Patricia Ann Turner Riddick

Patricia Turner Riddick passed away on May 5th, 2025 in her hometown of Baton Rouge after a brief stay in hospice and a long battle with organ failure. Despite challenges, she took to heart Matthew 25:14–30, and never buried her talents, nor did she allow others to bury theirs. She dedicated herself to teaching students and fellow attorneys how to fight the twin devils of poverty: inequality and public corruption.

Pat was born in Buckhorn, Kentucky in 1939 of tough hillbilly stock in coal mining country and spent early summers with her siblings Nancy and Earl Kenneth, Jr. at her grandparents farm on the side of a mountain in Wofford where her beloved grandmother, Nan Jones, taught her to respect and help the less fortunate. Her English, Irish and Scottish roots had just a touch of New World Cherokee heritage. The family moved to Lafayette for her father's professorship at USL (now ULL).

At Lafayette High, Pat studied speech and debate with Novalyne Price. Pat also loved the piano and excelled in math, science and social studies - three loves she passed along to her son. Participating in the school choir took her across the South from Washington, DC to Texas. In lieu of the standard high school senior trip, her generous voice teacher Miss Alston took their high school quartet to Mississippi on an unusual and memorable road trip for young women in the South in the 1950s. Pat sang soprano/alto with her friends Jean Williams Cornay (soprano), Gayle Chachere Hartman and Phoebe Blanchard (deep alto) on the way to the beach and back while visiting the historical sites.

Pat received a bachelors in political science at USL in 1961 with a minor in French and studied Russian. There in Spanish class, she met her future husband of 63 years, Winston Riddick, and they married on Christmas Day, 1961. Pat served as editor of the college paper, The Vermillion, and was elected SGA Secretary. In the summer of 1960, she participated in Operation Crossroads Africa, the precursor to the Peace Corps, where her group built a school in Mamou, Guinea - work featured in a one hour CBS Reports and an article that put her on the cover of Look Magazine.

She took PhD courses in political science at UNO, Tulane and Columbia University in New York, where she studied under Zbigniew Brzezinski and edited college textbooks for International Publishing, Inc. After receiving her law degree from LSU in 1982, she clerked for Judge Melvin Shortess on Louisiana's First Court of Appeal. She taught political science at Southern University over 23 years, beginning in 1969, and took a particular interest in civil rights and constitutional law.

She was proud of numerous papers she delivered on legal ethics for CLEs and her work as a certified fraud examiner fighting corruption in banking, insurance and public service. She served as general counsel at the Louisiana Department of Insurance, where she assisted federal fraud investigations. Prior to that, she was senior attorney at the Office of Financial Institutions, handling banking regulation; an attorney at the Department of Agriculture and Forestry and also a managing partner of Riddick & Riddick law firm. She had a lifelong concern for environmental justice which served her son well when he dealt with heavy metals poisoning. In later years, she put her analytical skills to work with her friends at the women's investment club, Bungee Jumpers.

She was a gifted and prolific artist in knitting, photography, drawing, fashion, world cuisine and jewelry-making. She helped organize and coach her son's softball team and designed its jerseys. She enjoyed sewing animal costumes for Halloween and team mascots and was proud of the Riddick family crest she designed. Pat enjoyed family trips across Latin America and Europe. She spent the summer of 1965 driving from Crowley, Louisiana with her husband down the InterAmerican Highway to the Panama Canal and back, a 6000 mile trip through 6 countries. As part of the many travels that allowed her to flex her language skills, she visited Haiti with her husband to provide charitable assistance and help reform the country's legal system, serving as his French translator in a meeting with the nation's President, Réne Préval.

She enjoyed fixing spicy peanut butter chicken recipes from Africa for her son's classes and took great interest in studying other cultures, especially Mexican folk art and Incan ruins. She loved animals, starting with a pet flying squirrel named Scamper she carried around in a coat pocket everywhere she went as a little girl, prompting one friend to tease her, "What's the matter, Pat? You can't afford a dog?" She later did get dogs - several basset hounds - and had a particular fondness for cats. In her retirement, she loved patient walks in the family garden. She lived for moments of rare serendipity in nature, its mysteries of split-seconds frozen eternally by cameras, revealing the secret lives of bees and flowers or cats and hummingbirds.

She is preceded in death by her mother, Mary Lee Jones, and father, Dr. Earl Kenneth Turner, Sr; sister Nancy Turner-Alvet; in-laws Claude Riddick, Carla Riddick, Bob and Maxine Willoughby and nephew Hugh Riddick. She is survived by her husband of 63 years, Winston Riddick and son, Wade Riddick, both of Baton Rouge; in-laws Curtis Riddick; brother Earl Turner, Jr., both of Houston, and nephews Greg Riddick, Randy Riddick, John Willoughby, Robert Willoughby, Ken Turner and nieces Patty Riddick Carter, Cheryl Riddick, Elizabeth (Willoughby) Luebchow, Kate (Turner) Evetts and Pam Turner.

A memorial service will be held at 10am, Saturday May 17 at Rabenhorst Funeral Home, 11,000 Florida BLVD. A luncheon will be arranged afterwards where many of her festive floral and wreath arrangements will be given away to any friends and family interested.

Interment is on June 7, 10 am at Riddick Cemetery in Troy, Arkansas.