Reflections with Don Bacque/Vietnam, A Walk in the Park
Saturday, April 5th
10:00AM – 10:45AM
Shadows Visitors Center, 320 East Main Street
Don Bacque graduated from LSU in 1968 and immediately went into the Army where he graduated from Officer Candidate School, Airborne and Special Forces school. He went to Vietnam in September 1969 and served with 5th Special Forced, the Green Berets, until retuning home in September 1970. He describes his tour of duty as much more comedic than heroic, and wrote a book chronicling that experience; A Walk in the Park, a Vietnam Comedy, the subject of his presentation.
He is married for 56 years to Cookie and they have 2 girls and 5 grandchildren.
He has been active in the area of business and succession planning for over 50 years, specializing in the Family Owned Business Market, with a designation from the American College as a “Certified Family Business Specialist”.
He has been active in civic affairs, heading up numerous organizations. In 1982, he served as President of the Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce. In 1983, he received the Distinguished Service Award given annually by the Lafayette Jaycees, and he organized a Vietnam Veterans group in Lafayette, as well as serving as state co-chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Committee that built a memorial in New Orleans to the 881 Louisiana Vietnam veterans who did not return.
In 1986 he was the founding chairman of Leadership Lafayette, a community leadership program sponsored by the Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce.
Don served as State Representative for District 43 from 1987 through 1991, and considers himself to be a “recovering” politician.
He is a past president of the Acadiana Chapter of CLU/ChFC and both past and current president of the Lafayette Estate & Business Planning Council. He is currently a life member of the Million Dollar Round Table.
Don has represented MassMutual Financial Group in Lafayette for the past 30 years.
