Charles "Buddy" E. Roemer

In Scopena: A Memoir of Home, former U.S. representative and Louisiana governor Buddy Roemer shares with readers his early experiences growing up on his family’s cotton plantation in Bossier Parish, Louisiana. Set upon thousands of acres of land, Scopena was not only a major business but also its own community. At its heart were Roemer’s parents, Budgie and Adeline, two remarkable individuals who raised a family and ran a large farming operation amidst much change. Growing up on Scopena in the 1950s and 60s, Roemer witnessed these changes—scientific, agricultural, technical, and racial revolutions—that redefined traditional farm life and which he, like his parents, embraced with idealism and optimism.

Roemer gives his readers personal reflections on the influential people and events that taught him life lessons he held on to when he left the farm in 1960, at age sixteen, to enter Harvard University, and that eventually helped shape his political career, from the U.S. House of Representatives to the Governor’s Mansion, and most recently in a spirited campaign for President in 2012.