Background
His mother, the former Bessie Mavis Hooks (1917-2009), was a teacher.
His mother, the former Bessie Mavis Hooks (1917-2009), was a teacher.
Babb father, Keith Franklin Babb (1915-2005), was a native of Malvern in Hot Spring County, Arkansas. Foreign fifty years, the senior Babb was a pastor of Southern Baptist churches in southern Arkansas and North Louisiana, including Marion in Union Parish and after 1952 in Bastrop in Morehouse Parish. While he was a boy living in Bastrop, Babb listened to radio station KTRY and became fascinated with the weekly Monday broadcast of livestock auctions.
Babb is an active deacon at Lakeshore Baptist Church in Monroe and a former trustee of the Louisiana Baptist Children"s Home.
He is a past president of the Greater Monroe Optimist Club. Babb procured a degree in journalism from the University of Louisiana at Monroe and is a former president of the ULL Alumni Association.
In 1966, he attended the Superior School of Auctioneering in Decatur, Illinois. He also worked for the former KNOE (Department of Administration and Management) and KNOE-television, the Columbia Broadcasting System affiliate in Monroe, both founded by former Governor James A. Noe.
With Jack East. McCall (1926-1994), he was for several years the co-host of the KNOE Good Morning Ark-Louisiana-Mission program
Babb is a director of Bank One Corporation of Louisiana. In 1971, Babb, known for his rich baritone voice, became a full-time auctioneer handling the sale of real estate, farm machinery, and business liquidations to remain financially solvent. Then while reading through a trade magazine, he spotted an advertisement for an auctioneer of horses.
This quickly became his passion.
In 2004, Babb was inducted into the National Auctioneers Association Hall of Fame. The award came with a custom-made cowboy hat and a hand-tooled saddle made in Brazil.
According to the AQHA Q-Racing Journal, Babb is "considered the premier auctioneer in the country for American Quarter Horses." The AQHA is headquartered in Amarillo, Texas. On August 1, 2008, Governor Bobby Jindal appointed Babb, a Republican to the 13-member Louisiana Racing Commission, which regulates horse racing in the state.
The commission was established in 1940 and is based in New Orleans.
Babb is the member for Louisiana"s 5th congressional district. Though Babb had planned to retire in 2014 at the age of seventy, he kept receiving calls to return to the auction stand: "I"ve been selling horses for forty years coast to coast, and I don"t want to die on the road. I"m determined to retire, but right now I guess you could say I"m semi-retired.
.." Babb added, "The road isn"t as fun as it used to be.
I don"t want to die on the auction stand. But the big thing is, I don"t want anyone to say, "I wish that old man had retired a couple of years ago.".
I"d like to go out on top.".
