Charles Richard is Rotary Citizen of the Year

By JIM FIRMIN

The Morgan City Rotary Club Citizen of the Year / Lifetime Achievement Award is given to honor an individual whose life work is recognized and regarded with respect, pride, and gratitude by citizens of the Morgan City – Berwick - Patterson Community.

The award has been given annually since 1987 for exemplary volunteer efforts expressive of Rotary International’s Motto, “Service above Self”. These outstanding citizens are chosen for their definable exceptional deeds, through which he or she has made our greater community a better place to live. The award is presented to an individual who best represents the qualities each of us admire and respect among our friends, neighbors, and associates. It is not given so much for achievement, but rather for helping others achieve. It is not given for an outstanding single effort, but more-so for long-term, continuing unselfish commitment to the community.

In a moment I will tell you a little about our recipient this year, but first I want to say that it is with gratitude and acknowledgement of his untiring service to the Morgan City – Berwick - Patterson Community that the Morgan City Rotary Club 2020 Citizen of the Year / Lifetime Achievement Award is presented to Mr. Charles Richard. We are happy to have Charles and his family with us here today.

So a little about him - There are people that we all know, who at one time or another are “Part of the Problem”, and likewise, there are people who we all know that are always “Part of the Solution”. Our recipient this year is one who has for the most part worked behind the scenes to make good things happen for all of us in the Tri-City Community, and he has always been, “Part of the Solution”.

Charles was born in 1932 in Church Point La and is very much a self-made individual. He is a veteran of the Korean War having served with the 1st Calvary Division in Japan for a while and then Korea, and in talking with him it is clear that he has very definite feelings about military service to one’s country. Later he started Bayou Boeuf Electric and made it into one of the leading businesses operating in the regional Petroleum industry.

Specifically though, this award recognizes service above and beyond one’s job. It is for service in community activities that demonstrate creativity, vision, leadership and citizenship, and volunteer service to programs and activities that positively impact the life of all persons in St. Mary Parish. For over 50 years, since the late 1960’s, Charles has been in the mainstream of leaders in this area who have strived to improve the quality of the business and cultural environment of the community.

To many, Charles is still “Mr. Shrimp and Petroleum Festival”, as he was one of several leaders who brought the festival back from a fading existence to the dynamic and major event that we know today. He was King of the Festival in 1976 and was a member and Chairman of the Board of the Festival for an extended period. He had an artist create the beautiful marble sculpture in the Ballroom Foyer of the Municipal Auditorium of Bob Greenwood’s design of the Festival Logo of the shrimp draped over the oil derrick in dedication to Ms Alberta Jendron, the early longtime leader of the Festival. He was behind the idea of the exhibit of the Festival’s Kings and Queens in the Foyer of the Auditorium and served on the Board of the Auditorium Commission for many years. It was his idea to start a festival poster in 1981, and he was instrumental in having me design the first poster, of which he bought the #1 poster as I recall during a fund raiser for the festival.

He was a King of Hephaestus and was in the leadership of the Krewe for many years. He is involved with the Acadian Cultural Development program, he was a major donor to our China Literacy Program, and he has been a generous supporter of his Church, and many other local and regional activities.

On the business front, he is one of three founding members of the St Mary Industrial Group which since 1975 has endeavored to improve the business climate for our area. He has spearheaded many efforts of SMIG, notably the legislative initiatives for Workers Compensation Reform, Tort-Reform, and Right to Work Legislation. And in my view, his crowning achievement with SMIG was the completion of US Hwy 90 through Morgan City. Some of you may remember how it took over an hour to drive from Amelia to Berwick after 3 in the afternoon. Charles singlehandedly spearheaded the successful multiple year effort to clear the obstacles for issuance of the permits for the completion of the highway from Berwick to Houma. He personally delivered postcards in the thousands on the desks of national legislators to get that project done, and it stands as his unheralded legacy for the thousands of people who comfortably travel that stretch of highway today.

Mr. Richard is an exemplary example of what this Rotary Lifetime Achievement Award stands for, and what “Service above Self” really means. Charles would surely say that he didn’t do anything anyone else would not have done, and is not big on getting awards, which is another reason that the time is long overdue to recognize him for his decade’s long tenure of leadership and volunteerism in our City.

A $1,000 donation to the Rotary Foundation has been made and the Morgan City Rotary Club has designated Mr. Charles Richard a Paul Harris Fellow of the Rotary Foundation.