Dave L. Pearce

Who was Dave L. Pearce?

David L. "Dave" Pearce was a Democrat who served as the Louisiana Commissioner of Agriculture and Forestry from 1952 to 1956 and again from 1960 to 1976. Allied with anti-Long elements in the state, Pearce was unseated in the Democratic primary after a single term in 1956 by the Longite entomologist Sidney McCrory of Ascension Parish. However, Pearce regained the post in 1960 and then lost it again in Louisiana's first-ever nonpartisan blanket primary in 1975 to a fellow Democrat, Gil Dozier. He also failed in a 1979 campaign to regain the office.