Aubrey W. Young

Aubrey Walsworth Young (May 1, 1922 – April 7, 2010) was a public official in the U.S. state of Louisiana, who between 1965 and 1999 established multiple drug and alcohol treatment programs through the Department of Health and Hospitals. A political activist, Young organized his contacts from Alcoholics Anonymous to support the election of the Democrat John J. McKeithen as governor in the 1963–1964 election cycle.

Young was born in Monroe, the seat of Ouachita Parish, to Cammie Mae Gulledge and William Earl Young, Sr., originally from Start in Richland Parish. He attended the former Gulf Coast Military Academy in Gulfport, Mississippi, east of New Orleans. He was the football quarterback at Gulf Coast under then Coach Carl Maddox, later the athletics director at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and Mississippi State University in Starkville. Young left the military school and graduated instead from Neville High School in Monroe, where he played football and baseball and was the captain of the last boxing team offered there. He was also a cheerleader and a tenor in the Neville glee club. Young first attended the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, then known as the University of Southwestern Louisiana in Lafayette, on a boxing scholarship, but he transferred thereafter to the University of Louisiana at Monroe.

In 1942, he enlisted in the United States Army and joined the 17th Airborne Division, 513th Parachute Regiment. He earned his paratrooper wings after completing training at Fort Benning in Georgia. He fought with his battalion in the European Theatre of World War II and was active in the Battle of the Bulge, the Rhine River Jump in Germany, and the battle of Luxembourg at the Our River. He received the Bronze Star, the Army Good Conduct Medal, American Campaign Medal, the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, the World War II Victory Medal, and the Air Medal. His military service provided lifelong commitments to the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the Disabled American Veterans.

Young returned from war with post-traumatic stress disorder, formerly known as shell shock. He became active in Alcoholics Anonymous groups as he fought his own battle against excessive liquor. He worked for a time for the Missouri Pacific Railroad and Delta Air Lines. After a stint as a deputy under Sheriff Bailey Grant of Ouachita Parish, Young opened a hamburger shop called The Huddle on 18th Street in Monroe. He was also a partner in the Paragon Supper Club in Monroe with his friends, the late Tony and Joe Cascio.

Young's connections through AA caught the attention of John McKeithen, then a member of the Louisiana Public Service Commission, who had entered the crowded race to succeed the term-limited Governor Jimmie Davis. McKeithen won the Democratic nomination in a runoff election over DeLesseps Story Morrison, the former mayor of New Orleans, and then defeated the Republican nominee, Charlton Lyons of Shreveport. As governor, McKeithen promptly named Young a colonel with the Louisiana State Police and as his gubernatorial aide de camp. The appointments required his relocation to Baton Rouge, where Young resided for the remainder of his life.

In 1965, Young was recognized for his work in evacuating Louisiana residents during Hurricane Betsy by the Louisiana State Legislature, which honored him with a concurrent resolution citing his "new and more meaningful concept of public service." Young served as a mentor for newer legislators and as a contact person for state employees seeking liaison with lawmakers. In 1966, Young handled security arrangements for a visit to Baton Rouge by Vice President of the United States Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota, an LSU alumnus.

In 1965, McKeithen asked Young to meet with an African American civil rights figure in Bogalusa also named "Young", A. Z. Young, in an effort to defuse tensions during a march staged by black activists. The demonstrations followed by a few months the better-known Selma to Montgomery marches in Alabama. The procession completed its march with few disruptions, and the two Youngs struck up a longstanding friendship.

In 1967, while seeking a second term as governor against fellow Democrat U.S. Representative John R. Rarick, McKeithen removed Young as his aide de camp. D'Alton Smith of New Orleans, brother of A.D. Smith, an elected member of the Louisiana State Board of Education, was indicted on public bribery charges stemming from reports that Smith had offered Young $25,000 to influence Young's decisions in government. After leaving McKeithen's staff, Young turned state's evidence, and his testimony before a grand jury led to D'Alton Smith's indictment.Life Magazine indicates that when McKeithen threatened to fire Young over the proposed bribery, Young resigned.

Young, heavily involved in labor matters, also arranged the meeting at which Teamsters Union business agent Edward Grady Partin of Baton Rouge was offered, first, $25,000 a year for ten years and, then, $1 million from underworld boss Carlos Marcello to work out a plan to overturn the conviction of union president James Riddle Hoffa, who was in federal prison at the time. Partin's previous testimony had been instrumental in Hoffa's conviction.

Life Magazine reported that Young had made fifty to sixty telephone calls from the governor's office to Carlos Marcello in 1966 and 1967, but East Baton Rouge District Attorney Sargent Pitcher conducted a probe and could not substantiate the magazine's claim. Young admitted to having received two calls from Marcello, one dealing with what became the Louisiana Superdome and another in regard to Dalton Smith's attempt to bribe Partin. Pitcher said that the telephone used was actually that of C. H. "Sammy" Downs, a former state senator from Rapides Parish who was then Governor McKeithen's unpaid administrative assistant. Another source alleges that Young was "tied" to Marcello.

