Former Carnival King Eads Poitevent Is Dead
Times Picayune 11-6-1996

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St. Tammany developer Eads Poitevent Jr., a developer and former New Orleans
banker who reigned as king of Carnival in 1974, died Monday at his home in
Mandeville. He was 76.

Mr. Poitevent, who learned three years ago that he had Parkinson's disease,
created the Greenleaves subdivision near Mandeville, one of the largest
subdivisions in St. Tammany Parish, and the Southwind subdivision in Abita
Springs.

"I think he was an innovative thinker," Mandeville lawyer Edward Deano Jr.
said. "He was someone who had a vision for the area and worked hard to bring
it about."

Mr. Poitevent began his banking career with the National Bank of Commerce. In
1958, at age 39, he became president of National American Bank of New Orleans.
Four years later, he moved to Houston to become president and director of
Business Funds Inc.

He returned to New Orleans in 1965 and helped form International City Bank.
The bank introduced several innovations into New Orleans banking, such as
Saturday hours and gifts for depositors, but it failed in 1976 and its
accounts were taken over by the Bank of New Orleans.

Mr. Poitevent was the bank's chief executive officer until 1974, when he moved
to Mandeville. He was crowned Rex the same year.

Mr. Poitevent was born in New Orleans in 1919 and raised there and in
Mandeville, where his family was active in the lumber industry. He attended
New Orleans Academy and graduated from Tulane University in 1942 with a degree
in business administration. He also was a graduate of the Stonier Graduate
School of Banking at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

During World War II, he commanded a motor torpedo boat in the Mediterranean
Sea and the Philippines and was decorated for sinking an enemy destroyer. He
retired from the Navy in 1946 as a lieutenant.

Mr. Poitevent was involved in many charitable groups, notably the Leukemia
Society of America, of which he was national president in 1970. He also was
active in the United Fund.

He was a past president of the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce, the Dock Board
and the New Orleans Area Council of the Boy Scouts. He was a former honorary
British consul in Louisiana.

A Mandeville landmark, the Poitevent house on Lakeshore Drive had been in the
family since 1910, when Mr. Poitevent's father, John, opened the Poitevent-
Favre Mill between Mandeville and Lewisburg.

The house, as well as the five-acre property that spread from Lakeshore Drive
to Jefferson Street, was sold last year to New Orleans artist Emery Clark.

Survivors include his wife, Ginette Bertin Poitevent; three sons, William
James, Eads III and Edward Butts Poitevent II, all of New Orleans; two
stepsons, Ralph P. Ducros of Houston and Lewis A. Ducros of Roxborough
Village, Colo.; six grandchildren; and three stepgrandchildren.

A private funeral will be held today at Schoen Funeral Home in Covington.