Meet Rex 2026 Merritt Lane, a CEO with a heart for civic responsibility in New Orleans
By John Pope
Source: The Times-Picayune | NOLA.com
February 14, 2026
In a scene that could have been lifted from a spy movie, Poco Sloss summoned his friend H. Merritt Lane III to the front of his office building in New Orleans’ Central Business District one afternoon in November.
Sloss then told Lane, the president and CEO of Canal Barge Co., to walk with him to the corner of Baronne and Union streets. He complied.
A black SUV with deeply tinted windows was waiting. A door swung open. “Get in,” Lane was told.
He obeyed. Inside, he found five members of the Rex Organization.
“We’re looking for a Rex 2026,” he was told. “No one has ever told us no.”
“You’re not going to get a no from me,” Lane said he replied, figuring it was an offer he couldn’t refuse. “I was so flummoxed.”
In a few minutes, it was all over. Lane was, understandably, pumped by the accolade, but the secrecy pervading his selection kept him from sharing his good news.
“I had to go back upstairs as if nothing had happened and go on to my next meeting,” Lane said, chuckling over the memory of the incident.
The veil has been lifted, and Lane, 64, can tell the world that he will ride Tuesday as Rex, king of Carnival.
Friends are jubilant. “He epitomizes what the king of Carnival should be,” said Hardy Fowler, Rex 2013.
Lane, who never uses his first name (Harry), sipped a Diet Coke as he reminisced. He and his wife, Eleanor Kohlmeyer Lane, sat in their Uptown living room, where artworks fill every wall.
Even though his big day was less than a week away, the Lanes were calm, and the room bore only two hints of the season: vases containing flowers in Carnival colors of purple (tulips), green (chrysanthemums) and gold (roses); and a square glass tray, a gift of his cousin Jim Huger, that bears the names of 30 of Lane’s kinfolks who were in Rex’s courts as far back as 1886.
One of the Lanes’ three daughters, Sarah Eleanor Lane, was Rex’s queen in 2020.
His grandfather Joseph Merrick Jones also served as Rex in 1958 and founded the company that Lane now leads. After starting with one barge, Canal Barge is now one of the country’s biggest barge operators, boasting about 900 employees in 27 states. It was sold last year, but Canal Barge retained its New Orleans headquarters. Lane was named CEO of the new holding company.
While lineage can play a role in the secrecy-laden selection of Rex, public service is a major factor. He credits his mother, Susan Gundlach, with motivating him in this direction: “Mom always impressed on us to give a little something back (and) to not seek recognition.”
Lane has served on a slew of boards, including those of Baptist Community Ministries, the National WWII Museum, the Nature Conservancy of Louisiana, and the Pro Bono Publico Foundation, an arm of the Rex Organization that has allocated more than $16 million to support New Orleans’ public schools. Lane chairs its grants committee.
He has a special spot in his heart for the Bureau of Governmental Research, where he has chaired and still serves on the board.
“The BGR is really important,” he said. “It’s the source of truth (and) gold-plated research. You can trust it.”
“We can’t have enough good government.”
After Hurricane Katrina, Lane served as the Business Council’s representative as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers rebuilt the area’s flood-protection system. He also was the first chair of the Idea Village, a nonprofit entrepreneurial-development system.
“I love his approach to civic responsibility,” said Christian “Christy” Brown, Rex 2015 and a longtime friend. “He does view it as a duty, and I think he just has a feeling of what is best for the community, and how can we leverage this [Rex] organization to provide the best for our community.
“Rex is meant to represent the best of New Orleans, and Merritt has been doing that long before donning the crown.”
Lane, a lifelong Uptowner who graduated from Isidore Newman School and the University of Virginia, traces his passion for parading to his father, who dressed him up and put him atop a ladder to watch parades when Lane was a toddler.
His father rode in four parades: Momus, Comus, Proteus and Rex. “I remember the fun of chasing him for doubloons and thought it was so cool that Dad was a rock star up there, throwing beads to us,” he said.
Lane has been preparing for his royal ride by soaking up tips from friends like Sloss, who was Rex in 2018.
“Everyone says the ride on that float is the most extraordinary experience of a lifetime,” Lane said. “You have this sea of humanity, and you see all these people you know, and they’re calling your name, and you see all these people you’ve never met before, and they are so excited to see you. They said there’s no experience like that.”
This is the only drawback he can think of: The king of Carnival isn’t allowed to toss trinkets to his subjects.
“I love to throw stuff,” Lane said. “I probably have done more than 100 rides in my life. I don’t like to unwrap (bags of baubles); I just like to throw.”
Explaining why he loves to toss beads and other trinkets is “the most impossible thing,” said Lane, who rides in the Chaos and Proteus parades as well as Rex.
But this year’s Rex also is exhorting his subjects to do more. With a new mayor, “there’s a sense of optimism,” he said, “and I would encourage everyone to look around to see why we love this city and lean into making it better.”
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