Education
Barton graduated from Bay High School in Panama City, Florida.
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Robert Barton
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He received a bachelor"s degree from the University of West Florida at Pensacola and a master"s degree from Florida State University in the capital city of Tallahassee. He served in the United States Army from 1970 to 1973. He has been affiliated with the Chamber of Commerce and Lions International.
He is Roman Catholic.
In 1986, while at the Ruston Daily Leader in Ruston in Lincoln Parish in North Louisiana, Barton purchased the weekly The Ouachita Citizen newspaper from Bert Hatten, a former mayor of West Monroe. Barton also formerly owned and published the Bossier Press (since the Bossier Press-Tribune) in Bossier City.
He is a past president of the Louisiana Press Association and held membership in the National Newspaper Association. Barton held the District 8 seat from 1996 to 2000.
The position opened when the 16-year incumbent, Robert Adley, ran for governor in the 1995 nonpartisan blanket primary.
On October 21, 1995, Barton defeated the Democrat Bob G. Burford (1942–2009) in a low-turnout election, 5,416 votes (592 percent) to 3,740 (408 percent). Barton did not seek reelection in the 1999 primary but instead unsuccessfully challenged Republican State Senator Max T. Malone of Shreveport. He finished in third place in a three-candidate field with 27.4 percent of the vote.
Smith has since been term-limited, and the House seat is held by the Republican lawyer Jeff R. Thompson of Bossier City.
He is Roman Catholic.
Politics
Fellow Republican Jane H. Smith, the former Bossier Parish school superintendent, won Barton"s seat without opposition from either party in the 1999 primary.
Membership
Burford served as an academic chairperson at Bossier Parish Community College in Bossier City and as a two-term member of the Bossier Parish Police Jury prior to relocating in 1997 to Wilmington, North Carolina. Adley is a term-limited member of the Louisiana State Senate from Bossier and Webster parishes, who is ineligible to run again in 2015.
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Born
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Nationality
United States -
Political Party
Republican party