Israel "Bo" Curtis


Israel Benjamin Curtis, known as Israel "Bo" Curtis, was an American educator and funeral home insurance agent who served from 1992 to 2008 in the Louisiana House of Representatives from District 26 in Alexandria, Louisiana.

Background

Curtis graduated from Peabody High School in Alexandria and Grambling State University in Grambling in Lincoln Parish, from which he gained a Bachelor of Science degree. He obtained a master's degree from Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana, and he did further graduate studies at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, the historically black Southern University in Baton Rouge, and Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. After high school, Curtis served in the United States Army during the Korean War and was a long-term member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. For more than two decades after he completed Grambling University, Curtis was a teacher and coach in Rapides Parish. He retired from the classroom to become manager and funeral director of the Winnfield Life Insurance Company of Alexandria. He was a personal bodyguard for Martin Luther King, Jr., when the civil rights activist visited Alexandria.
Dixon formerly resided in Dallas and Duncanville, Texas, and Lake Charles, Louisiana, dates not available. With his wife, Barbara Jean Curtis, Dixon had two children, Andrea Yvette Curtis and Benjamin Frederick Curtis. He was a long-time choir member and deacon of the Nazarene Missionary Baptist Church in Alexandria. He was an active member of the Grambling University Alumni Association.

Political life

In his first election to the Louisiana House in the November 16, 1991 general election Curtis, a Democrat, defeated Republican candidate Robert "Bob" Jordan, 6,810 to 5,901. In his first reelection in 1995, Curtis defeated another Republican, Willard Adrian "Willie" Harp, 5,736 to 2,001. A third candidate held the remaining 9 percent of the ballots cast. Harp had also run for the seat in 1991. In his last election to the legislature on November 15, 2003, Curtis defeated in a runoff contest fellow Democrat, Herbert B. Dixon, 5,512 to 4,892.
In his sixteen years in the state House of Representatives, Curtis focused on constituent service and health care matters. He led the move to build the Rapides Primary Healthcare Center at 1217 Willow Glen River Road in Alexandria.
From 1976 to 1992, Dixon was the District D member of the Rapides Parish School Board. His successor on the school board and in the legislature was his former intra-party rival, Herbert Dixon.
Curtis died in 2012 at the age of seventy-nine and is interred at Alexandria Memorial Gardens.
The Curtis-Coleman Memorial Bridge, still under construction atop the Red River at Alexandria-Pineville, was named in 2014 for Curtis and Lemon "Billy" Coleman, the first black to have served on the Pineville City Council. The bridge was previously named for Governor O. K. Allen.