Marvin Anding

Marvin E. Anding (March 10, 1922 – September 11, 1983), was an American former colonel in the United States Air Force who served from 1977 until his death in office as the mayor of Bossier City in northwestern Louisiana.

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 Ouachita County, 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.

Anding was the retired commander at Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City at the time of his election as mayor on April 2, 1977, when the city adopted the mayor-council form of government to replace the city commission. In the primary election, Anding finished with 26 percent of the vote and was placed in a runoff with fellow Democrat Harold J. Bond (born 1926), the last of the municipal finance commissioners in Bossier City. Republican Fred M. "Freddy" Shewmake (born November 30, 1940), a member of the Bossier Parish Police Jury, placed third with 20.4 percent of the ballots cast. In the second balloting, Anding defeated Bond. In this same election, Chester "Buzz" Wojecki (born February 18, 1948), an insurance agent became the first Republican ever elected to the Bossier City Council, having filled one of the two at-large council seats. In the fall of 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 and 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 was 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 Second Circuit in Shreveport, Anding's dismissal was upheld, and Linton was deemed unfit to be a police officer. The appeals court decision did not come until five months prior to Anding's death.

In January 1978, a devastating tornado struck Bossier City. Mayor Anding and Sheriff Vol Dooley went on a Louisiana National Guard helicopter flight to survey the damage. Then KEEL radio announcer John Lee of Shreveport recalled the "shock and disbelief that Anding and Dooley both exhibited that morning and the absolute heartfelt sympathy that they expressed to those who were most seriously impacted by the storm."

The Bossier City twister left 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. Sixty people were injured. Anding was compelled to order the arrest of looters and imposed 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. Eleven months later, another destructive tornado struck Bossier City after first hitting El Dorado, Arkansas.

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 online.

Anding was married to the former Patricia Janelle Ball (1935–2012), a paralegal secretary for the United States attorney for the Shreveport-based United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana and a resident of Bossier City since 1971. Anding and his wife are interred at Hillcrest Memorial Park in Haughton in southeastern Bossier Parish. Mrs. Anding ran in the special election to choose her husband's successor, but victory went to businessman Donald Edward "Don" Jones, her fellow Democrat.