Big Hands and a Big Legacy – The Story of Gary Johnson

It is a busy time to be a fan of sports this time of year, with the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and the NFL Super Bowl LX having just passed. Therefore, what better time to look back on one of Bossier Parish’s football legends, one Gary “Big Hands” Johnson.

Gary Johnson was born August 31, 1952, in Shreveport, Louisiana, though he would grow up in Bossier Parish. His iconic nickname, “Big Hands,” has a number of conflicting origins, with one standing out more than the others. According to the December 22, 1983, edition of the Shreveport Journal, Johnson was given the nickname at Bossier City’s Charlotte Mitchell High School after being told by Coach Riley Stewart during gym class to “Keep your big hands off my basketball!” Following desegregation, Johnson finished is high school career at Airline.

After high school, Gary Johnson went to Grambling State University in Grambling, Louisiana, having decided on the school long before any others that tried to recruit him. Johnson is said to have stated during his 1991 Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame induction: “It would not have mattered if 100 schools contacted me, I was going to Grambling.” It was there at Grambling where he would really begin to shine, where he would letter all four years of his college career.

Now, some readers may be asking, which position did Gary Johnson play? The answer: Defensive Tackle (DT). Even in his early years of college football, Eddie Robinson (coach for Grambling State) was making the bold claim that Johnson was the best defensive lineman in college football at the time. For three years straight, he would be selected for the Associated Press Little All-American team, and in his senior year, he would make it to the All-American squad selected for the Newspaper Enterprise Association. All-American teams are a series of annual honors given to the best player in a position, as determined by various news organizations. The “Little” in Little American stands in for the size of the school, not the size of the player. For Johnson, who was attending Grambling State, this was a big honor. In his senior year alone, Johnson earned an impressive 136 tackles and 49 sacks, according to Jerry Byrd’s book “Louisiana Sports Legends.” Gary Johnson didn’t stop there though, as after graduating he would go on to join the National Football League.

In 1975, when Gary Johnson was drafted, it was to the San Diego Chargers in their first round (eighth overall) pick. While his career was comparatively quiet during his first years on the team, 1980 would see him earning the most sacks in the league for that year, at an impressive seventeen-and-a-half, leading the team’s impressive sixty sack record for the year. His time with the Chargers would be a long and storied nine years, but his career did not end with them. The same year he was traded to the San Francisco 49ers (1974), Gary Johnson would win the biggest game in the NFL, the Super Bowl. San Francisco would win Superbowl XIX with a score of 38-16 against the Miami dolphins, and Gary Johnson would get his ring

In 1975, when Gary Johnson was drafted, it was to the San Diego Chargers in their first round (eighth overall) pick. While his career was comparatively quiet during his first years on the team, 1980 would see him earning the most sacks in the league for that year, at an impressive seventeen-and-a-half, leading the team’s impressive sixty sack record for the year. His time with the Chargers would be a long and storied nine years, but his career did not end with them. The same year he was traded to the San Francisco 49ers (1974), Gary Johnson would win the biggest game in the NFL, the Super Bowl. San Francisco would win Superbowl XIX with a score of 38-16 against the Miami dolphins, and Gary Johnson would get his ring.

In 1991, Gary Johnson would be inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, immortalizing his achievements alongside other legends from the state. In a story written for the Louisiana Sports Writers Association (LSWA) in 1991, Johnson reportedly stated that “’Just being there alongside Coach Robinson is a dream come true in itself.’”

Tragically, Gary Johnson would pass away in 2010 in his sleep. He left behind his wife Alice, son Gary II, daughter Morgan, two granddaughters, two sisters, and three brothers. Much of the information from this article comes from a combination of the work of Jerry Byrd, NFL stats recorded by the league, and his obituary.

