Early Years and Family
Rayburn (no relation to Speaker Sam Rayburn of the United States House of Representatives) was born to Thomas Jefferson Rayburn and the former Grace Rawls, a farming couple in Sumrall in Lamar County in southwestern Mississippi. He graduated from Sumrall High School. Therefter, the family moved to nearby Bogalusa, where Rayburn completed the Sullivan Vocational Technical School, or "trade school", for which he later helped to secure a new campus, which opened in 1971. The parents separated, and Rayburn came to Bogalusa with his mother, but the father arrived thereafter. Despite his limited formal education, in 1959, Rayburn was awarded an honorary doctorate from Loyola University of New Orleans in recognition of his knowledge and understanding of state government.
Rayburn married the former Hazel Blanchard (October 27, 1918 – October 15, 2001), and the couple had three children: Tommie Jean Rayburn, Betty Ann Rayburn Bedwell, and B.B. "Benny" Rayburn Jr. (1944–2006), the sheriff of Washington Parish 1982–1992. Rayburn said that he could not adjust after Hazel's death: "I can't even find my socks in the morning when I get dressed," he said in an interview with the Bogalusa Daily News. He admitted that Mrs. Rayburn did not like politics too much, but she was always helpful in taking messages and being there for him.
Rayburn earned his livelihood as a pipefitter, having been employed for thirty years at Crown Zellerbach, a paper mill, but in time he became a prosperous horse rancher and farmer. In 1944, he was elected to a single term on the Washington Parish Police Jury (equivalent to county commission in most other states). At twenty-eight, Rayburn was then the youngest police juror in the state. At the Louisiana Police Jury Convention he first met Earl Long, who shared Rayburn's interest in politics and livestock, particularly hogs and cattle.
Three theories have been advanced to how Rayburn acquired his popular sobriquet, "Sixty": (1) he sat in Seat 60 in a rural Mississippi school, (2) he never scored much beyond 60 percent on a school examination, or more likely (3) he was Number 60 on the ballot in his first race for office. Perhaps fittingly, Louisiana State Highway 60 (LA 60) lies through the southwest of Rayburn's hometown, Bogalusa.
Read more about this topic: Sixty Rayburn
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