Roemer’s roots deep-seeded in Bossier farming

BOSSIER PARISH, La. (KSLA) — Just a couple miles south of the city limits of Bossier City along US Highway 71 sits the former childhood home of Charles “Buddy” Roemer III.

“I think I’m the only cotton farmer in Bossier Parish now,” remarked Drew Lefler, a nephew of the former governor who know lives in the same home on the old Scopena Plantation farm.

“We wouldn’t trade living here for anything,” said Lefler, who lives in the home with his wife and two children.

The Roemer family bought the Scopena farm and its hundreds and hundreds farmland from the Scopena family back in the 1930s.

While other siblings went on to become doctors, bankers and attorneys, Lefler says he stuck with the family’s original mode of revenue, farming.

“As long as I can make a little bit of money, I’ll continue to grow cotton,” added Lefler.

He says through the years, Roemer made numerous trips back to the Scopena farm for visits and would also share advice on keeping the family’s farming history intact.

“He would tell me to take 50 acres for irrigation this year, then another 50 the next year,” Lefler recalled.

“Don’t do it all at one time or you’ll go broke,” he said Roemer told him on one occasion.

It’s kind of ironic that Lefler now lives in the home where his Uncle Buddy was raised until he graduated from Bossier High School as the senior class valedictorian in 1960.

“I was lucky enough to go to LSU and go live there at the Governor’s Mansion. He invited me,” Lefler shared, adding that he would babysit Uncle Buddy’s children from time to time as a way “to pay rent.”

He says he feels proud that he’s been able to carry on the tradition of farming that his great-grandfather and great-grandmother started so many decades ago.

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