ark-La-Tex and is the home of Louisiana Tech University. Its economy caters to its college population...
, the seat of Lincoln Parish. He also received a master's degree
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
from Tech in education as well during the time of the mayoral campaign.
Hortman was the president of a concerned group of citizens who drafted the Minden 2020 Visionaries Master Plan, a 20-year proposal for long-range community progress. The plan was developed over a two-year period prior to 2000. Although some 150 Minden citizens worked on the project, it was Hortman who spearheaded the effort.
A former peace officer and a Methodist pastor, Hortman said that he could work with all aspects of the Minden community. Hortman formerly taught math and coached soccer at Huntington High School in Shreveport
Shreveport, Louisiana
Shreveport is the third largest city in Louisiana. It is the principal city of the fourth largest metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana and is the 109th-largest city in the United States....
.
Robertson as mayor
During Robertson’s tenure, some 85 percent of the city streets have been overlaid, and major upgrades have been completed on the electrical, wastewater and water systems. Many of the projects were funded through state and federal grants. Robertson has pledged to keep electrical rates—the city operates its own power plant—among the lowest in Louisiana.The city partnered with the Minden/South Webster Chamber of Commerce to establish an office to conduct economic development services. A new director has been hired to work on the expansion of local businesses and to attract new employers. Robertson said that the city will seek to attract new industry and entice such new businesses as a movie theatre, skating rink, bowling alley, and new restaurants. At one time, Minden had two sit-down theaters and a drive-in theater
Drive-in theater
A drive-in theater is a form of cinema structure consisting of a large outdoor screen, a projection booth, a concession stand and a large parking area for automobiles. Within this enclosed area, customers can view movies from the privacy and comfort of their cars.The screen can be as simple as a...
. The last theater closed in the 1970s. Studies show that communities which cannot sustain a theater have difficulty with growth and development.
Robertson was elected by his fellow mayors as first vice-president at the 2007 LMA convention in Monroe
Monroe, Louisiana
Monroe is a city in and the parish seat of Ouachita Parish, Louisiana, United States. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 53,107, making it the eighth largest city in Louisiana. A July 1, 2007, United States Census Bureau estimate placed the population at 51,208, but 51,636...
. A year later, he was elected president of the association. He is a former second vice-president and a district vice-president of the LMA. As mayor, Robertson is also an ex officio board member of the Louisiana Energy and Power Authority. LEPA was established by the Louisiana legislature in 1979 as an action agency for the eighteen Louisiana cities and towns which maintain their own independent municipal power system. He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce
Chamber of commerce
A chamber of commerce is a form of business network, e.g., a local organization of businesses whose goal is to further the interests of businesses. Business owners in towns and cities form these local societies to advocate on behalf of the business community...
and a former member of the Jaycees.