A Father-Son Duo and the Official State Painting of Louisiana

Louisiana is no stranger to the arts. From jazz music to George Rodrigue’s Blue Dog paintings to the stories of William Joyce, the state has been the launching point of several artists and styles that have gone on to achieve worldwide fame while remaining inextricably linked to their home. With such an extensive artistic legacy, it is no wonder that Louisiana would eventually adopt an official state painting, a signed print of which is now housed within the History Center’s collection. This painting, titled simply “Louisiana,” is a collaboration between father and son, Johnny Oats Bell and Johnny Floyd Bell.

Johnny Oats Bell was born in Massachusetts on May 14, 1916, and was raised in Michigan. He served in the South Pacific during World War II, becoming the “artist in residence” for his company. In 1943, after being discharged from the military, he married Margaret Thompson, and the couple settled first in Mississippi, then in Louisiana in 1955. In both of their homes, Johnny Oats worked as a graphic and mural artist, with his own sign company. The Bells had three children together, their eldest being Johnny Floyd Bell.

Born in 1944, Johnny Floyd Bell began working in his father’s sign shop as soon as he was old enough to help out. He quickly proved to be every bit the artist that his father was. Though he experimented with various styles and techniques, he always considered himself a mural and graphic artist first and foremost, like his father before him. Indeed, he emulated his father so well that at one point, Johnny Oats Bell mistook his son’s work as his own, and was left puzzled by the fact that he could not remember painting it.

Eventually, father and son decided to combine their talents to pay tribute to their beloved home in the form of an oil painting. Completed in 1985, after 10 years of collaborative effort, “Louisiana” managed to incorporate all of Louisiana’s state symbols that existed at the time, its history as an agricultural and transportational giant, and its current designation as a “Sportsman’s Paradise,” all into one stunning work of art. Johnny Oats and Johnny Floyd’s styles blended perfectly, so much so that they decided to sign the painting with one “Johnny Bell” signature, with the center containing the father’s “O” and the son’s “F” nestled within it.

“Louisiana” would eventually catch the attention of Louisiana lawmakers, and on June 29, 1995, Governor Edwin W. Edwards signed Act 981, designating “Louisiana” as the official state painting (though the copyright privileges would remain with the artists). Johnny Floyd Bell would go on to be appointed as “Louisiana’s Artist Laureate” by Governor Mike Foster in 1997, a title he held until 2009. Today, the original “Louisiana” hangs at the State Capital in Baton Rouge in a gilded frame. The History Center’s print of “Louisiana,” which was donated earlier this year by Bossier City resident Bill Swygart, is in a plainer wooden frame, but it is no less of a treasure. It stands not just as a testament of the Bells’ incredible craftsmanship and synergism, but as a reminder of the unique beauty and history of Louisiana.

The Bossier Parish Library History Center’s unique collection of objects exists because of donors who have items representing local and regional history and who want to see those items preserved and accessible to visitors and researchers. To see our rotating displays or to research other items in our collection, come visit us at 7204 Hutchison Drive, Bossier City, LA. We are open M-Th 9-8, Fri 9-6, and Sat 9-5. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org

For other fun facts, photos, and videos, be sure to visit the History and Genealogy Resources page at Bossierlibrary.org or follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB and check out our blog http://bpl-hc.blogspot.com/.

Images: 

• “Louisiana,” by Johnny Oats Bell and Johnny Floyd Bell, designated as the official state painting in 1995 by Governor Edwin Edwards.   2025.006.001  
• Johnny O. Bell and Johnny Floyd Bell pictured with their painting, "Louisiana"                                  Southwest Daily News Mar 04, 1999 

Article by: Jaylie Rester

Margaret Stewart Hill: Hunting with a Passion While Seeing for Two

 National Hunting and Fishing Day was established in 1972, when Congress passed two bills to have a day celebrating the conservation contributions of U.S. hunters and anglers. The day is celebrated by all 50 states on the fourth Saturday in September. In Bossier, it’s celebrated every year at Bayou Bodcau Reservoir. In this history column, we highlighted the day on Wednesday, Sept. 17 with the story of Miss Mary Babb, the fishing centenarian. Here’s a follow-up piece, this time featuring hunting and Miss Mary Babb’s friend, Margaret Hill, along with her husband, Walter.

Mary Babb, whose passion was fishing, fished at least once a week on a pond in Bossier Parish that was owned by JoAnne McDonald and her husband. Ms. McDonald is the one who shared a clipping about Ms. Mary from the Sunday, June 4, 1995, Shreveport Times with me. The article noted that Mary also was an honorary member of the Sailes Hunting Club in Bienville Parish. When she was in her 90’s, she was the club’s oldest member. She and her friend Margaret Stewart (later Hill) of Benton were also the only two women at the deer camp. Margaret was the club’s first and only full voting member of the hunting club.

