W. K. Brown
William K. Brown was from 1960 to 1972 a Democratic member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from Grant and Rapides parishes in Central Louisiana. His service corresponded with the administrations of Governors Jimmie Davis and John J. McKeithen.
Brown represented only Grant Parish from 1960 to 1968, at which time each Louisiana parish had at least one representative regardless of population. In his first term, he defeated in the 1959 primary election his fellow Democrat, Billy Gene "B. G." Lutes of Colfax, later a district attorney and state court judge. In his final term from 1968 to 1972, however, Brown was paired with colleagues T. C. Brister, R. W. "Buzzy" Graham, and Robert J. Munson, from a combined Grant-Rapides district. Then single-member districts were created in 1972, Brown was succeeded in the House by Richard S. Thompson of Colfax, the seat of Grant Parish.
Brown was the last surviving of twelve children born to Richard Brown, Sr., and the former Irene Rhodes. A native of Grant Parish, he graduated from Dry Prong High School, now Grant High School, in Dry Prong. During World War II, he served in the United States Navy. He was a member of the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. After the war, Brown enrolled at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, from which he received his Bachelor of Science in 1949 and a Master of Education degree in 1956. From 1960 to 1974, he owned W. K. Brown Insurance Agency in Alexandria, the seat of Rapides Parish. From 1974 to 1977, he headed the manpower program of the Rapides Parish Police Jury. Thereafter, from 1977 to 1984, he was a special assistant to the Louisiana Superintendent of Education.
Brown was still residing in Alexandria at the time of his death from Alzheimer's disease at the age of eighty-eight in a hospital there. He was interred with full military honors on July 18, 2011, at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Ball north of Pineville, Louisiana.
