NFL and parish council referee departs Lafourche

Louis Richard, a longtime Lafourche resident and two-time one-term councilman, is leaving Lafourche Parish to return home. The outgoing-chairman of the parish council, and a man with dynamic experiences, said he’s relocating to be closer to family.

Three of Richard’s four children and eight of his 10 grandchildren live in Lafayette. He relocated there earlier this year and will become a resident now that his public service here is exhausted.

“It’s a no-brainer for us,” Richard said when he withdrew his name from re-election consideration. “We can visit friends, but family is more important to me than anything else.”

Richard, now 72 years old, was born in Scott, Louisiana in 1939 to a family of farmers. Between the sugar cane industry to the east and rice farmers to the west, the Richards farmed cotton, potatoes and corn.

His duties, shared with four siblings, included milking cows, feeding the livestock and plowing the springtime earth behind a mule.

“We were all poor,” Richard said. “Everybody had to help out, we all did our chores. Everybody had things to do, and without that, we would have starved to death.”

The Lafayette Parish native transferred to Thibodaux in 1965. A graduate of Scott High School and Southwestern Louisiana Institute, Richard was a chemical salesman for a company that serviced the oil field.

Other than a seven-year stint in Atlanta, Richard spent the next 46 years in Lafourche. Two years after moving to the parish, he left his job as a salesman to partner with his brother in a chemical weed- and grass-killing business.

Richard first served on the council when the parish went to council-district government in 1980. He said one of his fondest legislative memories is when the 15-member council was able to cut $2 million from the parish budget, at that time about one-third or one-fourth of the total parish expenditures.

“We all got along very well,” he said. “That was the beauty; 15 members and everybody got along well. We didn’t always agree, but it wasn’t bull-headed.”

Richard did not seek re-election in 1984, instead opting to run for Lafourche Parish Tax Assessor. Leroy Martin would win the election, and Richard refocused his attention on his partnership sales.

Twenty-four years separated the conclusion of Richard’s first council stint and the commencement of his second.

In that span, Richard’s part-time hobby carried him to new heights, as he donned the zebra print and officiated football in the Southeastern Conference and National Football League.

What started as a way to keep in shape in Lafayette Parish in 1959 would blossom into a sideline career. Richard worked 15 years at the high school level before being promoted to the old Gulf South Conference; he made the jump to the Southeastern Conference in 1974 and made it in 1986 to the NFL, where he stayed for 11 years.

“If you can visualize the thing you like to do the most as a hobby n if it’s fishing, it’s catching a 10-pound bass every time you cast n whatever hobby you enjoy the most, and you reach the pinnacle of it, whatever it might be, that’s kind of what officiating and getting to that level is all about,“ he recalled.

Richard was a back judge; when he officiated, the back judge was stationed on the sideline 20 yards down the line of scrimmage and watched mostly for pass interference penalties. “The receiver and the defender, what they did to each other, that was my job. The easy stuff, you know?”

Richard’s officiating experience came into play in 2011 after he was voted chairman of the Lafourche Parish Council, referee of the quarrelsome lawmaking sessions. He invoked a strict 3-minute limit for people addressing the council and didn’t shy away from knocking his gavel when the barbs were too sharp, self-serving or layered with simultaneous chatter.

Councilman Joe Fertitta, who confirmed his interest in replacing Richard as the council chairman, said Richard “did an excellent job.”

“He was able to, more or less, control the meetings and get to the point, not beating around the bush,” he said.

Coastal restoration and protection will always be an issue vital to Lafourche Parish, the outgoing chairman said, but one problem that the incoming batch of elected officials can solve is the inter-government communication chasm between administration and council.

“It’s like they’re trying to keep secrets from one another, and that’s not the way I’m used to,” Richard said. “(Then Parish President) Dick Egle’, he didn’t wipe his nose without telling us he was going to do it.

“I can understand the parish president not wanting to deal with our people sometimes, the way that they behave and the way they act towards her. She might have a good point, but they’re not all like that. We weren’t all like that. “

Council Chair Louis Richard (far right) listens to a disgruntled parish resident during a meeting earlier this year. Richard is leaving the council and Lafourche Parish to return home to Lafayette. ERIC BESSON