SHREVEPORT, La – KTBS celebrated 70 years in 2025, but there’s another very well known institution in Shreveport that has been serving this community even longer than that: Overton Brooks VA Medical Center.
“We gather today with hearts full of gratitude as we celebrate 75 years of service, compassion and commitment at Overton Brooks VA Medical Center,” said Chaplain Kevin Pike, OBVAMC staff chaplain.
“We just owe so much to Overton Brooks for giving us such a wonderful place to work, the veterans are the best,” said Shirley Ledbetter, who worked 43 years at OBVAMC.
Shirley and many others who spent decades at Overton Brooks recently put together a Founders Day Program. A time capsule was buried that will be dug up in 25 years.
“Before the hospital was built, it was already a historic property and it had a military background. During the Civil War it was the largest of the Confederate forts,” said Gary Joiner, LSUS history professor.
“They wanted it to be tall buildings; they wanted it to be a complete complex, concentrated with all the clinics and stuff within it. The VA Hospital in Shreveport would be designed by Edward Neild and Dewey Somdal,” said Lane Callaway of the Shreveport Historic Preservation Society.
Those noted Shreveport architects also designed Fair Park High School, Byrd High School and the Harry Truman Presidential Library.
Many of the people at the celebration have a long history at Overton Brooks, including Jackie Nelson who spent a year here recovering from injuries suffered in Vietnam.
“I was a patient here for so long they put me on the payroll,” said Jackie Nelson, a former patient and employee at OBVAMC…