Man on the go

Randy Deshotel is seemingly everywhere.
The Evangeline Parish Clerk of Court can be spotted at the Ville Platte Rotary Club meeting held every Tuesday at Main Street Pizza & Pub. During the fall, Deshotel can be seen helping behind the scenes and on the stage for the Louisiana Cotton Festival, and on a fall Friday evening in nearby Washington at the Steamboat Restraurant Deshotel is dancing during the Bras on the Bayou event for Breast Cancer Awareness.
The 56-year-old wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I think it is a gift,” Deshotel said. “I just love being with people and meeting new people. My father is a lot like that and he was involved in everything here in the community. At the end of the day, I love being out there with people.”
“He is the kind of person that never forgets the community and the people,” Evangeline Parish Police Juror Eric Soileau. “I think if Randy retired tomorrow that he would still support all those organizations. That is just the type of guy he is.”
Deshotel was born in New Orleans but came to Evangeline Parish when his father Dr. Bobby Deshotel returned home to open a practice in Ville Platte and then soon after Basile. Deshotel grew up in Basile, graduated high school there before heading off to LSU where he received his bachelor’s degree in Industrial Management in 1982.
Deshotel’s initial plan after graduation was to get a job at the local plant but that is not how things turned out.
“I was going to work for Cameron Works but that was the time of the strike,” said Deshotel, a proud father of three daughters. “So I got a job working for Savoy Medical Center.”
After five years with Savoy, Deshotel joined Citizens Bank and he would work there for the better part of 20 years serving in the role of branch manager. The brief period he didn’t work there Deshotel worked for the Louisiana Land Bank and that experience opened the door to his current position.
“When I worked for Louisiana Land Bank I worked with plenty of Clerk of Court Offices and Courthouses,” Deshotel remembered. “I got interested by the inner workings of the clerk’s office. I learned that nothing moves in the parish without coming through the clerk’s office.”
Deshotel had a growing interest in the office, and it seemed only natural that he too would be elected to a local political office as family members had before him. His great grandfather was former Registrar of Voters Oscar Black Fusilier, and of course his father is the longest serving school board in the state and is a former mayor of Basile.
But it wasn’t his local political lineage that made him the best person for the job.
“When the seat was becoming available I just knew that he would make a great Clerk of Court,” said Soileau, who has been close friends with Deshotel for more than three decades. “He connects with young people and he connects with old people. He connects with you on any level that you want.
“He is a people person and you need that in that office. You need people to be comfortable when they come into that office and he does that.”
Deshotel entered that 2011 race to replace the retiring Walter Lee running against four other local men including Ben Soileau, Walter Lee, Greg Tate, and Weber Lee Deshotels. Deshotel and Soileau made the runoff with Deshotel winning the runoff 52 to 48 percent. Deshotel ran unopposed in 2015 and was reelected to a second term.
The thing that Deshotel is the most proud of from that first run for public office was the political tone that all five candidates displayed.
“It was one of the most respectful and polite political races the parish has seen,” Deshotel said. “There was no mudslinging. It was all very respectful.”
Under his leadership the clerk’s office, which employs a staff of 10, has embraced digital platforms as residents can now do research online. All of the records and operating system is backed up digitally on the Cloud, which has helped make the office a 21st Century operation.
“If the courthouse ever blows up we can get on a computer and starting running the office in minutes,” said Deshotel, who cites his staff’s extensive experience as a ‘blessing.’
“In his first term he brought the office more up to date to better serve the public,” Deputy Clerk of Court Tony Marks said. “If he keeps it up he will serve 13 more terms like our previous clerk Walter Lee.”
Deshotel though has no plans of serving that long but is excited about what he can do in the years to come as the Evangeline Parish Clerk of Court.
“I don’t want to break Mr. Walter’s record,” Deshotel said. “I just want to be here as long as I can do the job and as long as I can continue helping the community.”