The 2024 Louisiana Legends Interview series is brought to you by presenting sponsor, the Gayle and Tom Benson Charitable Foundation, our premiere sponsor.

Fishman Haygood, LLP.

Our platinum sponsor, Joan Swanson, Haydel with additional support provided in part by Louisiana Lottery and Roy Martin with the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

And viewers like you.

Thank you.

Down, down, down together I. Legend.

Legendary.

Because of their combined faith filled journey, that they try to practice every day and they do that both in their personal lives and their professional lives.

They rely deeply on each other to help each other make decisions.

They help each other to be better leaders.

They're trailblazers, and they intend to take it on, and they intend to make sure things change, not just for themselves, because they're extremely selfless, but for everyone in this state.

So very glad to be here with you all this morning, Mr. Edwards.

Mrs. Edwards, our 2024 Louisiana Legends, as we celebrate with Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

So honored to have you both celebrated this year, as we, do this once a year and you are Louisiana's finest.

So thank you so much for being here.

Thank you Robert.

So, you know, reflecting on your journey through public service have been some key moments, I would imagine, personal growth, professional growth.

Tell us a bit about any of those key moments that were there.

I know I can think of a few that I witnessed, but I want to hear from you.

Well, you know.

It was a very challenging time.

Rewarding time.

when I came into office, we were $2 billion short, in the first full fiscal year.

And that deficit was very hard, to address.

We had a record number of natural disasters while I was governor.

We had the, the Covid pandemic.

And and so it was a very challenging, time.

But I will I will tell you that that there was growth throughout that, that time, and you, you know, or at least I knew that I was surrounded by some wonderful, wonderful people who worked in my administration.

They were talented and smart and well-educated.

They were committed public servants.

And they were all experts in what they did.

And I don't know that I consider myself an expert in anything.

But I was smart enough to let people do their job and and take their advice.

Unless there was just some really strong, sense that I had that we needed to do something different.

I let people do their jobs.

And so, I think that was a big part of it for me, especially during the Covid pandemic.

I mean, who can be prepared for that?

And but we do have public health experts.

We have the Epidemiol just infectious disease experts.

And you learn as much as you can.

And and then as you learn more during the, the progression, the progress, I should say, of the pandemic, then you can you can make adjustments, but but you have to make, timely decisions that are very, very difficult, obviously.

And, and you rely on your faith and you rely on the people who are around you, and the strong support and love that you get, from your family as well.

Donna really embraced her role as the First Lady, well beyond the social and ceremonial aspects.

She's a music educator by training, so she was very involved in that.

And then Donna totally embraced the work that she found in the exploitation of women and all the work that has been done in cooperation with the Catholic Church.

There was a Final Four in New Orleans, and she said, okay, this is it.

This is where we are going to go ahead and jump out there.

And she invited first ladies from all over.

They didn't matter if they were Democrat or Republican.

She invited every one of them to come and be a part of it.

Almost 25 million people are trafficked every year.

I don't think there's any question that her work with human trafficking is by far and away the most important work that she has done.

I think people are just becoming more and more exposed to how significant of a problem it is.

But, Mrs. Edwards, when we encountered you, we saw the passion in your eyes when it came to foster children in our state.

When it came to human trafficking, you were very out front on those issues.

And so much so that you galvanized everyone to pay attention to issues that were right before us, but no one was really paying attention to.

When I found out about human trafficking, I say all the time, I'm embarrassed that I didn't know about it, didn't understand it.

And, and what you do know about it and understand that you can't turn away.

the average age is 13, in our own state that are being trafficked and it's happening right here underneath, you know, our own noses, I mean, really literally.

And so, yes, got involved with that and felt like, you know, I had a platform that I could use to bring awareness to it.

And, you know, as an educator, realizing and looking back and knowing children in my own classroom, could have and most likely would, you know, some of those children were being used at home and trafficked, you know, during the weekends or after school.

And so, yes, it was, something that I, became aware of.

And I'm still now as, a former first lady, using, my Louisiana First Foundation and now, educating, other first ladies and for spouses across the country.

