Victoria Hernandez Clement
May 21, 2020
Effort to expand mail-in voting in Louisiana fails again
May 21, 2020
Last fall, Vandebilt Catholic High School President David Boudreaux announced his retirement after six years in his position. At the end of June, Boudreaux’s tenure will officially come to an end, marking the conclusion of a 42-year career highlighted by 37 years of service with schools in the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux.
“It’s kind of surreal…I guess the first day that I don’t have to get up and go to work is going to be different,” Boudreaux said.
His decision to call it a career comes in line with that of his wife Mary’s retirement from teaching after over 30 years.
“At the end of this year was always going to be the year she was going to retire, and so just in our discussions about doing things together – we like to travel, we love spending time with our grandchildren – and over the course of a few months, it just became evident that it would be great for us to retire together,” Boudreaux said.
A graduate of E.D. White Catholic High School, Boudreaux’s life has always been ingrained in the Catholic school system of Houma-Thibodaux. When he accepted the president’s job during the 2014-2015 school year, he was no stranger to the Vandebilt family.
Right after graduating from Nicholls State University in 1978, Boudreaux signed a contract with Vandebilt, where he taught music and religion for seven years. After transferring to Houma Junior High for five years, he returned to Vandebilt, again teaching religion, music and multimedia before moving into administration as dean of students in charge of discipline and academic assistant principal.
He then moved to E.D. White for fourteen years, serving six as principal and eight as president, before returning for the final time to Vandebilt as president.
When he first stepped into the role, Boudreaux said his vision for the school was not to be his own, but rather a collective vision of everyone in the Vandebilt community. The result was a five-year strategic plan known as the Terrier Blueprint that featured benchmarks in every area of operating a Catholic school, such Catholic identity, academics, facilities and finances.
“Our goal was to develop a shared vision for our community of what Vandebilt could and should be, and to do that, we surveyed everybody – every student, every parent, every faculty member, we surveyed [alumni] – to discern…what we want to be as a quality Catholic school that’s operated in the traditions of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart,” Boudreaux said.
For Boudreaux, some of the most rewarding parts of implementing that vision were working alongside Bishop Shelton Fabre and welcoming new events to support the school, most notably the revival of the annual autumn festival, now known as the Terrier Tailgate.
Above all, he said he appreciated the opportunity to reconnect with members of the community.
“We got to meet people who are part of the Vandebilt community that hadn’t visited us for years, and to see students that I taught in the 70s and 80s and 90s come back to Vandebilt and to support their alma mater and to be interested in what was going on, and even to the point of sending their own children here, I think that was probably most exciting,” Boudreaux said.
As Vandebilt has faced its share of challenges, from economic hardships, to hurricanes, to the COVID-19 pandemic, Boudreaux said the school’s strength has always come from the people who make up the community.
Even as his time with that community comes to an end, Boudreaux said he has plans to continue to visit the school and volunteer in various capacities, as the hardest part of leaving is not seeing students and faculty every day.
Of course, Vandebilt has found its own ways to make sure Boudreaux returns to visit.
“The Terrier Club gave my wife and I a lifetime pass, so we’re going to come back as much as we can to support the Terriers,” Boudreaux said.
June 30 will officially mark Boudreaux’s last day as president of Vandebilt. In April, the school announced that Principal Jeremy Gueldner is set to become the next president, effective July 1.
Boudreaux said he is thankful for everyone who allowed him to be part of their journey the last 42 years, especially the students he had the opportunity to work with and later watch grow into community leaders.
“It’s been great to get to know young people and to have the opportunity to basically work with and see the future on a daily basis,” Boudreaux said. “I can see students that I taught in the 70s, 80s or even 90s are now leaders in our community. I got a chance to see them grow. I hopefully got a chance to help them along a little bit…It’s pretty cool just to have been a small, small part of that.”
