Glenn Alan Koepp

Funeral services for Glenn Alan Koepp will be held at 11:00am on July 24, 2021 at Rabenhorst Funeral Home Downtown with burial following at Roselawn Memorial Park. Visitation will take place on Friday from 5:00pm until 7:00pm and again on Saturday from 9:30am until services begin at 11:00am. Mr. Koepp passed away on July 19, 2021 at the age of 76. He was a nationally recognized expert on reapportionment and redistricting which earned him the nickname “Godfather of Redistricting.” Glenn’s experience on the subject begins in 1981 when he was placed in charge of Senate redistricting; since that time he has created four redistricting plans for the Senate, assisted in the creation of applicable software systems, and has consulted in redistricting plans for other states and local governing authorities. As an undergraduate at LSU, he received a degree in political science and even entertained a career in chemistry; however, while attending the Paul St. Herbert Law Center at LSU, in 1972, he happened upon employment with the Louisiana House of Representatives as an assistant sergeant at arms; he met Dick Barrios and Butch Speer and served as a sergeant at arms for the Constitutional Convention of 1973. Thus began a lengthy career in state government with the House of Representatives, the Legislative Council, and eventually, the Louisiana State Senate. Glenn was assigned as attorney for the House Retirement Committee chaired by Representative Shady Wall, an influential force of nature, who fired Glenn every other day; however, Glenn handled him carefully, learned to draft amendments “on the fly”, and completed a research project on the retirement systems. Glenn’s expertise led to his appointment as Special Master in two court challenges, Hays vs. Louisiana and Grieg, et al. vs. City of St. Martinville, in the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana. Glenn Koepp was soon hired as a banking lobbyist and continued to sharpen his legislative drafting skills; he was appointed as director of the Legislative Bureau by Senate President Michael O’Keefe and he became assistant secretary of the Senate in 1981. His reapportionment and redistricting projects began in earnest and Glenn would become secretary of the Senate in 2004 by a vote of the membership with Senator Don Hines as president of the Senate; and the next fifteen years were quite exciting and flew by in a blur. One of his proudest achievements was his work in advocating for the educational rights of children with disabilities where he and his wife, Anna, established a statewide organization with the purpose of advocating for those children. Reared on a farm in Washington Parish near Bogalusa, Glenn led a “Tom Sawyer” existence filled with headstrong boyhood adventures, hunting, fishing, and sports. Throughout his entire life, he loved hunting and fishing especially hunting Elk in Colorado. Glenn was a serious LSU fan and storyteller without equal; a talent he inherited from his grandfather, his father Cyril, and his mother Leota; he can weave a story in such rich detail that it becomes a shared experience; he can hold the attention of his audience, who was always engrossed in the suspense until the very end, which was sometimes punctuated with a joke. Glenn had an easy-going demeanor that was quite intuitive; he had the uncanny ability to identify an individual’s mood by merely observing their actions for a moment. That spirit of adventure took him around the continent to hunt all manner of wild beasts, to fly fish in streams of Alaska, and to deep water fish in the Gulf of Mexico; his inquisitive nature longs to see ‘what is around the next bend’. Glenn Koepp has seen it all; as his last legislative session drew to a close in June 2019, he reflected fondly on the history that he witnessed and the friendship he made. Glenn has been married to his wife Anna for forty-nine years; their sons have found success in rehabilitation disciplines; Cooper is a massage therapist and Daniel is an outdoor behavioral therapist. Mr. Koepp is survived by his wife of 49 years, Anna H. Koepp; sons, Cooper Thomas Koepp, Daniel Gentry Koepp; sisters, Jan Bollinger, Kay Taylor; brother, Gregory Reed Koepp, numerous nieces and nephews, lifelong hunting companion, Richard Creel and many dear friends in the state and national senate. He was preceded in death by his parents, Cyril O. Koepp and Leota Koepp. Rabenhorst Funeral Home Downtown is in charge of arrangements.