Ronald James Gomez, Sr. , known as Ron Gomez (born October 18, 1934), is a journalist, author, and print and broadcast entrepreneur from Lafayette, Louisiana, who served in the Louisiana House of Representatives for District 44 in Lafayette Parish, from 1980 to 1989. From 1990-1992, he was the secretary of natural resources in the cabinet of Governor Buddy Roemer. In 1992, Gomez, as a Democrat, launched a powerful but failed campaign for the mayor of Lafayette. He runs every time as a candidate for "good government reform" without emphasizing party affiliation.
Video Ron Gomez
Early years and education
The grandfather of Gomez's father was Antoine "Neat" Gomez, who was of French and Spanish descent and spoke both languages ​​from birth. He married a French woman named Marie Griffon, Gomez's grandmother. Gomez's third novel. titled Neat , based on the life of his grandfather, who lived to the age of 101 years. Gomez's grandfather was John Alleman, fully French, and married to a French woman by the name of Lambert. He died when Gomez's mother was only twelve years old. Gomez's legacy is at least three quarters of France. Gomez was born and raised in Baton Rouge to Laurence Fletcher Gomez (1897-1964) and former Anastasie Marie Alleman (1896-1983), originally from Donaldsonville, parish chair of Ascension. Gomez senior who served in World War I in the United States Army infantry in France. Laurence Gomez has nine brothers and only speaks French until she enters school. Similarly, Anastasie Gomez and six of his siblings grew up speaking only French. Originally a farming couple, Gomez moved to Baton Rouge in 1920 and raised five children. Laurence Gomez first worked for the Standard Petroleum Company refinery in Baton Rouge but before the Great Depression gained a position as a rural mail deliverer from the United States Post Office in Baton Rouge. Ron Gomez said that his father could become unemployed during the depression when he did not find a low post position but his position was stable. Ron Gomez was born home at 1800 blocks Highland Road in Baton Rouge, the last baby brought by doctor Ny. Gomez at home; after that, the doctor handles all the delivery at the hospital. In 1940, the family moved into a house on Ferndale Avenue in a subdivision of University Gardens near the campus of Louisiana State University.
When Huey Pierce Long, Jr., was murdered in September 1935, Gomez was less than a year old. Her mother put her in a stroller and went to the New Louisiana State Capitol building to line up as the residents inched in to pay their respects. Gomez said that his mother is not necessarily a long-time supporter but wants to participate in such a historic event. It was Long who had directed the skyscraper building in only fifteen months from 1930-1931.
As a boy growing up in Baton Rouge, Gomez said he felt a kinship with the House of Representatives because of the physical, political, and cultural dominance of the city. He played in the city center during the 1940s, spending time in parks and theaters, while his mother worked as a tailor in a department store. Two brothers, Griffin (1923-2009) and Hewitt Gomez, and two sisters, Dorothy Frazee and Elaine Cortelloni, had grown up at the time; both sisters serve in World War II.
Gomez graduated in 1952 from Baton Rouge High School and followed Louisiana State University (LSU) for a year before enrolling in the United States Air Force. After that, he signed up for a semester at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette.
Maps Ron Gomez
Journalist and civil leader
After several years of broadcasting play-by-play high school soccer, Gomez was selected as the 'color' broadcaster for JC Politz, when he broadcasted the LSU game in 1958. He later became radio voice from UL Lafayette (then University of Louisiana) soccer team and Ragin 'Cajun basketball from 1961-1979. Cajun's soccer team played at the Grantland Rice Bowl in 1973, and the game was broadcast on television but seemed to reach a smaller audience than Gomez's audio coverage of regular games. In 1978, Gomez was president of Lafayette Chamber of Commerce, from which position he laid the groundwork for the construction of the popular Cajundome sports complex. Gomez's representative worked to raise funds for the stadium in David C. Treen's administration, but was not opened and ordained until November 10, 1985, when Edwin Washington Edwards had returned to the governor.
Gomez appeared on Lafayette's KATC-TV from 1963-1965 at a morning show called "AIM", with Bob Hamm, Frank Hosea, and John Plauche. He also continued with the play-by-play radio and hosted the weekly coaching program until 1977, with the help of coach Russ Faulkinberry and Augie Tammariello. In the spring of 1965, Gomez became manager of KPEL radio station, with 10 percent ownership of the company.
