Remembering Mr. Bobby

I was new to this area and was learning how operated the Terrebonne Parish courthouse when I first met Irvin Robert Boudreaux, who was the keeper of all records there.

Over time I learned the ins and outs of this place which is a community within the larger community, where dramas great and small are played out with regularity not just in the courtrooms but in the hallways. The records of all of this — considerably sterile — are housed in the files of the Clerk of Court. And for more than a half century Mr. Boudreaux operated his office with integrity and grace.

The current clerk, Theresa Robichaux, brings great affinity to the job and has placed into effect changes that increase efficiency while maintaining a strong focus on customer service and courtesy to the public, and I could never commend her enough for how well she has mastered this position. This is no surprise as she served under Mr. Boudreaux and diligently studied all that was good about his management of the office.

But this space, for now, concerns itself with Mr. Boudreaux, whom I came to call, as many others did, “Mr. Bobby.” He could daily be seen outside of his actual office, in the first-floor lobby of what we refer to as the “old courthouse, an art deco structure that is such a gem it has been used in movies as a backdrop for courthouses because it is that iconic. Iconic is a word that can also be used to describe Bobby Boudreaux, who maintained this station in a perfectly-pressed blazer and trousers and well-starched shirt. He was adept at sharing jokes and riddles and was almost cringingly formal in his address of people. Some people work hard at politeness. Mr. Bobby gave the impression he was vaccinated with it.

More than one attorney I came to know in those early days had passed a joke that when Mr. Bobby left the courthouse would follow with him, so intricately linked was his persona with the structure and its operations. That didn’t happen. But the passing of Mr. Bobby on Feb. 9, 2018 at the age of 86, left a hole in the hearts of all who knew and loved him.

Since the courthouse remains it is only fitting that the Terrebonne Parish Council, on Dec. 12, passed an ordinance formally naming the structure at 7856 Main Street the “Honorable I. Robert Boudreaux Courthouse Building.” And a more appropriate dedication of this type I don’t believe I have ever seen. The ordinance notes Mr. Bobby’s public service career, which began in 1950, and resulted in his 1963 election to the office of Clerk of Court. He was continually re-elected until 2012, when he retired, and was the second longest-serving Clerk of Court in Louisiana history.

I never had the chance to meet his wife, Rose. But I spoke with Mrs. Boudreaux after the Parish Council had passed its resolution. It was no surprise that she is every bit as gracious as her late husband, and I made a point of telling her so.

“It’s very nice for him to have such an honor and I know he would be very pleased with it,” Mrs. Boudreaux said. “He spent most of his life over there. We are very proud, myself and the family, that they are doing this. I know it would mean a lot to him. It was always his work, there are the courthouse. He just loved people. And you don’t stay a public servant if you don’t love the public.”

Innovations are continuing at the courthouse, and shall into the future. I have no doubt that here in Terrebonne, as in other places, the keeping of vitally important records will undergo many change from generation to generation, and I welcome them.

But I will always treasure the memory and the knowledge that I knew and spoke with the man for whom the courthouse is now named, and the knowledge that the council, in doing so, was never so right as it was with that act.