Jack Breaux

Jack Louis Breaux, Sr. (November 6, 1926 – January 26, 1980) was the Republican mayor of Zachary, Louisiana, in East Baton Rouge Parish for nearly fourteen years — from his first election in 1966 until his death of a brain tumor. He was also the first member of his party since Reconstruction to head the municipal government of a Louisiana city.

Breaux (no relation to Democratic U.S. Senator John Breaux) was elected as a part-time mayor in the spring of 1966. In 1978 the Zachary municipal charter was altered to provide for a full-time mayor, and Breaux (pronounced BRO) was again chosen to lead his community.

Background

Breaux was born in Carencro, (Lafayette Parish), where his father, Lawrence L. Breaux, had been mayor. He graduated from Carencro High School and thereafter served in the United States Navy in World War II. After the war, he attended the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, then the University of Southwestern Louisiana, from 1947 to 1950. He moved to Zachary in 1951. He was an industrial and labor relations supervisor at Copolymer Rubber and Chemical Corp., until his retirement to become Zachary's full-time mayor in 1978.