In his 2000 autobiography, My Name Is Ron And I'm a Recovering Legislator , Gomez remembers how his initial interest in communication began to bear fruit:
"My initial ambition was to be a radio announcer, in particular, a play-by-play sports announcer.I was fortunate enough to fulfill that ambition at an early age.In [I am fifty-seven years old] in the broadcast industry, I work in almost every position , commercial broadcaster, disc jockey, copywriter, news and sports reporter, sales representative, manager, and finally, owner of three South Louisiana radio stations "KPEL and KTDY in Lafayette and KTQQ in Sulfur near Lake Charles. In 1979, Gomez was named "Louisiana Broadcaster of the Year." He sold the station in 1988.
In 2008, Gomez became the operating partner and publisher of the free, weekly, conservative newspaper, The Acadiana Gazette, which was distributed mainly in Broussard, Youngsville, and Lafayette south. In 2010, the paper was expanded to Scott. In addition to his memoirs and his neat novel Gomez has published two other books, Pelican Games, a novel based on the Louisiana governor's campaign, and Slam Dunked, based on the behind-the-scenes story of the USL basket suspension by the NCAA in 1973.
Legislator Lafayette
The open seat in District 44 was developed when Representative Allen Bares ran successfully that year to the seat of the state Senate vacated by failed governor candidate Edgar G. "Sonny" Mouton, Jr. from Lafayette. In the 1979 election, Gomez defeated a Republican woman, Mary Regan, wife of a prominent psychiatrist in Lafayette. He had been a voluntary nurse in the state Capitol and had developed an interest in politics through that experience. Gomez leads in a nonpartisan quilt primer with 42 percent of the vote, and Regan trailed 20 percent. Gomez remembers that Regan has a "very sweet attitude, and I really can not wait to have to debate him" throughout the second election. Gomez eventually beat Regan, 76-24 percent. He won again in 1983 with 82 percent of the vote against a Democratic opponent with the first name Cleophile "Bobby" Babineaux, which brings support from organized laborers.
Despite being a Democrat in the legislature, Gomez opposes most of the populist and liberal acts driven by his party. He works closely with fellow Lafayette representatives, Michael F. Thompson, a Democrat who transformed into a Republican who in 1987 in a bitter campaign by Independent, Odon Bacquà ©  ©, an insurance businessman Lafayette.
Gomez worked in 1986 to lift Louisiana's blue law, among the closing requirements of the last Sunday in the country. Gomez decided that retailers along the Louisiana border operate at a loss as neighboring countries have already ended their restrictions on Sunday spending. After a debate centered on business and religious issues, the legislature ended the blue law, effective December 1, 1986. Gomez commented: "As I drove through the big shopping centers and malls now on Sunday and saw their parking spaces filled with buyers' vehicles, it it is hard to believe that it can not be seen in Louisiana more than twenty years ago. Gomez also gained part of the regional banking bill despite being opposed by the then US Representative Buddy Roemer, a former banker.
Gomez failed in an attempt to obtain a lawsuit reform. The House Committee on Private Law consists mainly of plaintiffs lawyers, and the Louisiana Trial Lawyers' Association mobilizes its members against reform. The Association invited consumer supporter Ralph Nader to appear at the committee hearing and hold a press conference against the Gomez bill. Gomez also noted the lack of grassroots support for his reform proposal: "Most people do not know what we're trying to do, only those who have been sued or business owners who are fighting the free-action law to survive may be in touch." In 1992, Gomez became the executive director of Citizens Against the Claim Lawsuit, an interest group working to educate the public about the abuse of the civil justice system through what Gomez called "decades of liberal legislators, governors, judges and politically powerful little boys a group of lawyers court of the plaintiff. "Some of the reforms Gomez sought was then enacted in the administration of Republican Governor Murphy J." Mike "Foster, Jr.
