Former Jefferson Parish council member Robert 'Bob' DeViney dies
January 05, 2011 Times Picayune
Submitted by N.O.V.A.


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Longtime Republican Party leader and former Jefferson Parish Councilman Robert DeViney Jr. died early
Wednesday morning at East Jefferson General Hospital after an 18-month-long illness. He was 67.

DeViney  was admitted to the hospital Sunday with complications from his battle with cancer, according to
family friends.

DeViney will be remembered for the many roles he played in Jefferson Parish over the years: Metairie Road
haberdasher; community leader; parish political leader; Carnival krewe captain; political campaign
innovator; and an early GOP convert who helped grow his party in blue collar enclaves once loyal to the
Democrats.

"He was a Republican before it was fashionable. He may have been the first Republican elected to the parish
council," said former parish councilman and Kenner Mayor Ed Muniz.

"He just loved public service. That was a calling he had above everything else. He loved it," Muniz said
Wednesday, shortly after learning about his old friend's death.

He was a hail-fellow well-met, a genial and gregarious host who reveled in his role as a co-captain of the
Krewe of Argus in East Jefferson and a planner extraordinaire of Mardi Gras festivities and other
extravagant celebrations.

"He probably has more friends than anyone I know," the late state Sen. Ken Hollis said months ago after
visiting his buddy in the hospital and finding him propped up in his hospital bed, his head buried in his
red parade folder.

"He thought the parish needed another night parade, and he thought he could do it," said Hollis, who himself
died last September. "When I think of Mardi Gras, I think of Ed Muniz and Endymion in New Orleans and Bob
DeViney with Argus in Metairie."

In fact, the memory friend Dave Sherman recalled Wednesday was of DeViney sitting in the reviewing stands
during Mardi Gras 2010. He could no longer make his traditional ride as co-captain, but with the help of
family and friends, one of whom moved a camper alongside the stands, DeViney was able to see the traditional
Mardis Gras toasts.

"I was king of Argus that year, and we had been told that Bob probably wouldn't be alive for Mardi Gras,"
Sherman said. "So when I  saw him in the stands, I was so overwhelmed that I got off the float and walked
through the crowd to embrance him," Sherman said. "Bob was the heart and soul of Argus, which is Mardis Gras
in the parish."

DeViney's first term as the council member representing 4th District ran from 1976 to 1980, when he left to
serve as executive assistant to the state's new Republican governor, Dave Treen.

He served again from 1982 to 1992, but was defeated for re-election  by challenger Nick Giambelluca.

DeViney also was an early proponent of growing the arts in Jefferson Parish, financing the first concert of
a church-based organization that would grow into the Jefferson Performing Arts Society.

He was an original organizer of Lafreniere Park and is said to have been the first elected parish official
to push for planting trees along sections of Veterans Memorial Parkway, which he thought was in serious need
of some beautifcation.

He is also credted with helping bring Zephyr's baseball to the parish.

"I always tell people, Bob certainly was the guy behind the scenes," Zephyrs' executive director Ron
Maestri, who currently serves as Jefferson Parish's interim tax assessor, said in a 2007 interview profiling
the baseball team's 10th anniversary. "He was certainly the guy who got the ball rolling."

Funeral details were not immediately available.