Graydon K. Kitchens Jr.
| Graydon Kelly Kitchens Jr. | |
|---|---|
| Minden City and Webster Parish Ward I Judge | |
|
In office June 1976 – 1978 |
|
| Preceded by | John W. "Jack" Montgomery (interim) |
| Succeeded by | R. Harmon Drew Sr. |
| Judge of the Louisiana 26th Judicial District Court | |
|
In office 1979–1996 |
|
| Preceded by | Enos C. McClendon Jr. |
| Succeeded by | Ford E. Stinson Jr. |
| Chief Judge of the 26th Judicial District Court | |
|
In office 1988–1995 |
|
| Personal details | |
| Born |
July 19, 1936 Minden, Louisiana, USA |
| Political party | Democrat / later Republican |
| Spouse(s) | Roberta Carroll Kitchens |
| Residence | Minden, Louisiana |
| Alma mater |
Minden High School |
| Occupation | Judge; Attorney |
| Religion | Southern Baptist |
| Military service | |
| Service/branch | United States Army |
| Battles/wars | Peacetime service |
Minden High School
Louisiana State University
Graydon Kelly Kitchens Jr. (born July 19, 1936), is an attorney and a retired city, ward, and state court judge in Minden, Louisiana.
Kitchens' lawyer-father, Graydon Kitchens Sr. (January 28, 1903 – September 12, 1988), was born in Stamps in Lafayette County in southwestern Arkansas, and reared in Trout to the west of Jena in La Salle Parish in North Louisiana. Kitchens Sr. was married to the former Glennie Mae Prothro (1905-1997); the couple is interred at Minden Cemetery.
The father of Graydon Kitchens Sr. was the superintendent of shipping at a sawmill. Kitchens Sr. attended Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, where he was a roommate of Robert F. Kennon of Minden, who in 1952 was elected governor of Louisiana. The two were assigned by alphabetical order to the same dormitory room. After college, Kitchens Sr. taught school for a year in Summerfield in Claiborne Parish. "I loved teaching - had to tear myself away from the classroom when I decided to enter law school," he said in a 1976 interview with his hometown newspaper, the Minden Press-Herald, on the occasion of Kitchens' fifty years as a practicing attorney.
The senior Kitchens graduated from Louisiana State University Law Center in 1926. He then joined his friend Robert Kennon, at the time the mayor of Minden for a two-year term, in the Kennon & Kitchens law practice. From 1930 to 1941, Kennon was the district attorney of the 26th Judicial District, which encompasses Bossier and Webster parishes. Kitchens was Kennon's assistant DA. Like Kennon, Kitchens was a Democrat. He became the acting DA from 1941 to 1942, after Kennon unseated Judge Harmon Caldwell Drew for a seat on the Louisiana Second Circuit Court of Appeal, based in Shreveport. Kitchens was defeated for a full term as DA by Arthur M. Wallace and did not thereafter seek public office. However, the senior Kitchens remained a powerful figure in his adopted community. In 1954, Governor Kennon named him to the Louisiana Tax Commission, a position which he held for twenty-seven months that required considerable commuting from Minden to Baton Rouge. Kennon's successor as governor, Earl Kemp Long, however, convinced the state legislature to remove Kitchens from the panel so that Long could make his own appointment. Three years remained in Kitchens' appointment when he was removed.
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