Paul N. Cyr

Paul Narcisse Cyr (September 9, 1878 – August 24, 1946), nicknamed the "Wild Bull of Jeanerette", was an American politician, dentist, banker, and geologist, who served as the lieutenant governor of Louisiana from 1928 to 1931, unsuccessfully declared himself the governor of Louisiana, and was first an ally, then an opponent of Governor Huey Long.

Career Cyr was a dentist, serving as president of both the Louisiana Dental Society and the Louisiana Dental Examining Board.

Cyr declared himself Acting Governor whenever Long was out of the state. Long was elected to the United States Senate in 1930, but when Senator Joseph Ransdell's term ended in March 1931, he refused to resign as Governor and take up his seat to avoid Cyr being appointed as his successor. Nevertheless, Cyr had himself sworn in as Governor by the clerk of Caddo Parish court in Shreveport on 14 October 1931. His term ended almost immediately: Long promptly sent in the National Guard to the Governor's mansion and the state Capitol and drove armed with a pistol from New Orleans to Baton Rouge to oversee the operation. Cyr failed to order Adjutant General Ray Fleming to stand down the National Guard and was threatened with arrest if he entered the state Capitol. Cyr sued, but the suit was dismissed in November and Long had sympathetic judges remove Cyr from both the governorship and as Lieutenant Governor, arguing that Cyr had vacated the latter post when he swore himself in as Governor: "He is no longer Lieutenant Governor, and he is now nothing". Long instead appointed state senate president Alvin O. King as Lieutenant Governor and hence his successor as Governor. Another attempt by Cyr to declare himself Governor at the Heidelberg Hotel in Baton Rouge in January 1932 also failed when he was evicted at Long's behest, and Cyr backed out of standing for Governor in the 1932 election in favor of Dudley LeBlanc, retiring from politics and returning to dentistry. Louie McGowen (born 1913), and Charles McGowen (born 1915).