Vance Plauche

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Vance Gabriel Plauche (August 25, 1897 -- April 2, 1976) was a Lake Charles attorney and civic leader who represented the Seventh Congressional District of Louisiana in the United States House of Representatives as a Democrat for a single term from 1941 to 1943.

Plauche (pronounced "PLO-SHAY") was born in Plaucheville in Avoyelles Parish to Etienne Arthur Plauche and the former Maria A. Gremillion, who were wed on December 1, 1890. He was educated in public and private schools in Marksville, the Avoyelles Parish seat of government.

In 1914, Plauche graduated from St. Francis Xavier's College in New Orleans (not to be confused with the predominantly black Xavier University of Louisiana). In 1918, he obtained his LL.B. degree from Loyola University, also in New Orleans, and was the president of his senior class.

Plauche was a law clerk in the office of the Louisiana attorney general from 1916-1918. During the same period, he was the secretary of the Louisiana Board of Pardons. Near the end of World War I, Plauche was a private in Base Hospital 102 in Italy from 1918-1919.

Plauche was admitted to the bar in 1918 and practiced law in the Lake Charles firm of Plauche and Plauche from 1920 to 1927. He then joined Oliver Stockwell in the partnership Plauche and Stockwell from 1934 to 1975. The firm became Stockwell, Sievert, Viccellio, Clements & Shaddock.

Plauche was a director of Calcasieu Savings and Loan Association and Plauche Engineering, Inc. He was the Lake Charles city attorney from 1928-1932 and the district counsel to the Home Owners' Loan Corporation from 1933-1935.

In 1940, he served as secretary of the Louisiana Civil Service Commission and was a delegate to the Democratic State Convention in Baton Rouge. That same year he was elected to Congress. He did not seek a second term in 1942.

Plauche was a member of the American and Louisiana bar associations and a trustee of the Lake Charles Public Library. He was also a member of the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. He was active in the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana, the Kiwanis Club, the Order of the Elks, and the Lake Charles Golf and Country Club.

Plauche was a member of the Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church in Lake Charles. In 1949, he was named a "Knight of St. Gregory" by Pope Pius XII. He was a member of the Knights of Columbus men's organization and the "grand knight" of the Calcasieu Council No. 1207. He enjoyed the study of ancient and modern history.

On September 24, 1923, Plauche married the former Marie Amire Bush of New Orleans. They had a son, Vance William Plauche (born 1924) of Lake Charles, who ran for Congress in 1968 as a Republican against the popular Democrat Edwin Washington Edwards. Edwards (born 1927) defeated Plauche, 84.9 to 15.1 percent, in the same Seventh District that Plauche's father had represented twenty-eight years earlier.

Plauche is interred in Consolata Cemetery in Lake Charles.

Preceded by Rene L. DeRouen (D)	United States Representative for the 7th Congressional District of Louisiana Vance Gabriel Plauche (D) 1941–1943	Succeeded by Henry D. Larcade, Jr., (D)