Randy Wiggins
| Randy Eugene Wiggins | |
Louisiana State Representative for District 27 (northern Rapides Parish)
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| In office 1996–2000 | |
| Preceded by | Rick L. Farrar |
|---|---|
| Succeeded by | Rick Lamar Farrar |
| Born | February 13, 1951 Louisiana |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse(s) | Kathy Daniels Wiggins |
| Children | Three children |
| Residence | Pineville, Louisiana, Rapides Parish, Louisiana |
| Alma mater | Buckeye High School University of Louisiana at Lafayette |
| Occupation | Insurance agent |
| Religion | Southern Baptist |
Notes:
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Randy Eugene Wiggins (born February 13, 1951)[1] is a State Farm Insurance agent in Alexandria, Louisiana,[2] who is the first Republican since Reconstruction to have been elected from Rapides Parish to the Louisiana House of Representatives.[3]
Political life
Wiggins served only a single term in the Pineville-based District 27 from 1996 to 2000.[3] In 1999, he failed in a race for state senator against Democratic former Senator Joe McPherson, a businessman then of Pineville and later of Woodworth in southern Rapides Parish.[4]
Jock Scott, a professor and attorney, served as a Republican in the Alexandria-based House District 26 from 1985 to 1988, but he was elected in 1983 to his third term as a Democrat.
On October 6, 1995, Wiggins won the District 27 seat when as the only opposing candidate he upset the incumbent Democrat Rick Lamar Farrar (1960-2018) of Pineville, 6,350 votes (51.1 percent) to 6,077 (48.9 percent).[5]
In the House, Wiggins served on the Joint House and Senate Health and Welfare Committee and in 1997 participated in a legislative tour of health-care facilities in Rapides and neighboring Avoyelles Parish, including St. Mary's Training School in Alexandria, Avoyelles Hospital in Marksville, and Bunkie General Hospital in Bunkie]]. Wiggins said that the purpose of the tour was to allow lawmakers a better understanding of health-care issues and budget considerations.[6]
Wiggins ran for the state Senate when B. G. Dyess, an Alexandria Southern Baptist minister and former Rapides Parish registrar of voters, declined to seek a second term, having served only from 1996 to 2000. In the primary held on October 23, 1999, McPherson prevailed, 13,820 (50.4 percent) to Wiggins's 12,393 (45.2 percent), and another 1,212 votes (4.4 percent) for Democrat Jerry M. Guillory.[4]
Wiggins is a contributor to such Republicans as former U.S. Representative Rodney Alexander, former U.S. Senator David Vitter, and the 2002 Republican senatorial nominee, Suzanne Haik Terrell of New Orleans, defeated by the Democratic incumbent Mary Landrieu, who won the second of her three terms.[7] In 1998, he contributed to current Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon in Donelon’s unsuccessful Republican challenge to U.S. Senator John Breaux of Crowley in Acadia Parish.[8]
In 2011, Wiggins failed in a bid to unseat fellow Republican State Representative Chris Hazel of Ball, north of Pineville, who won a second term in the District 27 seat[9] since elected to a state district judgeship.
In 2019, he was again an unsuccessful candidate for state senator in the District 29 race, which encompasses African-American constituents in seven parishes. He lost to the incumbent Jay Luneau, an Alexandra Democratic lawyer. Luneau polled 16,196 votes (61.5 percent) to Wiggins' 10,158 (38.5 percent). Wiggins won only in Grant and Winn parishes and made particularly weak showings in Lincoln, Natchitoches, and Rapides parishes which supplied Luneau's margin of victory.[10] Luneau first won his seat in the 2015 nonpartisan blanket primary over the African-American conservative Republican, Joy Dara, a native of Nigeria.
Personal life
Wiggins is married to the former Kathy Daniels. He graduated in 1969 from Buckeye High School in Deville in eastern Rapides Parish. He subsequently graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, then known as the University of Southwestern Louisiana. He is a Southern Baptist and is affiliated with Kiwanis International in Pineville.[11]
His insurance office, established in 1982, is located at 2146 North Mall Drive near the Alexandria Mall.[2]
References
- ↑ Randy Wiggins. Mylife.com. Retrieved on December 27, 2019.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Randy Wiggins: State Farm Insurance Agent, Alexandria, LA. Statefarm.com. Retrieved on December 27, 2019.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Membership in the Louisiana House of Representatives, 1812-2020. Louisiana House of Representatives. Retrieved on December 27, 2019.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Louisiana Secretary of State, Election Returns, October 23, 1999.
- ↑ Louisiana Secretary of State, Election Returns, October 21, 1995.
- ↑ State Lawmakers to Get First Hand Look at Health Care Programs in Rapides and Avoyelles Parishes. senate.legis.state.la.us (October 28, 1997). Retrieved on December 27, 2019.
- ↑ Randy Wiggins from zip code 71301. watchdog.net. Retrieved on September 19, 2009; no longer on-line.
- ↑ Pineville, LA Political Contributions by Individuals. city-data.com. Retrieved on December 27, 2019.
- ↑ Louisiana Secretary of State, Election Return, October 22, 2011.
- ↑ Louisiana Secretary of State, Election Returns, October 12, 2019.
- ↑ Biographical information taken from enlou.com; website discontinued.
