Jere Locke Beasley was born in Tyler, Texas on December 12, 1935. At a young age, he and his family moved to Clayton, Alabama, near the Pratt’s Station Community where his great-great-grandfather had settled in 1819. He served as the twenty-second Lieutenant Governor of Alabama from January 18, 1971 to January 15, 1979. During his first term, after Governor George Wallace was severely wounded in an assassination attempt on May 15, 1972, Beasley became acting governor as required by the Alabama Constitution when Wallace remained out of state for more than twenty days while recuperating. He served in that capacity from June 5 to July 7, 1972. He later became the senior member of the Montgomery law firm Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis and Miles, P.C.