ALEXANDRIA, La. (AP) - Funeral services have been set for former Alexandria Mayor Edward G. “Ned” Randolph Jr., who died Tuesday. He was 74.
Randolph served five terms, from 1986 to 2006. In recent years, he suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. He died in Grace Home, a hospice care facility in Alexandria.
Funeral services are set for 10 a.m. Saturday in First United Methodist Church in Alexandria. Visitation will run from 8:30 a.m. until time of services Saturday in the church. There is no visitation on Friday.
Burial will be in Greenwood Memorial Park
Randolph served as a state senator from 1976 to 1984 and as a member of the House from 1972 to 1976. He also twice ran unsuccessfully for Congress.
When he became mayor in 1986, The Town Talk reports (https://townta.lk/2cT2IXt) Randolph succeeded John K. Snyder, whose political antics had made Alexandria politics a laughingstock throughout the state and beyond.
Marion Chaney, who served as an Alexandria councilman from 1977 to 1986, said Randolph “came in at a good time. The city was lacking good leadership (from the Snyder administration). He came in and picked up the pieces and did a great job as far as restoring the city to respectability.”
Pineville Mayor Clarence Fields, whose tenure overlapped Randolph’s for about seven years, said, “He brought back to Alexandria a sense of people feeling free to talk about their city because they became proud of their city under his leadership.”
Alexandria Mayor Jacques Roy, who succeeded Randolph in 2006, said Randolph left a remarkable legacy as a mayor and as a person.
He “possessed a genuine love for Alexandria, this community and our region,” Roy said of Randolph. “Studying him and his wonderful legacy, I often think about Ned’s greatest twin virtues of kindness and integrity. Those two virtues he possessed in abundance allowed him political, but more importantly, personal success. He left his imprint everywhere, and he left a legacy of how decency defines great people, how the goodness of this man who wanted to minister to people as a pastor ended up informing the life of a man who ministered to the people as a mayor.”
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