Marvin Anding

Marvin Ellis Anding (March 10, 1922 - September 11, 1983) was a former colonel in the United States Air Force who served from 1977 until his death in office as the eleventh mayor of Bossier City in northwestern Louisiana.
Background
Anding was the son of Ellis (born 1893) and Lillian Anding (born 1902). He was born in Adams County in western Mississippi but moved as a child to Washington in Hempstead County in southern Arkansas. He served in the United States Army Air Forces and then the Air Force and fought in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. In late 1979, Wojecki served as interim mayor while Anding was recuperating from heart surgery.
Late in 1977, Mayor Anding moved to dismiss patrolman Michael W. Linton (born January 19, 1951), who had joined the Bossier City Police Department in 1973. Linton was deemed popular with his fellow officers, was known for his diligent work, but he was accused of having a problem with his temperament. Anding cited him for striking a man who drove too closely to Linton's police car, using excessive force in an arrest, threatening a man with a magnum revolver, vowing to blow out another man's windshield, and a number of lesser offenses. Linton went before the Bossier City Municipal Fire and Police Civil Service Board to seek reinstatement, but the board deadlocked because of the absence of the fifth member. Ultimately after a court challenge before the 26th Judicial District Court and the Louisiana Court of Appeal for the First Circuit in Shreveport, Anding's dismissal was upheld, and Linton was deemed unfit for the office that he had held. The appeals court decision did not come until five months prior to Anding's death.
In January 1978, a devastating tornado struck Bossier City. Anding and Sheriff Vol Dooley went on a Louisiana National Guard helicopter flight to survey the damage. KEEL radio announcer John Lee of Shreveport recalled the "shock and disbelief that Anding and Dooley both exhibited that morning and the absolute heart-felt sympathy that they expressed to those who were most seriously impacted by the storm."
Eleven months later, another destructive tornado struck Bossier City after first hitting El Dorado, Arkansas. This twister did at least $100 million in damage. Mayor Anding said that only divine intervention could have kept the death toll so low: "He (God) must have been with us. I can't believe we only had two deaths with the miserable, miserable mess we have out there." The Bossier City tornado leveled a nearly vacant motor hotel on the city's east side near Louisiana Downs. It injured sixty persons. Anding was compelled to order the arrest of looters and ordered a curfew from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. The storm leveled homes, schools, trees, and businesses in an eight-mile path two-blocks wide.
On May 22, 1981, Anding, while the president of the Louisiana Municipal Association, appeared on an episode of the PBS television series, Louisiana The State We're In, which can be accessed on-line.
Death
Anding was married to the former Patricia Janelle Ball (1935-2012), who was a paralegal secretary for the United States Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana and a resident of Bossier City since 1971.Upon Anding's death, Frank B. Blackburn (born 1944) served for seven months as interim mayor. In a heated campaign, Mrs. Anding was defeated by fellow Democrat Don Jones in a 1984 special election to succeed her husband as mayor.

The Andings are interred at Hill Crest Memorial Park in Haughton in Bossier Parish.

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