In 1981, Young and four others, including Marcello, New Orleans attorney Vincent A. Mannello, lobbyist I. Irving Davidson, and Charles E. Roemer, II, a former aide to Governor Edwin Washington Edwards and the father of Edwards' second successor, Charles E. "Buddy" Roemer, III, were charged in U.S. District Court in New Orleans with conspiracy, racketeering, and mail and wire fraud in a scheme to bribe state officials to give the five men multi-million dollar insurance contracts. The charges were the result of a Federal Bureau of Investigation probe known as BriLab.U.S. District Judge Morey Sear allowed the admission of secretly-recorded conversations that he said demonstrated corruption at the highest levels of state government. Young was acquitted of all charges.

Roemer was thereafter convicted of one count of conspiracy and imprisoned. He was released in October 1984. Marcello was convicted of conspiracy and then indicted on additional charges involving an alleged attempt to bribe the judge. He was finally released from prison in October 1989. Irving Davidson claimed that federal agents had used threats and offers of immunity to convict Marcello. The Bureau of Prisons does not indicate that Davidson or Mannello ever served time.

After he left McKeithen's staff, Young used his influence in state government in 1968 to establish a statewide program for the treatment and rehabilitation of alcoholics. Funds were appropriated for treatment facilities in Baton Rouge, Hammond, Lafayette, Crowley, Alexandria, Lake Charles, and Monroe. The Office of Alcohol Abuse was created in the Department of Hospitals. He also pushed for the establishment in 1974 of the Tri-Med program in all state general hospitals. Tri-Med provides alcohol and drug abuse detoxification and mental health acute care treatments in state hospitals. He established an alcohol information curriculum for the In-Service Police Training School at LSU. Young also worked to establish AA groups in state prisons.

During this same period, Young joined Victor Bussie of Baton Rouge, president of the Louisiana AFL-CIO, to establish programs in industrial plants and factories for the treatment and referral of alcoholics. He pushed for greater funding for the statewide substance abuse programs. Young was also the driving force behind the Drug Court program in Louisiana. Judge Bob Downing hailed him: "Aubrey, without you, this program would not have gotten off the ground." He remained active in state substance abuse programs as counselor and as the Governor's Coordinator for Substance Abuse through many administrations from McKeithen in 1965 to Murphy J. "Mike" Foster, Jr., in 1999. He also did advertising for Lieutenant Governor Robert "Bobby" Freeman, a Democrat who served from 1980 to 1988.

In 1999, the semi-retired Young began a part-time position in the office of Louisiana Attorney General Richard Ieyoub. Skilled in predicting election winners, Young was often approached by candidates seeking his advice. Though a Democrat, Young claimed to have had good relations with Republicans too. He held meetings with U.S. Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald W. Reagan as well as the first FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. In 2006, he assisted the Republican Jay Dardenne of Baton Rouge in the latter's successful quest for the office of Louisiana Secretary of State in a special election held after the death of W. Fox McKeithen, son of Young's former mentor, John McKeithen.

Young was affiliated with the LSU Athletic Association and various professional organizations dedicated to the prevention of substance abuse. He was a member of the Masonic lodge, the Shriners, and the Jefferson Baptist Church in Baton Rouge.

Young died at his Baton Rouge residence at the age of eighty-seven. He was survived by his wife of thirty-eight years, the former Kathleen Smith of Baton Rouge; three children, William Grant Young (born ca. 1960) of Durham, North Carolina (from a previous marriage), Ashley Young Munnerlyn (ca. 1977) of Baton Rouge, and Charles Anthony Young (born ca. 1979) and wife, Kristen, of Bradenton, Florida; three grandchildren; a sister, Ann Elizabeth Owens and her husband, Bill, of Shreveport, and mother-in-law, Mabel Smith of Baton Rouge. He was preceded in death by his parents and a five-year-old brother, William Earl Young, Jr. Services were held on April 13, 2010, at Jefferson Baptist Church, with pastor Tommy French officiating. Interment was at Greenoaks Memorial Park in Baton Rouge.

Former West Monroe Mayor Bert Hatten, a longtime Young friend, said that Young "knew a lot of people, liked people and many liked him in return and were lifetime friends. His friendship was valued by many politicians through the years, and he worked for probably every governor starting with John McKeithen and ending with Mike Foster." Governor Foster sponsored Young's retirement party, which, according to Hatten, "Aubrey just ate it up because he liked being in the limelight."

During the retirement ceremony in Baton Rouge, Jake Hadley of the Department of Health and Hospitals said that Young's "greatest service was not to politicians in high office but to people with alcohol and drug problems. When Young learned of anyone in need of treatment, he would work tirelessly to get them help. Literally thousands of people across the state owe their recovery, in part, to Aubrey Young, and the people of this state owe him a great debt of gratitude."

Young often cited the Bible verse: "No height, no depth, nor any creature can separate me from the love of God through Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:39).