Frank Leon Maraist Jr.

Frank Leon Maraist Jr. passed into eternal life on August 8, 2022.
He was born in his home in Kaplan, December 21, 1931, to Frank Leon Maraist Sr. and Christine Marie Deshotels. Frank spent his youth in Kaplan and left home after graduating from Kaplan High in 1947 to attend Southwestern Louisiana Institute where he studied history and journalism and worked for the athletic department as an assistant to the sports information director.
He later served in a similar capacity for Louisiana State University before being drafted and serving for two years in the army. Upon his discharge and returning from over overseas, Frank enrolled in the LSU Law School.
He graduated in 1958, the same year he married Catherine Montgomery Underwood, whom he had met while in law school. Following graduation, Frank began his legal career as an attorney at Sanders, Miller, Downing, Rubin and Kean, and he and Catherine settled in Baton Rouge and began to raise a family.
In 1962, Frank moved his family to Kaplan where he joined his uncle, Octave Henri “Junior” Deshotels, II, to form the law firm of Deshotels and Maraist. The two practiced together until 1968, when Frank and his family left Kaplan for New Haven, Connecticut, where Frank completed a Masters of Law at Yale University in preparation for a legal teaching career.
After a summer position teaching at the University of Texas in 1969, Frank took on a permanent position at Ole Miss, where he taught until 1973. After another stint as a visiting professor at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, he moved back to Louisiana, where he joined the faculty of the LSU Law Center.
Frank finally retired from teaching in 2011 with a career full of accolades and achievements that are too long to include here.
Frank is survived by his two daughters, Laura Irlbeck and Catherine M. Maraist and her husband (Jim Van Hook), and a son, Tom Maraist and his wife (Patti). He is also survived by his seven grandchildren, Christopher Maraist, Stephen Maraist, Daniel Maraist, Robbie Irlbeck, Isaac Irlbeck, James Van Hook, and Olivia Van Hook; a great-grandson, Dominic Maraist; his sisters-in-law, Jane Underwood McCall and Cathy Walker Underwood, and numerous nephews and nieces.
He was preceded in death by his wife of 58 years, Catherine, his parents, his sister, Myrtle Maraist Comeaux, and his son-in-law, Robert Irlbeck.
A memorial service and celebration of his life will be held on August 20th at the Faculty Club on the LSU campus. Visitation is from 10 a.m. until noon followed by the memorial service and a lunch reception.
For those of you who may not remember, Frank co-founded and co-edited the Kaplan Herald with Conrad Kaplan while he practiced law in Vermilion Parish from 1962-1968.