With the real estate business booming, Don Spiers won the bid in late 1973 to become the Washington Parish HUD (Department of Housing and Urban Development) Area Manager, managing HUD owned and foreclosed properties. Don Spiers Realty, Inc., expanded its operations and office, moving from 344 First Avenue to 314 Austin Street. Not only did Don deftly manage and sell around 70 HUD foreclosed properties from 1974 to 1978, but also he constructed (contractors were either father and son Elvin and Jimmy Jenkins or Alcous Davis) several new homes each year. They sold like hotcakes. Industrious as ever, Don went into a joint venture with Jenkins Building Supply and owner Jimmy Jenkins, constructing in excess of 100 FHA homes over a fourteen-year period.
And having been promoted to Bogalusa Fire Department Captain in 1968, at the helm of one of Bogalusa's three fire stations, Don stayed busy as a beaver until November 6, 1976, when after twenty-five years of service, he retired from the Bogalusa Fire Department. But as I gleaned from his autobiography "The Boy from Bogalusa," his work wasn't nearly done.
The section of Don Spiers's autobiography "The Boy from Bogalusa" on banking spoke to me. I was hired straight out of law school by Liskow & Lewis to renegotiate and foreclose bad loans, eliminating them from bank books, after the oil bust in the 1980s. A sad time in South Louisiana. The situation was similarly dire a decade earlier here at home. Tapped by Washington Bank & Trust Company major stockholder Gardner Adams to serve on the Board of Directors, Don Spiers was sworn in as a Washington Bank Director in January of 1977. With the bank in trouble, losses were charged off, and the bank was seamlessly turned around by the Board of Directors, who together with the new Bank President Roy Richard, bought the bank. They had the support of both management and employees.
By 1982 Washington Bank & Trust was profitable and healthy and top-rated by federal regulators. Some years later, sagacious Don served on the committee entrusted with merging or selling the bank. Willie "Cook" Byrd, Executive Vice President and Don's friend, also played a key role in the research. The merger with Hancock Holding Company closed on February 1, 1995, resulting in even greater stability and growth for Washington Bank & Trust.
In addition to a banker and builder and realtor, Don was a deal maker. As just one example, he and a group of investors bought the railroad line, running seventy-seven miles from Rio, Louisiana to Fernwood, Mississippi around 1980. Parlaying their initial investment into a profit, many times over, they enjoyed the journey - I think, primarily due to the excitement of the railroad. Not only did they sell off the steel and 315,000 crossties, but they divvied up 2,000 acres of land, largely to adjacent land owners. And the partnership LaMiss, Inc., donated a 17-acre section on the Fairgrounds to the Washington Parish Fair Association. I would be remiss if I did not mention a few of the locals who were part of the partnership - Hershel Kennedy, lawyer Don Fendlason, and Alcous Stewart. Digressing, the owner of C. A. Stewart's Dairy, Bogalusa Community Medical Center board member, and decorated World War II hero, Alcous was a prominent businessman and dear friend of my father's. And his wife Ms. Sara was my Delta Delta Delta sister.
Back to Don Spiers, his 1940s dream of becoming the Captain - from his glory days in football - was achieved, off the field and outside the fire station, in 1981. It was then that JCPenney manager Jack Wempe, who conceived the idea of Carnival in Bogalusa, turned over the reins and the Captain's scepter to Don who was instrumental in organizing the Magic City Carnival Association (Krewe of MCCA). First parading in Bogalusa in 1981, MCCA has become more than a 38-float parade - it is an entire season of elaborate Carnival. And Don has been celebrated as Captain for forty years.
With felicity, Don resides with beautiful wife Georgia at the handsome abode they built in 1977 on Gaylord Drive and at their pretty place in Covington. The parents of Donna Susan Strain (son-in-law George) and Don Arnold Spiers (daughter-in-law Sandy), they have four grandchildren: Dr. Matthew "Matt" Strain, Leah Strain Bennett, Lindsay Spiers Harkey, and Donald "Don" Spiers. In addition, they have five precious great-grandchildren.
A man of mettle, Don has enjoyed an illustrious life in the town where he grew up, pulling himself up by his own bootstraps. Certainly, there have been ups and downs. That's the nature of life, and real estate. But through his life's work, Don Spiers helped build Bogalusa and the surrounding area. And in the process, he built a reputation, both professional and personal, that is good as gold. Don's immense success derived from a steady diet of perseverance and hard work. We're back to my favorite old adage, "The harder I work, the luckier I get." I cannot conclude this series of columns without mentioning the serious luck the Spiers had in the summer of 1982. An indelible memory.
It was a chilling story my father told in July of 1982 at the supper table to my mother, who refused to fly both before and after, and me. Don and Georgia Spiers were holding tickets for what became the fatal Pan Am Flight 759 on Friday afternoon, July 9, 1982. No one in South Louisiana will ever forget the tragedy; all 145 people on board were killed, together with eight fatalities on the ground. Making their traditional trip with close friends -Terry and Mildred Simmons and Jimmy and Karen Jenkins - to celebrate their wedding anniversaries, they were scheduled to travel on July 9. But Mildred's brother Lester Pierce, who had wanted to join them on the jaunt to Vegas but who could only journey on July 9, backed out due to the beagles he was breeding. So, the three couples sagely decided to switch to their original date, one week later; Don called the travel agent who rescheduled them for July 16.
His traditional toast, "Here's to the beagles!" I'll add, "Here's to the Captain!"
