Civic leader Virginia Shehee dies at 91

Virginia Kilpatrick Shehee, prominent Northwest Louisiana businesswoman, political activist and philanthropist, died late Monday after a lengthy illness, just under a week shy of her 92nd birthday.

Born in Houston, on July 12, 1923, she left "her legacy all over this community," said historian Gary Joiner, who was involved with Shehee in a number of activities, notably support of Oakland Cemetery. "The Strand Theater, the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra, the Louisiana State Fair. She was very involved."

Longtime friend Fletcher Thorne-Thomsen, retired former owner of FabSteel and Par Excellence, worked with Shehee on a number of projects in the 60-plus years he'd known her.

"Virginia was always one to pitch in and help," he said. "Any time anybody asked her or she volunteered herself to work, it was always successful. She just did a wonderful job. She worked hard."

Former Times staffer and now spokeswoman for Willis-Knighton Health System Marilyn Joiner served with Shehee on the board of the Oakland Cemetery Preservation Society but also worked with her almost two decades earlier on Shreveport Symphony projects.

"I knew her in her later active years and she was as alert 15 years after that with Oakland," Marilyn Joiner said. When she asked 'What do you need?' you knew she cared."

She also said years of hearing movers and shakers in the community speak of Shehee proved one thing: She was someone who only had to use her first name to get things done.

"When someone said 'Well, Virginia said...' or 'Virginia wants...', everybody knew who it was," she said. "You never had to finish it with 'Shehee.' I've heard that all over the community."

Shehee entered active public life in 1971 after her mother, Nellie Peters Kilpatrick, died in an airplane crash. Heading the family concerns Kilpatrick Life Insurance Company and Rose-Neath Funeral Homes, she led a powerful and diverse business base that allowed her to enter into politics and philanthropy, lending her support to a wide variety of causes.

She served from 1976 to 1980 as the state senator from District 38 in Caddo and DeSoto parishes, winning her seat in the 1975 general election by 23 votes over incumbent C. Kay Carter.

According to published sources, Shehee's father, the late Lonnie Benjamin Kilpatrick, was a personal friend of one of Louisiana's more colorful governors, former Shreveporter and singer Jimmie Davis, who often visited the Kilpatricks and took an interest in Virginia Shehee's career. Shehee was active in Davis's later birthday celebrations, especially as he reached and passed the century mark.

The landscape of Caddo and Bossier parishes literally reflects her influence. In Shreveport, she was a partner with local pediatricians Dr. Thomas E. Strain Sr., and his son, Dr. Jimmy Strain, a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1968 to 1972, in erecting the former Fountain Towers, a signature structure on Fairfield Avenue. In Bossier City, she created Rose-Neath Cemetery.

She also was chairwoman-emeritus of the Biomedical Research Foundation of Northwest Louisiana, which in 1996 was renamed in her honor.

She served on the transition team of governors Buddy Roemer and Mike Foster and in 2007, helped lead Gov. Bobby Jindal's ethics team.

A Byrd High graduate, she later attended Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, and Centenary College, for which she served as a trustee.

"She was a true lady," Gary Joiner said. "She had a very gentle soul. She did a tremendous amount of good nobody ever knew about."

She was married twice. Her second husband, William Peyton Shehee, died in 2004.

She is survived by three daughters, Ann Shane Shehee, Nell Elizabeth Shehee Kramer and Margaret Shehee Cole, and a son, Andrew Michael "Andy" Shehee.

Services for Virginia Shehee are pending.