Prep Roundup Week 2
September 16, 2015
Terrebonne sheriff and deputies sued over shooting of teen
September 22, 2015
Debra Ann Roger Dupre devoted her life to saving souls. The oldest of eight children born in 1954 to Rose and Robert Roger Sr., she was raised in a family full of jokesters.
Debra grew up in east Houma. She went to Holy Rosary Catholic School, and later to Vandebilt Catholic High School. As a child, Debra was bullied. She even mentioned it in a video she posted to her Facebook wall.
“I always thought there was something wrong with me,” Debra said. “But there wasn’t.”
While at Vandebilt, Debra went to dances held at the Houma Municipal Auditorium. So would Terry Dupre. It was there that he spotted the longhaired brunette in short-shorts with an American flag on them. He was smitten and crossed the dancefloor to ask her to dance.
After graduating from Vandebilt in 1972, Debra and Terry were married. The couple had three children – Nicole, Jennifer and Matthew.
Seven years later, Debra’s father, Robert, died. It was a life-changing moment for Debra. According to her sister, Sherry, Debra began questioning the afterlife and God. Her search led her to salvation and began a new chapter of ministering the Gospel in her life.
Debra began teaching Sunday school to children at Harvest Cathedral Ministries. Terry joined her and the two became a fun team. The couple would put on puppet shows and dress up like clowns together to teach the children the Word of God.
“She had a way with children,” Sherry said. “They both got down to [the children’s] level. They would go that extra mile to reach them.”
The Dupres later joined the congregation at Vision Christian Center in Bourg, where they continued to minister to children.
Debra also worked at the time as a paraprofessional at School for Exceptional Children on Moffett Road. The SEC was still run by the Terrebonne Association for Retarded Citizens (TARC). Now it is part of the Terrebonne Parish School District.
In 1992, Debra went to work as a paraprofessional in the special education department at Ellender Memorial High School. She worked with developmentally challenged teens there for more than 22 years.
Debra thought it was important that her children share her zeal for helping the less fortunate. When her daughter Nicole turned 13, she had several girlfriends over for a slumber party. Instead of board games and movies, Debra had plans for the girls. She had Nicole and her friends visit a group home for troubled teens. There the girls played games, drew and talked with the teens there.
“When you’re young, you’re like, ‘Oh, God. Why do I have to do this,’” Nicole recalled. “But now, I realize that she did that for a reason.”
Between her children’s outreach and paraprofessional job, Debra was also a fearless evangelist who would go places where many wouldn’t dare go in order to spread the Word.
Elijah Commodore and Debra were best friends. Elijah and Debra would often travel with other evangelists from their church via a bus to New Orleans to preach to the downtrodden and lost. Debra often asked her husband if he wanted to come along.
“He would never come,” Elijah said. “He would say, ‘I know ya’ll.”
Once, Elijah was about to approach a house to speak to the residents, but a dog blocked his way, angrily bearing its teeth and growling ferociously.
“She just said, ‘He’s not going to bite you,’” Elijah recalled. “Besides, if he bites you, he’ll get full of the Holy Ghost!”
Another time, Elijah and Debra were in the French Quarter preaching when Debra noticed two men conducting a drug deal. Without warning, she broke off from Elijah and approached the men.
“Deb went and presented the Gospel to them,” Elijah said. “We ended up praying with them. The buyer ended up accepting Christ. Afterward, while walking back to car, she asked, ‘Did you see the drugs?’ I said, ‘no.’ She said, ‘That was a drug deal!”
The only time Elijah and Debra ever split up while in the French Quarter to evangelize, police pegged Debra as an armed robber. Elijah said they had each partnered with other church-members. Debra and her partner approached a man and, after talking with him for a little while, they began to pray. The man held his arms in the air as they prayed. New Orleans Police officers patrolling the Vieux Carré saw this and were alarmed. They approached the pious trio and asked if everything was OK. After seeing the man was in no danger, the officers told them they had suspected he was being held at gunpoint and then carried on with their patrol.
“She was probably the boldest person I had ever met in my entire life,” Elijah said. “Her style wasn’t hostile or anything like that. It was [such] a caring way that you could not resist her.”
Debra Ann Roger Dupre, 61, and her husband, Terry, would often dress as clowns or put on puppet shows for children at Sunday school.
