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Regular Session, 2012 ENROLLED
SENATE RESOLUTION NO. 127
BY SENATOR JOHNS
A RESOLUTION
To commend Louis Bonnette for forty-six years of dedicated service to McNeese State
University on the occasion of his retirement.
WHEREAS, Louis Bonnette is the Senior Associate Athletic Director in charge of
sports information and Sports Information Director at McNeese State University; and
WHEREAS, effective July 1, 2012, he will retire ending a tenure that began in 1966,
a career that has spanned the course of six decades; and
WHEREAS, Louis Bonnette, who will be seventy-two in December, came to the
university before the position of sports information director existed, from being a reporter
for the Beaumont (Texas) Enterprise to being hired by Jim Wynn as an assistant director for
the McNeese News Bureau, which included sports information; and
WHEREAS, in 1970 the position was moved to the athletic department, where he
also took on roles as the ticket manager and business manager; and
WHEREAS, Louis Bonnette has worked many long and hard hours to bring the story
of McNeese State athletics to the state, region, and nation, and has promoted numerous
McNeese State players to All-America honors, including NBA Hall of Famer Joe Dumars,
while always maintaining a positive approach to his work and seeing the best in everyone,
with everybody considered as a friend; and
WHEREAS, he has witnessed and been a part of the vast changes in the manner in
which information is disseminated - from telephone dictation, telecopier, typewriter,
computer, the Internet, and now Facebook and Twitter; and
WHEREAS, Louis Bonnette has two sons and both are sports information directors,
Michael at LSU and Matthew at Northwestern State University and has countless former
student assistants who have also gone into the business; and SR NO. 127 ENROLLED
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WHEREAS, Matthew Bonnette, a 2002 graduate of McNeese State University, will
succeed his father as sports information director at McNeese; and
WHEREAS, Louis Bonnette is a native of Pineville and a 1963 graduate of Louisiana
Tech University in Journalism; and
WHEREAS, he is also a past two term president of the Louisiana Sports Writers
Association and has been the recipient of the LSWA's Mac Russo Award; has received the
Distinguished Service Award from the LSWA; was named to the Southland Conference Hall
of Honor in 2007; has also been inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, in the
sports journalism division; is a member of the McNeese Hall of Fame which he founded and
serves as its chairman; is active in CoSIDA and served on its academic All-America
committee; and holds the CoSIDA record for consecutive football games worked, 257; and
WHEREAS, he is the only sports information director in the nation for whom a
football field - Louis Bonnette Field - has been named; and
WHEREAS, Louis Bonnette stated that his pending retirement will give him time to
write, golf, fish, and spend time with his grandchildren.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Legislature of Louisiana that
Louis Bonnette is hereby commended and congratulated for forty-six years of dedicated and
exemplary service to McNeese State University on the occasion of his retirement.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that best wishes are extended to him for every
happiness and success in his future endeavors.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this Resolution be transmitted to Louis
Bonnette.
PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE