Paul Spitzfaden

Paul Riley Spitzfaden, Sr. (February 27, 1920 – November 5, 2000),^[1] was a retired federal employee who served from 1984 to 1996 as the Republican mayor of Mandeville in St. Tammany Parish, a part of suburban New Orleans, Louisiana.^[2]

Biography

A New Orleans native, Spitzfaden was a son of Adolph Robert Spitzfaden, Jr. and the former Juanita Rose Huguet (1888-1976). He served in the United States Army in the European Theater of Operations of World War II and thereafter in the Korean War.^[1] He entered the Army as a private in 1944 and was released two years later as a second lieutenant, with service in the Judge Advocate General's Corps. He re-entered the Army Judge Advocate General's Corps in 1950 as a second lieutenant and was released in 1952 as a first lieutenant with service in Korea. He received the Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation and a Korean Service Medal with two Battle Stars. He remained in the Army Reserve until 1969, with retirement at the rank of major. He was affiliated with the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars.^[2]

In 1957, at the age of thirty-seven, Spitzfaden received a Bachelor degree in Political Science from Tulane University in New Orleans. He engaged in graduate studies in 1968 at the University of Oklahoma at Norman, Oklahoma, and the University of Ohio (at Toledo). He was a member of the Honors Fraternity Alpha Sigma chapter of Pi Sigma Alpha.^[2] After more than two decades with the Department of the Army, he worked for sixteen years with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and three years for the United States Census Bureau.^[3] He was a member of the National Association of Retired Federal Employees. He was also a vice chairman of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation.^[2]

Prior to his election as Mandeville's first Republican mayor in 1984,^[3] he served from 1969 to 1983 as the chairman of the Mandeville Planning Commission.^[2] Unopposed for his second term in 1988, Spitzfaden subsequently won his third term in 1992 over a fellow Republican, Hal Shea, 1,255 (53.5 percent) to 1,091 (46.5 percent).^[4] Mayor Spitzfaden directed the adoption of a new home rule municipal charter, oversaw the 150th celebration of the establishment of Mandeville, launched a recycling program, and during his terms of office improved hurricane protection including a new interlocking sheets "pile-driven and above-ground-topped" seawall, plus Lakeshore Drive concrete pavement. Then U.S. Representative Bob Livingston of Louisiana's 1st congressional district said that Spitzfaden "oversaw tremendous economic and population growth while making sure that Mandeville retained its charm and quaintness."^[3] Spitzfaden did not seek a fourth term (terminal lung cancer) in 1996. Upon leaving mayoral office, Spitzfaden was a commission member of the Greater New Orleans Expressway Commission from 1996 to 2000.^[2]

Spitzfaden was the president of his Lutheran congregation in Covington.^[3] He and his wife, the former Elaine Lucille Molaison, whom he wed in 1940, had two daughters, Mary Virginia Crawford and Linda Diane Reed, and a son, Paul, Jr.(also a military veteran). ^[2] He died at the age of eighty (Nov. 2000) and is interred at Mandeville Cemetery Mausoleum. The Mandeville Community Center (by his negotiations for city acquisition from the US Postal Service entering his third term) at 3090 East Causeway Approach is now named in his honor.^[5] Representative Livingston said upon Spitzfaden's retirement that the former mayor was known for an "indelible mark he continues to make on our minds as a man of true integrity, character, and kindness, a true gentleman who never speaks ill of a soul, and one whose friendship is of the highest quality and value."^[3]

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