Like Mary Babb and her zeal for fishing, Margaret Stewart Hill’s passion for hunting started later in life. She picked up a gun for the first time well into her 40s, and shot her first deer that very day. Born and raised in Atlanta, Texas (which is just due west of north Bossier’s Plain Dealing community), Margaret Groves married Carl Stewart soon after graduating from Atlanta High School. She raised 6 boys and a girl, and worked for 30 years as a hospital LPN, much of that time on her own after her first husband passed away in 1981. Once the kids were raised and she started hunting, she spent the next 30 years outhunting most of the men at the hunting club. One of these men was Walter Hill of Benton, a farmer and public servant who’d been hunting at Sailes since the year it opened in 1960. As Margaret’s friend, neighbor and hunting buddy since the mid 1980’s, Walter, also widowed, became her husband on Valentine’s Day 2007.

Walter was legally blind, a result of a 1970s industrial accident. He was also 85 percent deaf. Because he was deaf, she had to elbow him to stealthily let him know a deer was approaching, or if he was inadvertently making any loud noises. She also was always the shooter for him. Then she read in a magazine about a blind hunter in Texas who was able to hunt with a special laser scope. She called the secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries to see if Walter could hunt with such a scope and was told no; it was against the law. Margaret, who also had a blind son, and was an experienced advocate, straightaway called her state representative and friend Henry Burns of Haughton. She asked Henry to get the law changed.

Sixteen states had already put such a bill in place. HB 39, introduced by Mr. Burns and signed by Governor Jindal in 2009, allowed him and others with sight of 20/200 or less to hunt with a sighted hunter and a laser scope to properly align the rifle or shotgun. Margaret reported that seventy-five percent of the meat they ate was what they killed, and now Walter could help keep up the supply.

Margaret also volunteered as a guide for small groups of youth during the state’s special youth hunts, when kids 16 and under could hunt with a certified hunter prior to the regular shooting season. An October, 2000, article in The Shreveport Times featured Margaret, at age 65, reporting that two of the five youngsters in her group, who were aged 12 and 13, brought home a deer. Margaret praised the youth hunt for building up the young hunters’ confidence.

Mary Hill passed away December 8, 2015 at the age of 80. On her October 28 birthday that year, opening day of the season, she shot her last deer. As reported in her obituary, it was “a big, beautiful 8 point.” Her husband Walter passed away a year and a half later.

Like Mrs. McDonald, who passed along to us the story of Miss Mary Babb, which then led us to the story of Margaret and Walter Hill, we’d love for our readers to visit us with stories, clippings and photos of other remarkable people and memories from around Bossier Parish. We are located at 7204 Hutchison Drive, Bossier City, LA. We are open M-Th 9-8, Fri 9-6, and Sat 9-5. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org

For other fun facts, photos, and videos, be sure to visit the History and Genealogy Resources page at Bossierlibrary.org or follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB and check out our blog http://bpl-hc.blogspot.com/.

Image: Walter and Margaret Hill with doe he harvested using laser-sighted gun/special to The Times/Jan. 5, 2011 

Article by: Pam Carlisle 

Bossier High Band Impressive at Sugar Bowl

The 1960 Sugar Bowl featured a New Year’s Day matchup of Southeastern Conference rivals LSU and Ole Miss. The second-ranked Rebels were eager to avenge a 7 – 3 loss to the third ranked Tigers that occurred on Halloween night following an 89-yard punt return for a touchdown by LSU star halfback Billy Cannon. For the Bossier High School marching band, the bowl provided not only a chance to see top college teams in action, but also offered the opportunity to step onto a national stage.

Three months earlier, Bossier High had welcomed a special visitor to see the band perform. According to the Bossier Tribune of October 11, 1959, a man named Irwin Poche, chairman of the New Orleans Mid-Winter Sports Association’s Pageant Committee, came to Bossier’s Memorial Stadium to see the band during halftime of a Bossier High vs Byrd football game. The reason for his visit was to consider inviting the band to play at the Sugar Bowl. The Tribune stated that the Bossier Chamber of Commerce and the Bossier Parish School Board had informed the sports association of the band’s availability for the bowl and invited the association to preview the band. Poche was said to be “very impressed with the splendid group.”

The Bossier band had distinguished itself by being selected to represent Louisiana numerous times at the Lions Club International band competition, winning first place in 1956, 57 and 59 in cities such as Miami, New York and Atlantic City against dozens of other high school bands from throughout the country. More first-place wins would come in the 1960s. With that track record, it’s no surprise that the Sugar Bowl showed interest.

