Long Political Dynasty
Gerald Long is the only Long family member holding high office in Louisiana. Most Longites remained in the Democratic Party over the years. Another exception was the late Secretary of State W. Fox McKeithen, who switched parties and won four statewide elections as a Republican. Fox McKeithen's father, the late Governor John McKeithen, was a leading Long figure in the 1960s and 1970s, but the McKeithens were not relatives of the Longs.
Long and his twin brother, Carroll Long, were the last of eight sons born to Rubin Ray Long (1900–1966) and the former Ruby Smith (1906–1984). Ruby Smith's brother, P.K. Smith, later an automobile dealer in Winnfield, was a member of the Louisiana House from Winn Parish from 1960 to 1964. P.K. Smith's son, Mike Smith, served twelve years in the Louisiana State Senate as a Democrat from 1996 to 2008. Term-limited, Mike Smith preceded his cousin, Gerald Long, in the state Senate.
Rubin Long was originally a Winn Parish sharecropper. Long's paternal grandparents were Thomas Jefferson Long (1861–1948) and the former Mary Ella Wright (1864–1902). Gillis William Long (1923–1985), a former U.S. representative from Louisiana's 8th congressional district, since disbanded, was also a paternal grandson of Thomas Jefferson Long and hence Gerald Long's first cousin. An older brother of Gerald Long, Jimmy D. Long (born 1931) served in the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1968 to 2000 as a Democrat from Natchitoches. In that capacity, Jimmy Long became known as a leading legislative authority on education, an area which would also become important in Gerald Long's career as an educator and a motivational speaker. Another brother is Dr. William Jackson "Bill" Long (born 1940), a former planning commission executive in Alexandria, the seat of Rapides Parish, who was the publisher of "The Louisiana Business Journal" and a former weekly newspaper in Pineville known as the Red River Journal. Bill Long ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 1983. Gerald Long was also a distant cousin of former Pineville Mayor Floyd W. Smith, Jr. (1932–2010), whose mother was a Long. Floyd Smith spent his later years near his native Winnfield, the seat of Winn Parish.
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