Eddie Joseph Richard

A native of Lafayette, Louisiana, Eddie was born on December 16, 1949, to Ida Granger Richard and Clarence Louis Richard. On Thanksgiving Day in 1969, he married Nancy Broussard, also of Lafayette, his best friend, and partner for fifty-two years.

Eddie received his B.A. in Music from U.S.L. (now U.L.) in Lafayette in 1972. He was awarded a Fellowship in Applied Music at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, where he completed his Master’s Recital on trombone in 1974. Over the next four decades, Eddie performed with L’Orchestre, the Acadiana Symphony, the Shreveport-Bossier Metropolitan Community Band, trombone jazz ensembles, and the Acadian Wind Symphony.

For thirty-three years, Eddie worked for Zimmer Orthopedics in Lafayette, Greensboro, North Carolina, in metro New Orleans, and in Many, Louisiana. As a sales representative, he was honored with Zimmer’s President’s Award and later became a regional manager and contract negotiator.

Following his wife’s retirement and their move to Many, Louisiana, Eddie was invited to join the Knights of Columbus Council at St. John the Baptist Parish. He served as Financial Secretary, became a Fourth Degree Knight, and was elected Grand Knight for the local Council. A charter member of the parish choir, he was a devoted and faithful altar server at Sunday mass. In Many, Eddie was his wife’s valuable right hand in her Trap-Neuter-Return work with feral cats, driving countless pre-dawn transports to a Shreveport clinic and assisting in the care and feeding of local colonies. When yet another hungry cat appeared at their doorstep, he never refused Nancy’s plea to take on yet another. At one time their family was home to thirteen cats and two dogs.

Eddie was preceded in death by his parents and his sister Brenda Hargrave. He is survived by his wife, sons Matthew (Jessica), Michael (Dena), grandchildren Noah, Alyssa, and Lydian Richard, brothers Michael Jude (Catherine) and Bryan Richard, sisters Karen (Kelly) Bourque, Rebecca (Rudy) Huebner, Amy Matt, and many nieces, nephews, and great-nieces and -nephews.

Visitation will be held on Friday, May 13th, 2022, from 11 to 1, with a mass to follow in the chapel at Leitz-Eagan Funeral Home, 4747 Veterans Memorial Blvd. Metairie, Louisiana. Interment will occur at a later date in the columbarium at Calvary Cemetery in Lafayette. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.