Louisiana has lost one of its iconic figures. Four-term former Governor Edwin Edwards has passed away at the age of 93. His biographer, Leo Honeycutt, says Edwards died peacefully Monday morning at his home in Gonzales with family and friends at his bedside. Honeycutt says it was a week ago, Edwards placed himself in hospice care.
“Hospice is really end of life care so they are instructed not to really do anything that will prolong a person’s life, you just let things fall their natural course and that’s indeed what happened,” said Honeycutt.
Honeycutt says Edwin Edwards was lucid last week with his visitors at his home in Ascension Parish, but a couple of days ago he stopped eating. He says his last words were to his seven-year-old son, Eli.
“Of course every night the child will come to him and say good night and I love you dad and then he said I love you too and those were his last words,” said Honeycutt.
Edwards also served eight years in prison after he was convicted on racketeering charges for corrupting the state’s riverboat gaming licensing process.
“I’m not bitter, I realize in my heart that it’s one of the underserved tragedies in my life, but I’ve had a lot of undeserved good luck and it more than balances out,” said Edwards.
After serving as a state senator and in the U-S House of Representatives, Edwards was elected as governor in 1971 and began the first of four terms in 1972. He took advantage of an oil boom in 1974 and changed the severance tax making Louisiana the most-cash-rich state in the nation according to Honeycutt. Edwards told Jim Engster in 2011 that he always looked out for the working class…
“You think back at the times that I was governor people were working, teachers were paid, civil servants were paid, and things went well. I’m satisfied and I think some people are,” said Edwards.
Edwards was released from prison in 2011 and always maintained his innocence. He certainly had his critics, as he was tried three times on federal charges. In his 2011 interview with Jim Engster, Edwards talked about what will happen to him when he passes away.
“But I’m not afraid of dying at all. I’m absolutely convinced, in spite of what some people think of me, that I have done nothing, nothing in my life that justifies an eternal hell,” said Edwards.
Edwards was born in Marksville in Avoyelles Parish on August 7, 1927. He joined the U.S. Navy when he was 17 and became a Navy pilot, but his squadron never deployed to the Pacific, because Japan surrendered.
Edwards graduated from LSU Law School in 1949, served two terms as a Crowley City Councilman in Acadia Parish, one term in the Louisiana Senate as a floor leader for Governor John McKeithen, one term in Congress and four terms as governor, 1972 to 1980, 1984 to 1988, and 1992 to 1996.
Encore presentation of Governor Edwin Edwards on Talk Louisiana with Jim Engster, Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 below..
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