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Biography
James Peter Kent, Sr., known as J. P. Kent(January 1866 – April 27, 1937), was a newspaper publisher and Democratic politician in his adopted city of Minden in Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana.
Kent biographical sketch
An Alabama native, Kent was from 1894 to 1917 the editor and publisher of the long since defunct Minden Signal-Democrat, a four-page weekly issued in Minden on Fridays. Kent purchased the paper from Thomas Wafer Fuller, a later state senator who then bought it back after Kent entered the Louisiana House of Representatives. During a portion of Kent's tenure with The Signal-Democrat, the publicationwas in competition with T. J. Tabor's former Banner of Liberty newspaper, a four-page weekly released each Thursday.
John Agan, the official Webster Parish historian, described Kent in a 2002 article as almost a "walking conflict of interest" because Kent held public printing contracts for the municipality of Minden, the Webster Parish School Board, and the Webster Parish Police Jury, the parish governing board akin to county commissions in other states. Kent was also at times an elected member of both the Minden City Council and the school board. rom 1916 to 1920, Kent served for one term in the Louisiana House of Representatives during the administration of Governor Ruffin Pleasant. Earlier from 1899 to 1903, he had been the mayor of Minden.
Kent died in 1937 and is interred at Minden Cemetery.