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: 

• Gary Johnson - The Shreveport Journal - 22 Nov 1972
• Gary Johnson in 1985 - The Daily Advertiser/Associated Press - 20 Jun 1991

Article by: Jonah Daigle 

Bossier Parish’s first Jeanes Supervisor, Carrie Martin

Early 20th-century schools for African American children in the South, especially in rural areas, were in a catch-22 caused by a segregated education system that offered less months in the school term, and less years of schooling: You couldn’t have schools for African American students without African American teachers, and you couldn’t have African American teachers without African American schools, especially high schools. Enter a Quaker woman and philanthropist from Philadelphia named Anna T. Jeanes. In 1907 she created a one-million-dollar endowment named the Negro Rural School Fund, more commonly referred to as “the Jeanes fund,” to develop a cadre of educated and professionally trained African American teachers to staff more and better schools for African American children in the rural South, including secondary schools.

Carrie Washington Martin was a school teacher who became the first Jeanes Teacher (often referred to as Jeanes Supervisor) in Bossier Parish, and only the third in the state of Louisiana, in 1913. She was appointed by the Bossier Parish School Board after teaching for a number of years in the Plain Dealing area of northern Bossier Parish.

Carrie Martin was born in December of 1883 in Spring Ridge, Louisiana, a rural part of southwestern Caddo Parish. Her parents were Anthony and Georgia Jackson Washington. Her father farmed and served as a Methodist preacher; census records note that he was literate. Carrie was 16 years old when she married her first husband, Franklin Roan. The young couple lived a few houses away from her parents in Jackson Parish in 1900. Franklin’s fate is unknown, but in May of 1909 Carrie married James C. Martin in Bossier Parish. Her father owned land in the Hughes Spur community, which is near Plain Dealing. Carrie became a school teacher and her husband farmed. Carrie did not have a college degree, but she received teacher training during summer institutes for black teachers. This was typical of the early Jeanes Teachers.

As Bossier Parish’s first Jeanes Teacher, Carrie Martin was charged with providing or improving education for 4,733 African American “educables” ages six to eighteen, and supervising their teachers in 59 schools spread throughout the parish’s approximately 838 square miles. She would likely have been driving in her own vehicle, without travel compensation, on dirt roads that were, for much of the year, mud pits.

In addition to supervising and training teachers in the African American schools, and improving the literacy rate of less than 50% among the parish’s African American population according to the 1910 census, Carrie Martin was also expected to be a leader in school and community health and nutrition, home life, and beautification. As a Jeanes Teacher, she supervised home demonstration (home economics) work for African-American women, such as teaching food preservation, home management skills, and public health by making home visits and organizing homemaker clubs. She also organized community members to raise money to build more or better schools, including by raising livestock or growing cash crops with proceeds going toward a school fund.

Leo Favrot was the state supervisor for Rural Negro Schools and made several visits to Bossier Parish to inspect the schools and the work of Carrie Martin. She was ill during one of his visits, so he called on the parish’s superintendent of schools, W.A. Fortson, to discuss her work. Mr. Favrot concluded from this trip that there was considerable activity on Carrie Martin’s part, but that the Jeanes program did not have secure standing with the Bossier Parish School Board. Mr. Favrot’s suggestion was to win the board over with the usual strategy used at the time to sway a reluctant white community to the cause of education for African Americans– emphasize the practical, industrial nature of the Jeanes Teacher’s work, especially in agriculture.

In 1919, Bossier was without a Jeanes Teacher. The reason for this gap in Carrie Martin’s term is unknown, but Leo Favrot admonished the school board by saying, “This is to be deplored,” because Carrie Martin’s work had “done a lot of good” promoting the interests of schools in Bossier Parish. He hoped the board would resolve to again have a Jeanes teacher and make an appropriation “sufficiently large” to attract a very capable agent. They must have listened, because Carrie Martin was rehired as a Jeanes Teacher the following year.

Carrie Martin passed away on March 11, 1926 from cervical cancer, after an illness of about six months. In recognition for her significant work expanding and improving the educational opportunities available for African American students, the Bossier Parish School Board named the Plain Dealing all-grades school for African American students “Carrie Martin High School” in 1954. After the de-segregation of Bossier Parish schools (1970), the school closed, and Plain Dealing Elementary School opened in the same building. In 2003, community members pressed for the school board to once again have an existing school named to honor Carrie Martin, and Plain Dealing Elementary was re-named Carrie Martin Elementary. In 2018, the elementary school was moved to the campus of Plain Dealing’s middle and high school due to a declining enrollment, but the elementary wing is still named after Carrie Martin, and her portrait hangs in the hallway.

