Ken Booth

Kenneth Fletcher "Ken" Booth​​ (Louisiana radio and television journalist and White House correspondent)​
Born	July 18, 1943​​ Monroe, Louisiana, USA​​ Reared in Rayville, Richland Parish Spent later years in Yuma, Arizona and Bossier City, Louisiana
Died	December 6, 2019 (aged 76)​ Bossier City, Louisiana ​​
Spouse	Not mentioned in obituary Children: Kim Booth Thornton Kay Booth Lanier Kathy Lee Booth William Kenneth "Fletcher" Booth Parents: ​ W. T. and Hazel Booth​​​

​ Kenneth Fletcher Booth, known as Ken Booth (July 18, 1943 – December 6, 2019), was a Louisiana journalist engaged for a half century in radio and television reporting.

Biography

A native of Monroe, he was one of two children of William T. and Hazel Booth, the other being his sister, the late Barbara Booth Netherland. He grew up in the cotton fields and cattle pastures of Rayville in nearby Richland Parish. He had intended to remain in radio until former Louisiana Governor James Albert Noe, Sr. (1990-1976), then the owner of KNOE-TV, the CBS affiliate in Monroe and the first television station established in North Louisiana in 1953, hired Booth as news director, a post which he filled for twenty-five years. He toured the studio with then general manager Paul Goldman while Noe was in the hospital.

Booth advised journalists to:

Be ready to dig. You're going to spend a lot of dull time going through books and papers and chasing this out of the basement of the courthouse and all that kind of business. That's the way you do it. And when you get through it, then you know you got something. Then you can say, 'Gotcha.'

Booth was recognized for hard hitting investigations involving government fraud and abuse. Later as a White House correspondent, he covered overseas summits and state visits of U.S. Presidents Richard M. Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George Herbert Walker Bush. He later maintained a personal correspondence with Reagan for a number of years prior to 1994.

In retirement, Booth relocated to Yuma, Arizona, at the foot of the Gila Mountains while still keeping everyone informed of current events through Facebook and his storytelling.

Booth died of lung cancer at the age of seventy-six at his last home in Bossier City, Louisiana. Survivors included four children, Kim Booth Thornton, Kay Booth Lanier, Kathy Lee Booth, and William Kenneth Booth, known as Fletcher Booth, eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. A memorial service was held on December 10, 2009, at Mulhearn Funeral Home in Monroe.