Charles Fuselier

:For the Louisiana Cajun musician, see J. B. Fuselier.
Charles Auguste Fuselier, Sr. (December 28, 1942 - March 27, 2016), was from 1980 to 2003 the sheriff of St. Martin Parish in South Louisiana. Known for innovations in his office, Fuselier resigned prior to the nonpartisan blanket primary in 2003 for what would have been his seventh term.
Fuselier's father, Charles J. Fuselier, was the sheriff prior to 1978, when he died in office. Fuselier was elected sheriff in 1979 and took office in the summer of 1980, after the two-year interim period of Sheriff Allan B. Durand (1919-2006). Durand had been chief deputy under the first Sheriff Fuselier and continued thereafter as first deputy under Charles A. Fuselier until Durand's retirement. He was reelected in 1983 with more than 86 percent of the ballots cast. In his last contested re-election in 1995, Fuselier polled more than 65 percent of the vote over three opponents. He was succeeded by Ronald J. "Ronny" Theriot (born 1946), an Independent and former major with the Louisiana State Police, who assumed the office on October 16, 2003.
In 1983, Fuselier oversaw the completion of a new jail; in 1990, the installation of a parish-wide 911 system; in 1991, the creation of a sheriff's substation, and in 1995, the construction of a facility for juveniles. In 1996, he received the National Sheriff of the Year award, an honor for which he expressed "shock". Then U.S. Representative Jimmy Hayes of Louisiana's 7th congressional district, since disbanded, honored Fuselier in a speech delivered on the floor of Congress. In his address, Hayes noted that Fuselier initiated a local partnership between the sheriff's office, the St. Martinville chief of police, and the American Association of Retired Persons to create the first TRIAD program in St. Martin Parish, which works to prevent crimes against senior citizens. In 1999, the St. Martin Parish sheriff's office under Fuselier became the first in Louisiana to receive the imprint of the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies.
He was named "Sheriff of the Year" in Louisiana by the Farm Bureau Federation. He was a past president of the Louisiana Sheriffs' Association and a former board member of the National Sheriffs' Association. For thirty years, he was a member of the board of directors of Teche Bank.
Though Fuselier's political career occurred while he was a Democrat, the office of Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler lists Fuselier and his wife, the former Lyndahl Hobgood (born June 1943), as Republican voters, as of December 2013.
As a student from 1953 to 1959 at St. Martinville Senior High School, an entity of the St. Martin Parish School Board, Fuselier was active in 4-H. Thereafter, as sheriff he was heavily involved in the promotion of 4-H programs. In 1981, he established the Charles Fuselier Livestock Award, named for his father, and the subsequent Charles Fuselier Scholarship in 2002. In 2008, he was inducted into the 4-H Hall of Fame, housed in a museum in Avoyelles Parish south of Alexandria.
Fuselier died at the age of seventy-three at St. Mark's Medical Center in La Grange, Texas. His services were held at the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in New Iberia, Louisiana.<ref name=fobit/>

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