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Ville Platte Rotary Club President Peter Strawitz, left, Rotary member Annie Fruge, and her father and fellow Rotary member Vic Slaven. Slaven and Fruge are the first Ville Platte Rotary Club father-daugther members. (Gazette photo by Claudette Olivier)

Rotary relations

Ville Platte Rotary club has first-ever father-daughter membership

By: CLAUDETTE OLIVIER
Lifestyles Editor

The Ville Platte Rotary Club now has its first father-daughter membership.
Annie Slaven Fruge, one of the newest members of the club, is the daughter of Christine Slaven and fellow Rotary member Vic Slaven, a local certified public accountant. Slaven is part owner of Kolder, Champagne, Slaven & Co.
Fruge was the guest speaker at the February 7 Rotary meeting, and she took the time to introduce herself to her fellow club members.
Fruge grew up in Ville Platte, and she attended Sacred Heart Catholic School. While in school, she played softball and tennis, and Fruge was also active in organizations including drama, choir and Future Business Leaders of America. She was a Louisiana Cotton Festival Cotton Picker as well.
Fruge has been married to Eric Fruge for nine years, and the couple has an 18-month old son.
Fruge graduated third in her class from Sacred Heart. Following graduation, she attended Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge to study marketing. Fruge graduated in 2006 in the top 10 percent of her class with a GPA of 3.95.
“I didn’t quite hit my goal of university medalist, but I was close,” she said, laughing.
After graduating, Fruge and her mother decided to go into business together, and the duo opened a Planet Beach franchise in Lafayette.
“The concept of that is an automated day spa that allows people to have a relaxing spa experience at a fraction of the cost and in far less time than a traditional day spay,” Fruge said. “It is a membership based company. I learned a lot at that job. That was my first real experience working with the public. I learned that there are some really great people out there, but there are also some really not so great people out there and you have to work with all of them.”
Seven years after opening the franchise, Fruge’s father approached her and told her that his CPA firm was interested in expanding into financial services and bringing the services to the Ville Platte office.
“Knowing that was going to be a good opportunity for me, my mom and I decided to go ahead and sell our Planet Beach business, which we did,” Fruge.
Fruge then obtained her Series 6 and Series 7 licenses.
A Series 6 license or limited-investment securities license allows the holder to sell investment products such as mutual funds, variable annuities and unit investment trusts.
A Series 7 license or general securities representative license allows the holder to sell types of individual security like common and preferred stocks; call and put options; bonds and other individual fixed income investments.
Fruge also has her Life, Health and Accident license.
After earning her licenses, Fruge joined KCS wealth advisors.
“Once I started working with them, which was three years ago, I started as a license assistant, doing an apprenticeship with our advisors in our Lafeyette office,” Fruge said. While I was doing that, I was doing an on-boarding process with First Global, which is our broker dealer.
“First Global is unique in the fact that it only works with CPA firms, so in order to work with First Global, you have to be affiliated with a CPA firm.”
While doing her apprenticeship and her on-boarding training, which took two years, Fruge obtained her Accredited Asset Management Specialist designation from the College of Financial Planning.
“After obtaining that designation, I was off and running on my own, so now I am working in the Ville Platte office as a full time financial advisor,”
Services offered in Ville Platte through KCS wealth advisors and all of its firms include investment planning, retirement planning, education planning, tax planning, estate planning, business planning and insurance planning.
“We offer life insurance, disability long term care, if you need assistance for setting up savings plans for your children, your grandchildren to go to college, if you need assistance with setting up retirement plans or anything that needs tax planning, we do all that for you,” Fruge said. “This is stuff that we can do in our Ville Platte office.”
When she is not working, Fruge is an active animal rescue volunteer with the Animal Rescue Foundation of Louisiana, and she has been with the Sunset-based organization for eight years. She also participates in community theater through the Opelousas Little Theater, and she has acted in musicals and directed youth theater productions.

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