Margaret Benoit

Margaret Rush Braswell Benoit passed from this life February 8th, 2011, at age 92, surrounded by family. She was born April 3rd, 1918, in Mansfield, LA, and grew up in Haynesville and Arcadia, where she was living at the time of that town’s most famous event, the ambush of legendary outlaws Bonnie and Clyde. From valedictorian at Arcadia High, Margaret moved onto the Honor Roll at Louisiana Normal School, now Northwestern State University. After graduation, she ventured south and for five years taught 5th grade at Westlake Elementary. During that time she met the dashing LeRoy Benoit and freelanced as Westlake social correspondent for the Lake Charles American Press. When they married she left teaching and moved to Lake Charles.

Margaret’s love of language and knowledge could not be long restrained, she continued with the paper, interviewing political figures like Chep Morrison and Ronald Reagan, and covering events like Hurricane Audrey and the trial of Wilbert Rideau. She eventually became Lake Charles correspondent for the Beaumont Enterprise, the Beaumont Journal, and the Shreveport Times, which named her Correspondent of the Year in 1961.

Meanwhile, Margaret and Leroy’s family was growing. Dennis arrived in 1947, Elizabeth “Betty” in 1950, Yvonne in 1952, and Michelle in 1957. Then, in 1961, tragedy struck when LeRoy was killed in a plant explosion at the Conoco facility in Westlake. Now a single mother, Margaret was confronted with tragedy again when her only son was killed in a car accident in 1966.

Margaret eventually became librarian at Oak Park Junior High. She continued her education, earning a Masters +30, and watched her daughters earn their own degrees and begin families. Margaret’s love of travel took her to over two dozen countries, and every continent except Australia; but most of all she loved to be at her fishing camps on the West Fork of the Calcasieu River.

She is survived by her three daughters; her grandchildren, Philip Hall II, Aaron Richardson, Kevin Richardson, and Lara Hall; and great-grandchild Simone Richardson.

A graveside memorial will be held at Prien Memorial Cemetery in Lake Charles at 2 p.m. on Saturday, February 19th, 2011. Well-wishers are encouraged to make donations to Calcasieu Parish Library, Children's Book Fund: In Memoriam Margaret Benoit, 301 W. Claude St., Lake Charles, LA 70605, and to visit www.forevermissed.com/margaret-benoit