Relationship with Edwards and Treen Governors
In a 1986 speech before the Louisiana Broadcasters Association, Gomez criticized Edwards Governor Edward J. Steimel, president of the Louisiana Business and Industry Association, and colleague Kevin Reilly of Baton Rouge. In his book Gomez explains:
"Louisiana does not need a governor who threatens to stop if he does not get his way (Edwards says if we do not give him his gambling proposal he will resign.), A business leader (Steimel) who insults the country's educational system is annoying, or a legislator who influential (Reilly) describes the Louisiana people as 'plain dumb.'... I think we need governors to govern, he's an intelligent person We need him to use that intelligence to try to solve problems in a way other than [threatening resignation]... We need to stop blaming and start working towards solutions. as if there were a group of us in the midst of all this trying to calm the rhetoric, trying to tell the governor, 'You can not get the gambling pass, so please use your brilliance to do something else.' "
After the 1986 session, Gomez was listed as the "Most Valuable Player" for the business. Columnist John Maginnis writes: "Gomez... is not a lawyer, but he sponsors a package of responsibility reforms before the overcrowded House of Civil Law Committee, a heresy before the inquisition.He mastered and convincingly argued the matter in the committee - , even though the error was in the lobby, not in sponsorship.Gomez also guides the bills of the interstate banking that will change the face of the banking, once again, in Louisiana. "
Gomez did not support the candidate for governor but attended more than one acceptance for Mouton for governors in 1979. He later revealed that he had voted in 1983 to incumbent Governor Dave Treen Republic, who was convincingly ousted by the return of Democrat Edwin Edwards. At a political meeting in Lafayette where most of the audience went to the microphone to say "I support Edwin Edwards for the governor," Gomez refuses to do so, because it earned Edwards' brother's wrath, Marion Edwards, who had arranged the event.. Raymond's representative "La La" Lalonde of Sunset also refused to support Edwards before the meeting. Like Gomez, Lalonde eventually became a Republican.
Edwards has long been critical of Gomez, having once been called the "good-government-a-bitch" law-maker. and claims that Gomez is "f______ the poor." Gomez said that he had initially been "cajoled by Edwards' rhetoric of the 1983 campaign. I think he's really ready to change.I have become a leader in the class in my freshman under Dave Treen partly through his executive advisory efforts' Sonny 'Mouton and partly because I'm older and thus probably more mature than... the new student legislators.That gives me a sense of being in the center of the action.I believe in my leadership skills and believe that Edwards really wants to use his great power and talent personally to the right of a state ship. [Because] the country's economic woes and its own personal traits, Dave Treen [has not been] an effective governor. "
Other political moves
In 1989, Gomez's student colleague from Lafayette Parish, Odon BacquÃÆ' © stood alone when he tried to refuse a seat for the newly elected representative David Duke, a former figure in the Ku Klux Klan, arguing that Duke was not a legitimate resident in his district.. When the opponent of Duke election, fellow Republican John S. Treen, failed in a court challenge, Duke sat down but without Bacqué's approval. Members of parliament who personally oppose the Duke election say they must submit to their constituents.
As human resources secretary of Governor Roemer from 1990 to 1992, Gomez concentrated most of its efforts on the conservation of the shrunken coastal Louisiana lands, managed through the Coastal Recovery Office. He also headed the Oil Spill Task Force which made a recommendation passed by the legislature in 1991 to reduce the impact of future oil spills.
When his tenure as secretary of natural resources ended, Gomez entered the Lafayette Mayor's competition held on March 10, 1992, along with the presidential preliminary in Louisiana. Former Republican Dud Lastrapes, a former journalist and insurance agent who later became chairman of his party state, did not seek a fourth term. Gomez leads the main field with 12,127 votes (40 percent) and goes into a second race with former Mayor Kenny Bowen, a Democrat-turned Republican, who previously held positions from 1972 to 1980. Bowen is left behind in the first primary with 10,301 (34 percent). Two other candidates also joined, Kathy Ashworth, Democrat, with 7,344 (24 percent) and Republican Emile Vidrine, with 603 votes (2 percent). In the all-democratic general election allowed under the Louisiana primary system and held on 11 April, Bowen defeated Gomez with 166 votes, 14,677 to 14,511. Gomez describes his opponent, Mayor Bowen as "acrimonious" [with] confrontational, self-serving, and cynical mode. "
Personal life
Gomez is divorced from former Purdy Linton, now Purdy Gers of Baton Rouge. In 1975, he married his second and current wife, former Carol Ross, a USL graduate from King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, who assisted him in the current operation of The Acadiana Gazette. Carol Gomez has an advertising agency known as Edge Communications. His clients include the Lafayette Special Surgical Hospital. Gomez has three children living from a previous marriage, Ronald James "Jimmie" Gomez, Jr., from Baton Rouge, Nanette Oliver from Lafayette, and Laurence Hughes Gomez from Austin, Texas. She holds custody of children after the divorce. The third child, Gregory Stephen Gomez, died in 1996 at Austin in an accident at the age of thirty-three. In 2010, Gomez has six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Gomez reminded her mother's warning to him as a guiding light for integrity when he announced for a state representative in 1979: "If you are not careful, you will end up as crooked as all other politicians." Gomez said, "I have never forgotten his warning." The honesty, integrity, and humility of this sacred woman and my father's simple and solid principles were pounded to the five children regularly. "
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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