You can visit the Bossier Parish Libraries YouTube channel to watch a virtual slide show on Carrie Maritn, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig-kWHgY5mw&t=3s or contact us at the History Center if you’d like more information on the parish’s Jeanes Teachers. We are located in the Bossier Central Library Complex at 7204 Hutchison Drive in Bossier City, LA. 2206 Beckett St, Bossier City, LA. Or, go online to our collections database and search for “Catalogs” at http://bossier.pastperfectonline.com/

Please note the new hours for the History Center: M-Fri 9-6. Saturdays we are open by appointment. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org For other local history events, facts, photos, and videos, be sure to follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB, @bplhistorycenter on TikTok, and check out our blog http://bpl-hc.blogspot.com/. Contact us if you’d like to be on our email list to receive our newsletter and History Center event updates.

Images: 

• Carrie Washington Martin: 2003 The Yellow Jacket Carrie Martin High School Reunion Yearbook
• Louisiana Rural School Agent Leo Favrot (caption on photo)
• Jeanes Teacher exhibit at La. State Fair (caption on photo)

Article by: Pam Carlisle

Space Shuttle Columbia Gives Residents Glimpse of the Future

On a frigid Tuesday morning, April 6, 1982, there appeared in the sky over Bossier City a unique object, clad in gleaming white tiles and riding atop a modified 747 jumbo jet. Although not unexpected, its arrival was still a source of wonder and offered a glimpse into the future of space travel.

Columbia, the first vehicle in NASA’s new space shuttle program, was coming to Barksdale Air Force Base. Having recently completed its third orbital mission, it was being carried home to Cape Canaveral in Florida from White Sands, New Mexico, and its “air taxi” needed to refuel. Local newspaper accounts say Barksdale was the logical choice for this task thanks to its long runway and its location approximately halfway between New Mexico and Florida.

Preparations for the shuttle’s arrival began days in advance as a special jet fuel was brought by train for the 747, and Barksdale officials made arrangements for public viewing along the runway. Some schools allowed parents to sign their children out to witness the historic event. An editorial in The Shreveport Times on April 6 perhaps best summed up the importance of the occasion: “Would you like to have seen the Wright brothers’ first aircraft, knowing that it was the forerunner of the awe-inspiring flying machines that have now become routine in the 20th century. The space-age equivalent of such an experience will be available here today.”

This sentiment was not lost on the crowd, estimated to number between 60,000 and 100,000 people, that gathered at Barksdale. Braving cold and windy conditions, they watched with anticipation as the 747 came into view and touched down at about 10:30 a.m. with Columbia riding piggyback. “The spectators were lined up on the runway for hundreds of yards behind the rope barrier,” states a Times article from the following day. “Though the space shuttle was 1,000 feet away, almost everybody had a clear view …” And hopefully that view included an understanding that Columbia represented the nation’s hopes for attaining new goals in space exploration. For the first time, we had a craft that could be reused in our efforts to learn more about the grandeur of the heavens.

While the jumbo jet took on 20,000 gallons of fuel, it also got a change of pilot and copilot for the final leg of the trip to Florida. For two hours, Columbia’s presence graced the runway, as cameras captured on film what an article in the Bossier Press on April 8 described as “another great step in the history that will be written for our grandchildren to look back on.” At 12:30 p.m., the jet took off, carrying the shuttle home where new missions awaited.

On another chilly morning in Bossier City, February 1, 2003, there was very different news of Columbia. Twenty-three years ago this month, the country learned that the shuttle and its crew of seven were gone. Columbia broke apart and disintegrated over Central Louisiana and East Texas returning to Earth from its 28th mission. While investigators sought a cause for the tragedy, Barksdale served as a collection site for the scattered remains of Columbia. The Shreveport Times reported on February 5 that debris was being stored in a hangar on the flight line.