Still incredible work and so needed.

I would definitely say So on that note, achievements that you're most proud of, each of you.

Yeah.

Well, first of all, I'm very proud of Donna and the work she did, around the the, foster care adoptions, out of foster care.

We said, several all time records for adoptions out of foster care in consecutive years, largely because of the help that she gave DCFs and the awareness she brought in human trafficking and give you a glimpse into what a wonderful person she is, because there is no job description for First Lady.

They don't.

First ladies, first spouses, don't have to do anything if they don't want to, but that's certainly not her personality.

So I would have to say that, you know, our greatest accomplishment has been our family.

You know, Donna and I celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary, just a couple of weeks ago.

We have three beautiful children, two great sons in law and a beautiful granddaughter.

Now, in terms of being governor, I say all the time, and I continue to mean this to that.

And this was an example set by my mother, principally, but expanding Medicaid on my first day, was the single biggest thing that will have the most lasting impact and most beneficial impact to to so many hundreds of thousands of our fellow Louisianans working poor who have health insurance, most of them for the first time ever.

And so that was clearly, the singular achievement that I believe is most notable.

I do think that over the eight years there were there were many more.

But you asked for, for for the votes important.

So I'll stop there.

I can imagine over your lifetime, there have been so many just just the accomplishments that we learned about you before you became governor.

And so certainly those eight years that you were governor and there were more things that happened.

And so, Mrs. Edwards, you know, the question is so hard, like, there's so many things, you know, and, you know, I just look back at the whole eight years and I think about something you just said about, you know, just the mission.

We both had so much, over the eight years, just we both had that mission of wanting to do the very best we could every day, giving the best we could of ourselves every day.

But just, highlighting so many different issues across the board, but, mostly focused on children and bringing awareness of the need to focus on children because they truly are our future.

And if we really, want invest in our future, if we really say that investing in our children, whether it's education, you know, music, art, movement, foster children, human trafficking, investing in our future is investing in our children.

And that's really where I feel like that's what we did.

He did, you know, so much, So how do you hope to have impacted the next generation of Louisiana?

know, that's a hard question to answer.

First of all, I tried very hard to dial down, the, the sort of uncivil political discourse that we're seeing nationally and too often in Louisiana.

It would be great if, if we had more civility and we could disagree with one another where we have to, but do it professionally and then try to find places to work together.

I tried very hard to do things on a bipartisan basis, because I thought that was really important as well.

I don't think the majority of Louisianans or the majority of Americans for that matter, I don't I don't think that they are they are extreme right or extreme left, and they're somewhere clustered towards the center.

And they want to see people work together and get things done.

And then, of course, tried very, very hard, to afford people in Louisiana more opportunity, more prosperity.

I mean, I'm so proud that when we left office, we had the lowest unemployment ever measured, one of the fastest growing economies in the country, not just in the South.

We had more than three times as much money, in the bank than we had ever had, before.

But yet we were funding, education and higher education at all time levels than most people ever would health insurance.

And and I really could keep going.

But, but it's it's it it's the opportunity and the prosperity that flows from those.

And I'm proud of that.

That's what we've, we tried to do, and do it in a way that, that, that people would appreciate.

It's just not being volatile, not in contrast to, to what we too often see on TV.

I want to thank you again for joining us today here in New Orleans in this beautiful home and having this opportunity to chat about what's going on, what went on and what's going on and what we can look forward to in the future.

And again, congratulations on being 2024.

Louisiana Legends.

we really appreciate the distinction of being, designated Louisiana legend by OPB.

Absolutely.

But nobody should think that we are at the end of our road because we're not we're going to continue to work.

We're going to continue to serve and and look for new and exciting opportunities to do so and so with Fantastic.

The 2024 Louisiana Legends Interview series is brought to you by presenting sponsor, the Gayle and Tom Benson Charitable Foundation, our premiere sponsor.

Fishman Haygood, LLP.

Our platinum sponsor, Joan Swanson, Haydel with additional support provided in part by Louisiana Lottery and Roy Martin with the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

And viewers like you.

Thank you.