Former mayor leaves mark on city, history
In his tenure as Bossier mayor, George Dement was able to help facilitate the arrival of the casinos to Bossier City, which in turn, funded many projects around the city including the Arthur Teague Parkway and CenturyLink Center. He credits that as his biggest accomplishment as mayor, along with hiring what he considers the best people for city official positions.
Steve Dement, George’s son, said he was proud of his father’s reputation as an official.
“While my dad was mayor, the city began growing, and it became the safest city in Louisiana really fast,” Steve said.
It was George’s first restaurant, Foot Long Hot Dog, across from The Strand Theatre in Shreveport, where the public started to take notice. George was approached by multiple people encouraging him to run for mayor.
George was elected in 1989 and re-elected for a subsequent three terms until 2005. George said his favorite memory of being mayor was the day he was first elected and was able to come home and tell his wife, Sunshine, that she was the first lady of Bossier City.
“She was the biggest supporter of him being mayor,” Steve said. “If you called the house and he was not home, she could take care of it for you.”
Together, they had four sons and one daughter, and George made a living through restaurant ownership and hotel management.
However, George’s adolescent years were spent living differently.
He was born in 1922 in Princeton and lived most of his youth on a farm with his mother and father, who worked for Gulf Oil in Bellevue.
At age 16, he had not yet graduated high school when he decided to hitchhike to California.
“I had a good mother, a good father and a nice home,” George said. “But I had a friend who hitchhiked to California and came back with ‘Los Angeles’ tattooed on his arm; I thought he was a hero.”
George made it all the way to Arizona by way of foot, car and train, where he met a family who took him in for a few weeks. By then, his father had written him and threatened to come and get him if he did not return home. George hitchhiked his way back to Shreveport but didn’t stay long. He took a friend along the next time he “hoboed,” catching rides in cars and trains south to New Orleans and Gulfport and Picayune, Miss.
Dement returned to Bossier City and took a job as a “soda jerk” at the Barksdale Pharmacy. That was where he met Sunshine Norris, and they began dating soon after. Dement moved to the Hurricane Bar as a bartender at age 19 before joining the Navy.
Dement was given a choice of assigning within the Navy, and he volunteered at the mention of a submarine. He was a cook, responsible for feeding about 60 men on board.
“I had never seen a submarine or known anyone who had seen one,” George said.
“I thought I’d like them.”
He was assigned to the USS Razorback, which left for the Pacific Theater in 1941. The submarine made its way from Portsmouth, N.H., down the Atlantic, to Key West, the Panama Canal and Pearl Harbor, only a couple weeks after the attack on Dec. 7. George said he recalled seeing some of the damaged ships in port during their stay there to refuel and stock up on supplies, ammunition and food.
George’s submarine was in Tokyo Bay for Victory Over Japan Day on Aug. 15, 1945. George said he was close enough to watch the Japanese surrender to Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
“We were all so happy because we knew it meant we were going home,” he said.
When George made it back to U.S. soil in San Diego, he called Sunshine, with whom he had kept in touch during the war, to tell her he was home.
After the Navy, George continued to work as a bartender and attended Centenary College while dating Sunshine. In 1947, they decided to elope and keep their marriage secret to avoid telling her father, who did not approve of him.
“She was a high-class lady,” Dement said. “It was a shame for her to marry a bartender; her father wanted her to marry a rich, educated person, and there I was, a poor bartender.”
The couple headed to Longview, Texas, to take out a marriage license, but had to head to the next town over when they learned Longview announced all the licenses in the newspaper, which would clue in Sunshine’s father. A preacher in Jefferson, Texas, married them in his house.
“The preacher said he had married more than 200 couples, and none of them
had ever been divorced,” Dement said.
“He said he didn’t want me to break the record, and I never did.”
A year later, Sunshine wrote a note to her parents explaining that they were married, and she was moving in with him and left it on the piano. Her father, who was also a detective, did not take long to locate them.
“I’ve been in a war, but I never wanted to run as much as I did when I saw that car coming up the driveway,” George said. “He never did like me, but he was good to us, though,” George said.
Sunshine’s family passed down the farm where George currently lives, which has been in the family since before the Civil War.
Dement said he is enjoying retirement on the family farm, surrounded by family, a prayer garden and church on the property.
“I don’t have anything to do, and I don’t do that until noon,” George said.
– Cheslea Ballard