Within days of Mr. Poche’s visit, the band received the hoped-for invitation. The Bossier High marching band was bound for New Orleans. Bossier Schools Superintendent T. L. Rodes was thrilled. “This marks the realization of a dream that has extended for years in Bossier,” he was quoted as saying in an article in The Shreveport Journal on October 13, 1959. News of the invite created so much excitement that the Bossier Chamber made arrangements to help get fans to the game. According to the Bossier Tribune’s October 18 edition, the chamber sponsored a train to carry approximately 300 band boosters, parents and fans to the bowl game, and orders for tickets to ride the train inundated chamber offices.

As game day approached, band members spent untold hours preparing for their performance. The Bossier Press of November 20, 1959 stated, “Fourteen big minutes. Those are the precious minutes in which thousands of eyes – and perhaps millions – will be turned upon the world champion Bossier High band.” The band was scheduled to perform for eight-minutes during a pre-game exhibition and six minutes at halftime. The game would be televised nationally.

When their moment to shine came on New Year’s Day 1960, the Bossier High band members didn’t disappoint. In short, they knocked it out of the park, er, stadium. Both The Shreveport Journal and The Shreveport Times of January 2 stated that the band received a standing ovation. An article in The Times from January 5 detailed the band’s performance, saying members executed maneuvers called “Company Fund,” “Diamond” and “X,” among others, while playing music like the “Grand Entry March,” “March Gloria” and “Colossus of Columbia March.” The newspaper stated that the band exited the field “by dividing into four main sections, two breaking toward the sidelines and the other two filling in as the other two approached them.”

Accolades weren’t long in coming. According to The Shreveport Times article from January 5, Bossier band Director Kenneth Green’s office was “flooded” with letters from states such as Texas, Illinois, Missouri, North and South Carolina, and Mississippi offering praise for the band’s showing and the “high degree of discipline” of its members. One letter writer asked Green for notes and diagrams of the band’s performance. A reporter for the New Orleans Times Picayune was said to have written that his vote for outstanding players during the Sugar Bowl would go to the Bossier band. Managing Editor for The Shreveport Journal Robert Packwood wrote on January 4, “It was one of the finest band performances we have ever seen and, as far as we are concerned, outdid any college band that appeared New Year’s Day in any of the televised bowl halftime shows.” Well done, Bearkats.

Film of the band at the Sugar Bowl is available for viewing by searching on YouTube for Bossier City High School band 1960. If you have any photos or other information relating to the history of Bossier City or Bossier Parish, the History Center may be interested in adding the materials to its research collection by donation or by scanning them and returning the originals. Call or visit us to learn more. We are open M-Th 9-8, Fri 9-6, and Sat 9-5. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org. We can also be found online at https://www.facebook.com/BPLHistoryCenter/ and http://bpl-hc.blogspot.com/

Images: 

• Bossier High Marching Band 1959-60/photo by Shorter/History Center collection
• Headline from The Shreveport Times, January 2, 1960

Article by: Kevin Flowers

Tri-State Oil Tool Company - A Bossier Titan

There was once a company of international prominence headquartered right here in Bossier City, Louisiana. Tri-State Oil Tool Industries Inc., or Tri-State Oil Tool Company, was once the one of the largest employers here in Bossier Parish, and whose wide-reaching influence would see a dozen international locations and nearly three dozen local. What got them there, and where did they go?

Tri-State Oil Tool got its start right here in Bossier City just under sixty years ago, in December of 1945, and was founded by Gary H. Burnham Tri-State Oil Tool. Mister Burnham was then quickly joined by a co-owner by the name of Earl P. Sawyer. The company was founded with a small staff, just seven, with their company mascot Junior the fox terrier. Tri State Oil Tool Company, as the name suggests, was in the business of supplying the oil fields of the Ark-La-Tex and beyond with, according to a June 18th, 1951, Shreveport Times article, “a complete line of squeeze, acidizing and fishing tools, well testing tools, both formation and casting; all sizes of wash over pipes, and several types of drill pipe equipment with tool joints.” Six years after their founding, in 1951, Tri-State Oil Tool would move their headquarters to a larger newly built location on East Texas Street, not far from where the BPL Central Complex sits now. Indeed, there were several local locations, such as Lafayette or Magnolia, AR. Already, at the time of their office move, the company had begun reaching an international clientele, with service as far north as Canada, though this would not be the end of their international ambitions.

The 1970s were a busy time for the company, with a series of large international location openings in quick succession, as well as a major shakeup on the corporate side. In 1974, Tri-State Oil Tool would open in Aberdeen Scotland to serve the North Sea oil fields off the coast of the United Kingdom. In 1978, they would expand into Egypt, as many of their costumers did large amounts of work in the Suez oil fields. The following year, 1979, would see a location open in Singapore, to serve the oil fields there. Wherever their customers were, the Tri-State Oil Tool Company would expand to meet their needs. To better coordinate this worldwide, a new office complex was built at 2701 Village Lane in 1980, where the company would remain until its end. The new locations, however, were not made in a vacuum. In 1973, according to The Los Angeles Times, Baker Oil Tools Incorporated, an L.A. based company, acquired Tri-State Oil Tool Industries for an undisclosed number of shares in the Baker Oil Tools company, entwining the two forever. It would be in 1992 that Tri-State Oil Tool was folded entirely into Baker Oil, after moving their headquarters to the Houston area.

