Joe LeSage

Not to be confused with the Texas Republican former legislator, Joe Sage

Joseph Carnahan LeSage, Jr., known as Joe LeSage (born December 12, 1928), is an attorney in Shreveport, Louisiana, who served as a Democratic member of the Louisiana State Senate for a single term from 1968 to 1972.^[1]

LeSage was born to Joseph LeSage, Sr. (1895–1964), and the former Avalyn Taylor (1907–1991)^[2][3] in Homer, the seat of government of Claiborne Parish in North Louisiana. LeSage played football at Homer High School and then attended Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, where he was the quarterback of the LSU Tigers in 1948.^[4] In 1949, LeSage graduated from LSU, where he was affiliated with Omicron Delta Kappa and Gamma Eta Gamma. In 1952, he obtained his law degree from the Louisiana State University Law Center and was admitted to the Louisiana bar. In 1956, at the age of only twenty-seven, he was appointed to the LSU Board of Supervisors, the governing board of the university. He left the board during his state Senate tenure but returned to serve again much later from 1992 to 1998. He has maintained a lifelong interest in matters relating to his alma mater.^[5]

LeSage was elected to the state Senate in the general election held on February 6, 1968. LeSage and two other Democrats, J. Bennett Johnston, Jr. (the future U.S. senator), and incumbent state Senator Jackson B. Davis, defeated the sole Republican candidate, Tom Stagg, in an at-large race.^[6] The Senate seats thereafter were converted to single-member districts. All four state Senate candidates were Shreveport lawyers. Stagg was appointed in 1974 by U.S. President Richard M. Nixon to the U.S. District Court in Shreveport.

LeSage practices in the firm of Booth, Lockard, Politz, and LeSage at 920 Pierremont Road in Shreveport, formerly Booth, Lockard, Jack, Pleasant and Lesage; the "Jack" in the firm is the late Whitfield Jack. He specializes in personal injury, white collar criminal defense and estate law. LeSage is a member of the Louisiana Trial Lawyers Association and the Association of Trial Lawyers of America.^[5]

LeSage has been twice married. He is divorced from the former Lorraine Yearwood, the daughter of Boyd Yearwood (1907–1976) and Olwen M. Yearwood (1907–2003), later of Bossier City.^[2] The couple had two daughters, Susie LeSage and Sherry Anne LeSage (1950–2010), a prominent Shreveport Realtor. Sherry LeSage, her mother Lorraine LeSage, and maternal grandmother Olwen Yearwood, formed Yearwood-LeSage Realtors. The trio was the only three-generations of women engaged in real estate in Louisiana at the time. In 1987, Yearwood-LeSage merged with Towery Real Estate where it remains. Sherry LeSage was named Shreveport "Realtor of the Year" in 1990 and was appointed to a term on the Louisiana State Real Estate Commission. She died days before her sixtieth birthday, having contracted an auto-immune disease, scleroderma, which attacks the kidneys and requires regular dialysis.^[7]

LeSage and his second wife, Dolores, are the parents of Debbie Jackson, who is married to Patrick Jackson, and Sondra Jordon, who is married to Damon Jordon. LeSage has two grandchildren, Zachary and Victoria Jordon.^[7]

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