Edgar Cason

Edgar Cason, sometimes known as Ransom Edgar Cason (born February 17, 1952), is a farmer, businessman, and philanthropist from Coushatta in Red River Parish in northwestern Louisiana, where he has resided since 1990. He is particularly known for his donations to Republican political and Southern Baptist church causes, the latter through his Cason Foundation, which he established in 2010.

Background

Cason formerly owned Fairview Trucking and holds at least sixty-eight acres in the heart of the Haynesville Shale, which yields more than $1 million a month for Chesapeake Energy of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.^[1] He owns Cason Timber and Cattle Company in Coushatta.^[2] Cason has previously lived in Alexandria, Pineville, Natchitoches, Provencal, Ruston, Bossier City, Campti, Lecompte, and Haynesville, Louisiana, and Hamburg, Arkansas.^[3]From 1995 to 2012, Cason received payments totaling $1,314,303 in the federal farm subsidy program.^[4]

Baptist causes

The Caskey Divinity School at Baptist-affiliated Louisiana College in Pineville is named for his father-in-law, a pastor from Red River Parish. Cason and his wife, the former Flora Jean Caskey (born July 1955), donated $5.1 million to the divinity school over several years prior to 2013. It was reported that the Cason Foundation was prepared to give upwards of $60 million for the operation of the divinity school, but the Baptist Message, the state denominational newspaper, could not ascertain any public statements on behalf of Edgar Cason stipulating a specific amount that might be forthcoming.^[5]

Then in a dispute with then LC president, Joe W. Aguillard, they withdrew all future funds to the institution. Cason maintained that Aguillard diverted $60,000, including $2,000 for a pair of suits,^[1] from the Caskey Divinity School to an LC missions project in Tanzania, Africa, which Cason had never agreed to underwrite. Cason was particularly disturbed that the LC trustees in March 2013 refused to hear his complaint in the matter. Cason wrote the trustees: "We deeply regret that we must now discontinue [our] support [because of] the actions of President Aguillard which we believe to be unethical and potentially illegal. We disapprove of his use of Caskey funds for LC Tanzania and consider this to be misappropriation."^[6]

A year later, as other controversies mounted, the trustees removed Aguillard as president but allowed him to remain a president emeritus with one year of salary while on leave and the option to return in 2015 as a tenured faculty member in the Graduate School of Education. Aguillard's interim successor was Argile Smith, the former director of the Caskey Divinity School.^[7][8]

After the dispute with Louisiana College, the Casons entered into an agreement with New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary to establish the Caskey Center for Church Excellence with an initial gift of $1.5 million from an anonymous donor. The center will offer free theological education for small-church bi-vocational pastors and staff members of Southern Baptist congregations within Louisiana.^[6]

Republican contributions

Cason is a particularly significant donor to his local congressman, Republican John Fleming of Minden in Webster Parish, who has represented Louisiana's 4th congressional district since 2009. Cason donated $5,000 in 2012 to the Louisiana Values Political Action Committee. In 2012, he supported John David Cowart, an unsuccessful Republican candidate for Arkansas' 4th congressional district, who lost his primary bid to Tom Cotton, who is leaving the House after one term to run for the U.S. Senate in 2014. Cason first donated in 2012 to the presidential campaign of Governor Rick Perry of Texas but then switched to former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who in turn lost the nomination to Mitt Romney. He also donated to the National Association for Gun Rights, Inc., PAC.^[2][9]

References