The legacy of Tri-State Oil Tool Industries is as a former industry leader, whose equipment was sought around the world. With their sixtieth anniversary just around the corner, think back to this former Bossier Parish titan.

If you have any photos or other information relating to the history of Bossier City or Bossier Parish, the History Center may be interested in adding the materials to its research collection by donation or by scanning them and returning the originals. Call or visit us to learn more. We are open M-Th 9-8, Fri 9-6, and Sat 9-5. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org. We can also be found online at https://www.facebook.com/BPLHistoryCenter/ and http://bpl-hc.blogspot.com/

• TSOT Home Office, Plant & Pipe Yard (History Center Collection - 2000.036.011)
• Early TSOT Store (History Center Collection - 2023.002.322)
• TSOT International Office Print (History Center Collection - 2023.002.278)
• TSOT Aberdeen, Scotland Staff (History Center Collection - 2023.002.274)
• Early TSOT Vehicle Fleet (History Center Collection - 2023.002.272)

Article by: Jonah Daigle

A Lake Bistineau Fishing Story for National Hunting and Fishing Day

September 27 is National Hunting and Fishing Day, an event celebrated by all 50 states every year on the fourth Saturday in September. It was established in 1972 when Congress passed two bills to have a day to celebrate the conservation contributions of U.S. hunters and anglers. It seems a perfect time to share a fun fishing story (with some hunting thrown in, too) brought to me by a reader of this column, JoAnne McDonald. 

Mrs. McDonald and her late husband Jerry had a house in Bossier Parish with a private pond near Lake Bistineau. It was highlighted in The Shreveport Times in 1995 because of a Minden, Louisiana centenarian, Miss Mary Babb, who, with the McDonalds’ invitation, would fish from a boat on their pond with her friend Lydon Taylor. Miss Babb fished at least once a week, from morning to sunset. With nonarthritic hands, she could still set the hook on the bluegill bream herself and see the slightest jiggle of a bream hook, no glasses needed. 

At that stage in her life, fishing was one “Miss Mary’s” favorite past-times, but as a girl growing up on a farm in Cotton Valley from 1905 to 1924, she wasn’t included when her father and brothers went fishing. A friend introduced her to fishing’s pleasures as an adult. She also was an honorary member of the Sailes Hunting Club in Bienville Parish. She and her friend Margaret Stewart of Benton were the only two women at the deer camp. When someone bagged a buck, Miss Mary would help prepare the meat for the freezer, or make sausage with it. Additionally, the centenarian was still gardening and raising chickens and gathering their eggs. She knew how to live off the land, and never set foot in a mall until just prior to the 1995 article, when a friend took her to Pierre Bosser for some new shoes. 

In Cotton Valley, Mary and her ten siblings worked on the family’s 160-acre farm until they moved to Minden in 1924, in the historic Killen Place, one of the oldest homes in Webster Parish. She lived there for the rest of her life. As a young woman, Miss Mary was active with the local home demonstration club, hosting meetings and reporting club doings to the local newspaper. She also taught school, worked for her father’s store and trained and worked as a nurse. 

Early to mid-twentieth century Minden newspapers are filled with some of Mary Babb’s accomplishments, such as her work for the Federal Works Progress Administration (WPA), binding books so they can continue to be used, working to cleanup automobile graveyards across the region, keeping accurate demographic statistics such as births for the parish, becoming a WPA supervisor, and clerking at the Minden courthouse, keeping World War II selective service records. She also contributed to the war effort at the Louisiana Army Ammunition Plant in Minden. 

Mary Babb died Nov. 22, 1996, at Minden Medical Center after a brief illness, less than a month shy of her 102nd birthday. 

Like Mrs. McDonald did, we’d love for our readers to visit us with stories, clippings and photos of other remarkable people and memories from around Bossier Parish. We are located at 7204 Hutchison Drive, Bossier City, LA. We are open M-Th 9-8, Fri 9-6, and Sat 9-5. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org

For other fun facts, photos, and videos, be sure to visit the History and Genealogy Resources page at Bossierlibrary.org or follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB and check out our blog http://bpl-hc.blogspot.com/.

Images: 

• Illustration from Plain Dealing’s Roach-Strayhan-Holland American Legion Post #20 Home Dedication Cookbook, 1950
• Headline from The Minden Herald February 17, 1939, page 1.

Article by: Pam Carlisle