1. Sylvia's father, Gilbert Franklin Hennigan, for whom Gil Dozier received his first name, was a rancher, a member and president of the Beauregard Parish School Board, and from 1944 to 1956 a state senator for Allen, Calcasieu, Cameron, Jefferson Davis, and Beauregard parishes.
Gil Dozier began teaching in 1930 at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana.
Gil Dozier died in 2008 at the age of ninety in Needville in Fort Bend County, Texas.
Gil Dozier played basketball from 1952 to 1955 for the Ragin' Cajuns of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, when the institution was known as the University of Southwestern Louisiana.
Gil Dozier obtained his bachelor's degree from ULL in 1955.
Gil Dozier was trained in North Carolina and stationed in California, where the two older of his five children by the former Jean Helen Kirkland of Plaquemine in Iberville Parish were born.
Gil Dozier taught in the Reserve Officers Training Corps program while earning his Juris Doctor degree at night.
In 1974, Gil Dozier ran unsuccessfully for the Louisiana Public Service Commission.
In 1965, Gil Dozier established a law office in Baton Rouge.
Gil Dozier led the balloting with 42 percent of the vote.
Gil Dozier instead ran for reelection as agriculture commissioner in the primary held on October 27,1979.
Agribusinessman and fellow Democrat Bob Odom of Zachary in East Baton Rouge Parish, who had worked in three positions under Pearce and was thereafter fired from the department by Gil Dozier, defeated both Gil Dozier and Pearce, who made his last comeback attempt for the office which he had held from 1952 to 1956 and again from 1960 to 1976.
The month after his defeat for reelection, Gil Dozier was formally charged in a five-count indictment with violations of both the Hobbs and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations acts.
The sentence of ten years imprisonment and a $25,000 fine was suspended pending appeal, and Gil Dozier remained free on bail.
Gil Dozier attempted to extort $20,000 in 1976 from the Louisiana Computer Company in return for favorable treatment from the state.
Gil Dozier was found to have attempted to hire a burglar to break into the office of a business competitor and a hitman for an unknown target.
Gil Dozier had faced a potential eighty years in prison and fines of up to $55,000 when he was found guilty on four of five counts against him: one for racketeering and three for extortion.
Gil Dozier was convicted of taking bribes of at least $10,000 and attempting to extort $267,000 from persons doing business with the state agriculture department, such as dairy processors.
Prosecutors asserted that Gil Dozier had turned his department into a "cash register" to bilk campaign donations from those having business with the state.
The court said that Gil Dozier had used his office illegally when he set a price to assist someone who had a problem with a state agency or a contract issue.
The court ordered Gil Dozier to serve a minimum of eighteen months of the eight years before he could be eligible for parole.
Gil Dozier was ordered to be placed on five years' probation once released from prison.
Gil Dozier had already served time from June 1982 to July 1984, in the Federal Corrections Institution in Fort Worth, Texas.
When he was agriculture commissioner in 1977, Gil Dozier had criticized President Carter, whom he had supported in 1976, for creating unnecessary problems for Louisiana farmers when Carter approved restrictions on state natural gas sales.
Gil Dozier told a civic gathering in Minden that he believed problems in the Carter administration could lead, as it developed, to the election of a Republican as governor of Louisiana in 1979.
The Carter-Reagan presidential election came after Gil Dozier had left office and was free on bond.
Gil Dozier was too aggressive and too self-centered in his ambition.
Gil Dozier developed a friendship with Billy Cannon, a dentist and the 1959 Heisman Trophy winner who played for the Louisiana State University Tigers and the American Football League but became involved in counterfeiting.
Gil Dozier has lived in St Francisville in West Feliciana Parish.
In 1986, Gil Dozier petitioned for a pardon of his crimes to gain readmittance to the Louisiana bar, for he had lost his right to practice law with the federal convictions.
Gil Dozier worked in the real estate office of his brother Kenneth when first released.
Gil Dozier did receive the pardon and practiced law at 13698 Oakley Lane in St Francisville, north of Baton Rouge.
Since 1965, Gil Dozier engaged in real estate development, farming, and cattle ranching while practicing law.
Gil Dozier commercially farmed thousands of acres over a period of three decades, including the Meade Plantation in Rapides Parish and Little River Farms in Avoyelles Parish.
Gil Dozier left St Francisville in 2011 and returned to Baton Rouge.
Gil Dozier died at the age of seventy-nine in September 2013 at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge.
Gil Dozier's death came 33 years to the day of his initial sentencing.