Biographies: Horace Edward Crawford, 1977, Winn Parish, La.
Submitted by Greggory E. Davies, 120 Ted Price Lane, Winnfield, LA 71483
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From: January 26, 1977 Winn Parish Enterprise News-American

Neighbors

His father was a county agent before him.

And Horace Edward Crawford himself was a county agent for 20 years in Winn
Parish before his retirement in 1955.

"My dad was drafted into being what they called a practical county agent.  He
didn't go to college, but he knew how to get along with people," Crawford
said.

"He started out in a horse and buggy and a lot of times I'd go with him.  My
dad sure had a way of talking.  The farmers might start out talking about how
bad times and dry weather, but they'd be smiling when he left."

Crawford got his start with his father raising crops and living in "the last
house at the end of the road" in the Aimwell Community of Catahoula Parish.

Young Crawford got his B. S. in agriculture from LSU in 1926 and finished
his M. S. seven years later.  After he got his first degree, he got a job as a
vocational agriculture teacher in Vermillion Parish in the rice growing area.

"After about four years, I got tired of it.  Folks are a little different down
there," he said.

He next taught at Logansport where after two years, he got "consolidated out
of a job."  Following the next four years at Montgomery, he was offered the
job of county agent in Winn Parish.

"It used to be that every ag teacher's main idea was to become a county
agent."

He started to work July 1, 1935.  Later at a meeting in Sikes, he saw a young
teacher.

"I thought she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen."

They were married August 15, 1938.  Mrs. Corrine Crawford went back to  
teaching a few years later and retired in May of 1975 from Westside 
Elementary, where she taught third grade.

The Crawfords bought their 457 acre farm in the early 1940s from Earl Long.

"It was the largest level piece of land in Winn Parish."

"I was afraid to Jew him down," Craword said.  I guess if he'd said $25,000
I'd have paid that."

He paid Long the money in cash, at the Winn Parish Courthouse.  Then he and
his family moved to the farm.

"We had to clear the brush off the pastures and the campaign literature out of
everywhere else," Crawford said.

He got into the dairy business, all the time building up a herd of beef
cattle.

His son Ed has taken over much of the care of the Angus herd today. But H. E.
Crawford still helps with the feeding and drives the tractor in the
summertime.

Ed Crawford and his wife Linda have built a house just across the pature from
the elder Crawfords.  They have one child, Carolee, 2 «. 

The Crawford's daughter, Mrs. Clyde (Beth) Swanson, is a third grade teacher
in Houma.  The Swansons have a son, Mark, 13.

H. E. Crawford will be 78 on February 13.  He'd done a pretty fair job of
making his son into a farmer.

On January 22, Ed Crawford was named the Outstanding Young Farmer of Winn
Parish by the Jaycees.