Brame to get memorial at Bringhurst Golf Course
One of Scott Brame's proudest accomplishments was preserving Bringhurst Golf Course for future generations of young players.
The late civic and business leader will soon have a marker commemorating his efforts.
The Alexandria City Council passed a resolution Tuesday to place a memorial to Brame at the historic course, which may have closed permanently had a group led by Brame not raised the money to renovate it and keep it operating.
"He fundamentally rebuilt the golf course," said Councilman Chuck Fowler. "It's a good thing to honor such a wonderful person."
Brame passed away in March at the age of 90.
The memorial will be on the sixth hole and will consist of six crepe myrtle trees — one for each of Brame's children — and a plaque reading, in part, "In Loving Memory of Scott Overton Brame."
Located on Masonic Drive, Bringhurst was built in the 1920s and is billed as "the oldest par 3 golf course in America."
At Bringhurst's reopening in 2010, Brame told The Town Talk he started playing golf at the course in 1937, at the age of 9.
Like a lot of local golfers who had grown up playing at Bringhurst, Brame was distraught when the course all but shut down in 2006, with conditions there making it nearly unplayable.
Friends of Bringhurst formed to save the historic course before it was too late. The group, with Brame as its president, raised enough money in its "Save the Brink" campaign to pour more than $70,000 into the course, with additional funds set aside for ongoing needs.
Brame was also instrumental in establishing an annual junior golf clinic at Bringhurst.
"He did it out of a love of golf and of kids," Fowler added. "It's amazing to see what it was and what it is today."
"He was single-handedly responsible for the growth and maintenance of Bringhurst Golf Course," said Councilman Harry Silver. "And because of what he did, it will be sustained for a long, long time."
Brame was the former president and CEO of Cleco, where he worked from 1949 until retiring in 1993, with the only break when he served in the Korean War.
Cleco named its group of power plants near Boyce the Brame Energy Center in 2010.
Among Brame's many civic accomplishments, he was the first board chair for Working People's Free Clinic, now Community Healthworx, and a founder of Handi Works Productions. He served on the board of organizations including Central Louisiana Community Foundation, Family Counseling Agency, United Way of Central Louisiana, Christus St. Frances Cabrini Hospital, Coughlin Saunders Foundation and many others.
He was also a former board chair for Council for a Better Louisiana, a member of the Louisiana Board of Regents and a former board chair for Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Louisiana.