Dewey Lee Fletcher, Jr.

Dewey Lee Fletcher Jr.
Mulhearn Funeral Home
Sterlington Road, Monroe
Dewey Lee Fletcher Jr. of Monroe died Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2009, at St. Francis Medical Center in Monroe. He was 43.

Under the direction of Mulhearn Funeral Home in Monroe, services for Fletcher will be held Monday, Oct. 5, beginning at 2 p.m. at First Church of God in Oak Grove. Burial will be at Oak Grove Cemetery. The Rev. Mark Foster will conduct services. Foster will be assisted by the Rev. Paul Ninemire and the Rev. Dennis Anger.

Visitation will be held from 4 p.m.-7p.m. Sunday, Oct. 4, at Mulhearn Funeral Home on Highway 165 in Monroe.
Visitation also will be held from noon until the time of services on Monday, Oct. 5, at First Church of God in Oak Grove.

Fletcher was preceded in death by his father, Dewey Lee Fletcher Sr., and his grandfather, Dayton Brown.

Fletcher is survived by his grandmother, Pat Brown, West Monroe; his mother, Patricia Fletcher Irby, Monroe; two sisters, Nicki Hall, Tyler, Texas, and Ashley Simmons, Jackson, Miss.; and two nephews. Fletcher also is survived by numerous cousins, including Michael Manning, Rodney Manning, the Honorable Wendell Manning, Frank Earnest, Marty Earnest, Sam Earnest and Walter Earnest. Fletcher is survived as well by life-long friends Mike and Shirley Brown, Oak Grove.

Pallbearers will be the Honorable Dr. John Cooksey, James Davison, Roy Fletcher, Sam Hanna Jr., Dr. Guthrie Jarrell, Doug Mangum and the Honorable Wendell Manning.

Honorary pallbearers will be the Honorable Rodney Alexander, Ron Alexander, the Honorable Dr. John Fleming, Campbell Kaufman, Todd Perry, the Honorable Neil Riser, Joe Tannehill, the Honorable Mike Walsworth and Fletcher’s Sigma Nu fraternity brothers at La. Tech University.

Diagnosed with cancer in late February, Fletcher spent the past six-plus months undergoing treatment at M.D. Anderson Medical Center in Houston as well as at medical facilities in Ruston and Monroe, including St. Francis.

When he was diagnosed, Fletcher was serving as chief of staff for 4th District Congressman Dr. John Fleming, a Republican from Minden. Fleming named Fletcher his chief of staff not long after Fletcher, a staunch Republican like Fleming, orchestrated Fleming's election to the U.S. House of Representatives in the fall of 2008.

When Fleming tapped Fletcher to manage his congressional campaign last year, Fletcher was operating his advertising/public relations firm, The Fletcher Group, in Monroe. Fletcher also owned a Web site development company, Web Completors. He operated his own radio station, Fox 92.7, too, which aired Fletcher’s popular morning talk show program, Town Hall with Lee Fletcher.

Founded in 2003, The Fletcher Group focused strictly on developing advertising campaigns for private businesses in its early years of operation. Fletcher’s love for politics, though, as well as his natural instincts in working in the political arena, prompted him to begin handling political campaigns as a campaign/media consultant beginning in earnest in 2006.

In 2007, Fletcher served as a consultant for a host of successful legislative campaigns in Louisiana, including Rep. Bubba Chaney’s, Sen. Neil Riser’s and Sen. Mike Walsworth’s. Fletcher also was Gov. Bobby Jindal’s primary consultant for northeastern Louisiana in the gubernatorial campaign that year.

Though Fletcher was a self-described “Ronald Reagan Republican,” he reached across party lines to help a Democrat if he felt the Democrat was the best candidate in a race. Monroe Mayor Jamie Mayo was one of those Democrats who turned to Fletcher for help when Mayo sought re-election last year. Mayo confided in a friend that hiring Fletcher made the difference between winning and losing.

James Davison, a successful businessman from Ruston, first met Fletcher when Fletcher was a student at La. Tech in the 1980s. On more than one occasion, Fletcher described Davison as “the finest man I know.” Davison reciprocated.

In 2002, Fletcher outdistanced two prominent Republicans — former Congressman Clyde Holloway and then-state Sen. Robert Barham — to earn a spot in the run-off election in the 5th District congressional race. Fletcher met then-state Rep. Rodney Alexander, a Democrat at the time, in the December 2002 general election.

Though Fletcher campaigned tirelessly for more than a year for the 5th District seat, he lost the race by less than 1,000 votes. Sensing the conservative nature of the 5th District while the prospect of Fletcher making another run for the post was highly probable, Alexander switched to the Republican Party in 2004. In time, Alexander hired Fletcher to handle some campaign-related matters.

Fletcher’s familiarity with the 5th Congressional District dated to 1996, for it was in 1996 that Fletcher, 30 years old at the time, managed Dr. John Cooksey’s campaign for the post. Making his first campaign for elective office, Cooksey easily outpolled a host of candidates in the primary election that year before meeting then-state Rep. Francis Thompson in the general election. Cooksey, a Republican, defeated Thompson, a veteran Democratic state lawmaker, with 56 percent of the vote.

It was during that 1996 congressional campaign that Fletcher became associated with Roy Fletcher, though they were not related.

Groomed and trained by Gus Weil, a famous Louisiana political operative, Roy Fletcher served as Cooksey’s media consultant in the ’96 campaign. Roy Fletcher also served as Lee Fletcher’s media consultant in 2002 5th District congressional race.

When Cooksey took his seat in the U.S. House in January 1997, Lee Fletcher joined him as his chief of staff. Fletcher maintained that position until resigning to piece together his own race for Congress in 2002, which was made possible, in part, because Cooksey vowed to serve no more than three terms in the House.

Born in Monroe at E.A. Conway Hospital on April 29, 1966, Fletcher was raised in Oak Grove by his grandparents, the late Dayton Brown and his wife, Pat Brown, who was with Fletcher when he died.

Fletcher often spoke glowingly of his grandparents, who raised him at their property, 9B Ranch. Fletcher credited them, too, for raising him in a manner that allowed him to succeed in life.

A 1984 graduate of Oak Grove High School where he was influenced by one of his mentors, the late Manuel Welch, Fletcher attended La. Tech on an academic scholarship where he earned a degree in agriculture education in 1989. While at La. Tech, which Fletcher loved dearly, he was elected Student Government Association president. He held that post in 1988. Fletcher also held a masters in business administration, which he earned at LSU in 2000.

Ironically, when Fletcher died the television set in his hospital room at St. Francis was tuned to the La. Tech-Hawaii football game, which was televised nationally by ESPN 2. At the time of Fletcher’s death, La. Tech was leading, 24-6.

It was at La. Tech when Fletcher was a student and a member of Sigma Nu fraternity that he met Congressman Jim McCrery. Obviously impressed with Fletcher, McCrery recommended him for a position in President George H.W. Bush’s administration.

Immediately following his graduation from La. Tech in August 1989, Fletcher went to work in the Bush administration at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. When Bush lost his re-election campaign to then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton in 1992, Fletcher lost his job in the administration and went to work for McCrery.

McCrery eventually assigned Fletcher to serve as district director for McCrery’s congressional office in Monroe. In the early 1990s, much of northeastern Louisiana, including Monroe, was part of the 4th District of Louisiana in the U.S. House of Representatives.

It was while he lived in Monroe working for McCrery that Fletcher and Cooksey became friends and made plans to get involved in politics in their own right.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to La. Tech University.

Online Registry/Condolences: www.mulhearnfuneralhome.com