As I watched media coverage, I thought about the shuttle’s visit to Bossier. I thought about how that splendid technical achievement now lay in pieces just yards from where it had been proudly shown to the crowd. And I thought about Shuttle Challenger, remembering where I was in 1986 when I heard the news of its explosion. While researching this article, I learned that Challenger’s commander Dick Scobee was at Barksdale that day in April with Columbia. He was copilot of the 747 during the trip from Bossier City to Florida.

The inquiry ultimately determined that damage to Columbia’s left wing, sustained during launch, led to the disaster. Within a year, President Bush called for the shuttle program to be retired. The last mission was flown in 2011. NASA’s new space program Artemis is underway, with the goal of returning astronauts to the moon, perhaps as soon as 2027. This progress gives us reason to look back and recall with gratitude that moment when we were allowed to witness history.

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 Monday through Friday 9-6, and Saturday by appointment. 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: 

• Headline from The Shreveport Journal, April 7, 1982
• Shuttle Columbia atop the 747 jumbo jet at Barksdale AFB/photo by Jack Barham/The Shreveport Journal

Article by: Kevin Flowers

Black History Month: The Sears Catalog

February is Black History Month. Here’s a story that both celebrates the old-fashioned way of shopping for (or wishing for) items in a printed catalog, and shines a small light on one challenging aspect of everyday life for African Americans in the segregated South. The ability to order items from a catalog, as opposed to relying on the limited inventory of small-town stores, brought convenience and a wider availability of “stuff” to make it into American homes, even rural ones. This success brought changes to American society, changes that were especially important for African Americans.

The first really successful, widely used mail order catalog was Montgomery Ward’s, which issued its first catalog on August 18, 1872. It was printed on one piece of paper and offered 163 different items. About a year later, the Sears and Roebuck catalog successfully jumped in to serve the mail order market, offering watches and some jewelry, but eventually grew to sell almost anything an American home could need, including a kit for the home itself.

Items had been sold by catalog and delivery from the beginnings of the country, but what made mail order available to the masses were new U.S. postal regulations and services, especially Rural Free Delivery. Rural Free Delivery allowed rural Americans, not just big-city dwellers, to have their mail delivered directly to them. Rural Free Delivery was permanently established effective July 1, 1902, and the service arrived in Bossier Parish in 1907. Mail order’s growth was still hindered by a 4-pound weight limit. Anything over four pounds had to be sent through a private delivery service. That restriction changed with the advent of the U.S. Postal Service’s “Parcel Post” in 1913, when mail order’s growth became nearly boundless.

Under the “Jim Crow” laws of the post-Reconstruction South through at least the 1960’s, a trip for African Americans to conduct business anywhere outside of their home was fraught with limitations, humiliations and dangers. Named after a minstrel show character, Jim Crow laws and social rules segregated, marginalized and attempted to intimidate African Americans.

A trip to a store could include being forced to ride in the back of the bus, or stepping off a sidewalk to let white shoppers pass by. The shopping trip could also mean having to enter store by separate entrances, and/or during separate, limited hours. And even though limited transportation and long distances could mean a shopping trip to town took the better part of a day, Black patrons faced not being permitted to use the store’s lunch counter or restrooms.

Moreover, if a Black family was headed by a sharecropper, their landlord was often the owner of the local store, and would only reconcile accounts once the cotton crop came in. This opaque accounting system typically trapped the consumer in a cycle of debt. Sears, however, gave African American customers an alternative way to buy on credit. The mail order business suddenly allowed African Americans to have more access to the consumer goods of the American middle class by allowing them to shop conveniently, anonymously and with a credit system that was not tied to a crop cycle.

Local merchants, of course, resented the business they were losing from mail order customers. One way to combat this loss was to appeal to the “Jim Crow” mindset of white Southerners, and a rumor was spread that Richard Sears was Black. Others said that Alvah Roebuck, the lesser-known business partner of Sears, Roebuck and Company, was Black. This assertion also spread, and in some cases have persisted, among African American communities. Neither is actually true, though the CEO of Sears Julius Rosenwald, a successor of Alvah Roebuck and later Sears himself, was a Jewish man who famously championed the cause of education and “uplift” for African Americans, putting his vast fortune from his success at the helm of Sears behind the effort. His foundation provided seed money and architectural plans for rural schoolhouses across the South in the early to mid-19th century, including close to 20 school buildings in Bossier Parish and over twice as many in Caddo Parish.

