Kathleen Blanco - Early Life and Career

Early Life and Career

She was born Kathleen Babineaux in New Iberia, Louisiana, the daughter of Louis Babineaux and his wife, the former Lucille Fremin, both of Cajun ancestry. Her Babineaux grandfather was a farmer and grocer with a country store, and her father was a small businessman who moved to the rural hamlet of Coteau near New Iberia; the community has one church and one elementary school. Blanco attended Mount Carmel Academy, an all-girls school run by the Catholic Sisters of Mount Carmel, which was situated on the banks of Bayou Teche. (The school closed in the middle 1980s with the majority of girls transferring to Catholic High School). In 1964, Blanco received a Bachelor of Science in Business Education from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, then named the University of Southwestern Louisiana. On August 8, 1964, she married Raymond Blanco, a football coach and educator; the couple has four daughters: Karmen, Monique, Nicole, and Pilar and two sons: Ray, Jr., and Ben.

Following college, she taught business at Breaux Bridge High School. She then worked for roughly fifteen years as a stay-at-home mom for her six children. She later worked as a District Manager for the U.S. Department of Commerce during the 1980 Dicennial Census initiative and with her husband, owned Coteau Consultants, a political and marketing research firm.

Prior to her election as governor, she served 20 years in public office. elected in 1983 as the first woman legislator from the city of Lafayette, she served five years in the Louisiana House of Representatives. She then became the first woman in Louisiana elected to the Public Service Commission, where she served seven years, where she was chosen to preside as the first woman chair of the PSC. She was then elected Lieutenant Governor, where she served for eight years.