Education
University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
Wiggins served only a single term in the Pineville-based District 27 from 1996 to 2000. In 1999, he failed in a state senate race against former Senator Joe McPherson, a businessman then of Pineville and later of Woodworth in southern Rapides Parish. The late Jock Scott, a professor and lawyer, served as a Republican in the Alexandria-based House District 26 from 1985 to 1988, but he was elected in 1983 to his third term as a Democrat.
In the House, Wiggins served on the Joint House and Senate Health and Welfare Committee and in 1997 participated in a legislative tour of health-care facilities in Rapides and neighboring Avoyelles Parish, including Saint Mary"s Training School in Alexandria, Avoyelles Hospital in Marksville, and Bunkie General Hospital in Bunkie.
Wiggins said the purpose of the tour is to allow lawmakers a better understanding of health-care issues and budget considerations. Wiggins ran for the state Senate when B.G. Dyess, an Alexandria Baptist minister and former Rapides Parish registrar of voters, declined to seek a second term, having served only from 1996 to 2000.
In the primary held on October 23, 1999, McPherson prevailed, 13,820 (504 percent) to Wiggins"s 12,393 (452 percent), and another 1,212 votes (44 percent) for Democrat Jerry M. Guillory. Wiggins is a contributor to such Republican candidates as United States. Representative Rodney Alexander, United States. Senator David Vitter, and the 2002 Republican senatorial nominee Suzanne Haik Terrell of New Orleans, defeated by the Democratic incumbent Mary Landrieu.
In 1998, he contributed to current Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon in Donelon’s unsuccessful Republican challenge to United States. Senator John Breaux of Crowley.