Before serving 28 years in the Louisiana House of Representatives and running for U.S. Congress, Woody Jenkins had political roots working at The Daily Reveille. Jenkins attended the University from 1965 to 1969. Though journalism students were required to work for The Reveille at the time, Jenkins said he and his wife were exempt from the policy because they were married. “My wife and I were high school sweethearts and got married in between our junior and senior year in the Journalism School,” Jenkins said. “It was amazing that they were that free-thinking to exempt us from working there.” Although he never worked at The Reveille as a reporter or an editor, Jenkins was a columnist from 1965 to 1967 before he was married. “I was the conservative columnist for two years,” Jenkins said. “At that time, we had a liberal columnist, and we duked it out.” Jenkins and opposing columnist Bentley Alexander often debated issues of freedom concerning the Vietnam War. But Jenkins said his persistent debating of conservative values with Alexander had an unusual outcome. “Interestingly, Bentley and I became friends,” Jenkins said. “And he eventually became a conservative.” Former Reveille news editor Everett Powers, who currently lives in Spartanburg, S.C., said he knew Jenkins for years before he worked at The Reveille and enjoyed working with him. “I’d known Woody for years in high school,” Powers said. “Woody was always extraordinarily bright and very professional.” Powers also said Jenkins’ work at The Reveille foreshadowed his future accomplishments in media and politics. “The traits that he showed then as a student were indicative of the kind of life he would lead and the kind of accomplishments he would have,” Powers said. “He was a great guy to work with.” Jenkins’ columns not only had a lasting impression on his co-workers but also on the policies he discussed. In a Nov. 17, 1967, column titled “Louisiana’s Shame,” Jenkins argued against an injunction filed by the State Board of Medical Examiners against two Baton Rouge chiropractors for allegedly “practicing medicine without a license.” Jenkins argued that because chiropractors do not “prescribe drugs or perform surgery,” enforcing a law that says they cannot serve their patients is outdated and “absurd.” Jenkins’ views in his column were eventually written into law while he was serving on the Louisiana Constitutional Convention. “You know, I went on to author the law that legalized chiropractics,” Jenkins said. But working as a columnist was not Jenkins’ only work with newspapers in college. He and his wife Diane founded their own weekly community newspaper in Baton Rouge. “In August of 1966, we started a community newspaper, The North Baton Rouge Journal,” Jenkins said. “At the time, I was the youngest newspaper publisher in the country at age 19.” Although he and his wife were starting the newspaper from scratch, he said it was not difficult to fill the paper with stories. “There was a real community of about 40,000 people with no coverage by The Advocate,” Jenkins said. “There was lots of news.” Jenkins said the state government also ignored the community his newspaper was serving. “At the time, we had no members of the city council in our area,” Jenkins said. He used his paper to urge residents to elect two city council members from the community, Jenkins said. The paper went on to be honored by the Louisiana Press Association for editorial writing. Jenkins’ views in his work as a columnist hold true in his attempt to get elected to Congress. In a Nov. 10, 1967, column titled “Power Perpetuates Itself,” Jenkins criticized then-Gov. John McKeithen’s five-to-one victory over Congressman John R. Rarick was on the basis that McKeithen spent an estimated “$300,000 to $400,000, while the congressman spend an estimated $30,000 to $40,000 during the campaign.” “I think some candidates overspend in an attempt to buy an election,” Jenkins said in an April 21 interview with The Daily Reveille. But Jenkins said he does not plan to over spend. “You have to have enough money to get your message across,” Jenkins said. “But [advertising too much] drowns out any other voice.”
—-Contact Ben Bourgeois at [email protected]