Maurice and Rosalie Bienvenu Memorial Endowed First Generation Scholarship in Engineering

Maurice (“Boosie”, “Big Mo”, “Joe”, “Da”) Bienvenu was born in St. Martinville, Louisiana to Maurice and Alice Bienvenu on October 3, 1923. Rosalie (“Sis”, “Rosie”, “Miss Rose”, “Ma”) Hamic was born on a rice and cattle farm near Midland, Louisiana to Causby and Rose Hamic on September 12, 1922. This was a time when both automobiles and airplanes were new to the world. They lived through the peripheral hardships of the 1927 flood, the more extensive hardships of the Great Depression, and the 1940 flood which inundated most of southwest Louisiana, only to reach the age of majority during World War II.

Maurice and Rosalie met at Southwestern Louisiana Institute in 1940. Three years later, Maurice joined the U.S. Navy V-12 program and graduated from the Tulane University School of Engineering in 1944. He spent the remainder of World War II in the Philippines as a U.S. Navy Seabee. Rosalie graduated from Southwestern Louisiana Institute in 1943 with a B.A. in Education but spent the war years working for the Louisiana Office of Highways and Higgins Industries in New Orleans.

Maurice and Rosalie married on December 8, 1945. Maurice worked for Voorhies and Smith Consulting Engineers and the Louisiana Office of Highways in Baton Rouge, earning his MBA from the LSU School of Business in 1952. The Bienvenu’s spent 13 years in Plaquemines Parish where Maurice worked for Freeport Sulphur Company. Maurice retired as president of Freeport Chemical after 40 years of service. Throughout their lives, Maurice and Rosalie had faith, family, friends and the simple pleasures of golf, gardening and the outdoors. Maurice passed away on June 6. 2004; Rosalie followed him on April 19, 2011.