Come to the History Center to see some of the historic or reproduction catalogs in our collection, or to see the Black History Month photo display in our main hallway. We are located in the Bossier Central Library Complex at 7204 Hutchison Drive in Bossier City, LA. 2206 Beckett St, Bossier City, LA. Or, go online to our collections database and search for “Catalogs” at http://bossier.pastperfectonline.com/

Please note the new hours for the History Center: M-Fri 9-6. Saturdays we are open by appointment. Our phone number is (318) 746-7717 and our email is history-center@bossierlibrary.org For other local history facts, photos, and videos, be sure to follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB, @bplhistorycenter on TikTok, and check out our blog http://bpl-hc.blogspot.com/.

Images: 

• Alvah Curtis Roebuck. Sears Archives.
• Cartoon in response to the growth of mail-order catalogs business from The St. Helena Echo, Greensburg, Louisiana, Feb. 15, 1907.
• Lindsey Bros. Dealers in General Merchandise in Benton, La. C. 1900, Bossier Parish Libraries History Center Collection.

Article by: Pam Carlisle

A Blast From the Past – Snow Days in Bossier Parish

At the time of my writing of this article, the forecast is predicting several inches of snow this coming Saturday, January 24th. It seems as though every few years there is a bout of snowstorms that bring the region to a halt, and this time looks like it will be no different. As such, this has me thinking about some of the historical snowstorms here in Bossier Parish. 

                                                   

The first example we’ll be looking at today is the December 31, 2000, nicknamed the “Snow Bowl.” Across the river, during the twenty-fifth annual Independence Bowl, Texas A&M and Mississippi State played for the title on a field of white. The snow was so plentiful that plows were needed to tell where the endzone was, and many of the spectators in the stands left at half-time. According to the National Weather Service, much of Bossier Parish received three to six inches of snow during the storm. What shocked the NWS most, however, was not the winter storm itself, but that much of the precipitation was actually snow. Thus came a game for the history books, and Mississippi State took the victory over Texas A&M.

    

Another strong storm struck in mid-January of 1975, blanketing the region with roughly two-and-a-half inches of snow. This may not have been much in the grand scheme of yearly precipitation levels (after all Bossier Parish receives on average 51 inches of rain a year), but it was certainly enough to cover the parish. Parish residents even put the sculpting skills to the test, building sculptures like the dinosaur seen in the photo. This snowfall, however, is nothing compared to one of the greatest amounts of snowfall here in Bossier Parish. Nearly 100 years ago, during late 1929, the greatest amount of snowfall struck the ArkLaTex region, according to the National Weather Service. According to the Bossier Banner-Progress, the snow lasted much of December 21st, accumulating on average twelve inches of snow and as much as fifteen inches in some places. For reference, the February 2021 storm brought similar amounts of snow and sleet, though that was spread over several days’ worth of accumulation. This was the most snow accumulated since December of 1876, where in turn the region was struck with “14 inches on a dead level – some say 16 to 20 inches,” as reported by the Bossier Banner in the January 7, 1877, issue. The 1876 storm is interesting as while the Banner reported its existence, there is no mention in any of the NWS information I was able to get access to. Certainly, the 1929 storm struck the region, but the earlier instance of a foot-and-a-half seems lost to the wider historical audience. 

     

For Bossier Parish, snow might be an uncommon sight, but it is not unknown. Every few years a winter storm will strike the region and bring a new wave of cold and snow. Hopefully this time will be uneventful, giving us just enough for some winter fun.

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: 

Photo of Bossier City (Bossier Press – 16 Jan, 1975)

Photo Outside 2nd Air Force HQ (The Observer – 12 Jan, 1962)

Plain Dealing Street covered in Snow (BPL HC – 1997.062.116)

Plain Dealing Boys Building a Snowman (BPL HC – 1997.062.006)

Dinosaur Snow Sculpture (Bossier Tribune – 16 Jan, 1975)