Vance Plauché

Vance Gabriel Plauché (August 25, 1897 – April 2, 1976) was an attorney and civic leader from Lake Charles, Louisiana, who represented Louisiana's 7th congressional district, since disbanded, in the United States House of Representatives. A Democrat, Plauché served for a single term from 1941 to 1943.

Biography
Plauché (pronounced "PLO-SHAY") was born in Plaucheville in Avoyelles Parish to Etienne Arthur Plauché and the former Maria A. Gremillion, who were wed on December 1, 1890. He was educated in public and private schools in Marksville, the Avoyelles Parish seat of government.

In 1914, Plauché graduated from St. Francis Xavier's College in New Orleans (not to be confused with the predominantly African American Xavier University of Louisiana). In 1918, he obtained his LL.B. degree from Loyola University, also in New Orleans, and was the president of his senior class.

Plauché was a law clerk in the office of the Louisiana attorney general from 1916-1918. During the same period, he was the secretary of the Louisiana Board of Pardons. Near the end of World War I, Plauché was a private in Base Hospital 102 in Italy from 191 to 1919.

Plauché was admitted to the bar in 1918 and practiced law in the Lake Charles firm of Plauché and Plauché from 1920 to 1927. He then joined Oliver Stockwell in the partnership Plauché and Stockwell from 1934 to 1975. The firm became Stockwell, Sievert, Viccellio, Clements & Shaddock.

Plauché was a director of Calcasieu Savings and Loan Association and Plauché Engineering, Inc. He was the Lake Charles city attorney from 1928–1932 and the district counsel to the Home Owners' Loan Corporation from 1933-1935.

In 1940, he was a campaigner for the successful gubernatorial candidate, Sam Houston Jones of Lake Charles. Plauché served as secretary of the Louisiana Civil Service Commission and was a delegate to the Democratic State Convention in Baton Rouge. That same year he was unopposed for a vacant seat in Congress when the Democratic incumbent René L. De Rouen decided to retire. Plauché served only a single term and did not seek reelection in 1942.

Plauché was a member of the American and Louisiana bar associations and a trustee of the Lake Charles Public Library. He was also a member of the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. He was active in the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana, the Kiwanis Club, the Order of the Elks, and the Lake Charles Golf and Country Club.

Plauché was a member of the Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church in Lake Charles. In 1949, he was named a "Knight of St. Gregory" by Pope Pius XII. He was a member of the Knights of Columbus men's organization and the "grand knight" of the Calcasieu Council No. 1207. He enjoyed the study of ancient and modern history.

On September 24, 1923, Plauché married the former Marie Amire Bush of New Orleans. They had a son, Vance William Plauché (1924-2013) of Lake Charles, who ran for Congress in 1968 as a Republican against the popular Democrat Edwin Washington Edwards. Edwards defeated Plauché, 84.9 to 15.1 percent, in the same Seventh District that Plauché's father had represented twenty-eight years earlier.

Plauché is interred at Consolata Cemetery in Lake Charles. His son is interred at Prien Memorial Park in Lake Charles.