Acadiana is home to top musicians, influential business and community leaders, talented athletes, and people from all walks of life who make this region unique.
We lost a few beloved Acadiana residents this year, such as gym owner, philanthropist and former Mr. America Red Lerille, who died on March 14 at the age of 88. His legacy, and the legacies of others on this list, will continue to shape the community for years to come — even while we mourn their loss.
Learn more about some notable Acadiana residents who died in 2025, from a celebrated chef, to a local athlete who died a hero in the New Orleans Bourbon Street attack on Jan. 1.
Red Lerille, 1936 — 2025
Red Lerille was a U.S. Navy veteran, a 1960 Mr. America and Mr. Universe winner, and owner of Red’s Health Club in Lafayette, which he founded in 1963. Lerille, and the club he ran with family and longtime employees until he died, left an enormous impact on generations of Red’s members who recall his work ethic, friendliness, generosity and abiding passion for health and bodybuilding. Red Lerille’s Health & Racquet Club continues to operate seven days a week at 301 Doucet Rd., and a new women’s gym and locker room recently opened at the club.
Tiger Bech, 1997 — 2025
Tiger Bech, a St. Thomas More football player who went on to play at Princeton University, died at 27 years old in the terror attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans on Jan. 1. After graduating from Princeton in 2021 with a degree in finance, he moved to New York where he worked as a Wall Street analyst. He was celebrating on New Year’s Eve with his best friend, Ryan Quigley, who was injured in the car ramming attack on New Year’s Day. Surveillance footage from the incident showed Bech pushing a woman out of the way as the truck tore down the street, hitting him and others.
Sid Williams, 1951 — 2025
Sid Williams opened El Sid O’s Zydeco and Blues Club in Lafayette in 1984, helping launch local musicians like Buckwheat Zydeco into global fame. His dance hall at 1523 N. Saint Antoine St., Lafayette, is one of the region’s only remaining original zydeco clubs. Williams’s younger brother is Grammy-nominated zydeco musician Nathan Williams, of Nathan & the Zydeco Cha-Chas, and Sid Williams’s nephew, Nathan Williams Jr., fronts Lil’ Nathan and the Zydeco Big Timers.
Carmen Izaguirre, 1918 — 2025
Carmen Izaguirre, a longtime resident of Morgan City and native of Tampico Tamaulipas, Mexico, died this year at the age of 106. She founded Tampico Mexican Restaurant & Cantina in 1962, which has a location in Lafayette at 5713 Johnston St. and one in Morgan City. She named the restaurant after her hometown and offered Tex-Mex fare in a comfortable environment.
Merline Herbert, 1941 — 2025
Merline Herbert founded Creole Lunch House in Lafayette with her husband in 1983. They specialized in Creole cooking, plate lunches and notorious stuffed breads that were a longtime favorite at Jazz Fest in New Orleans. She died in July at the age of 84, and a week before she passed, Mayor-President Boulet issued a proclamation celebrating Creole Lunch House and the Herbert family for 42 years of service to the community.
Tommy McLain, 1940 — 2025
Tommy McLain was one of Louisiana’s highest-charting and influential swamp pop musicians. He started playing in the 1950s, and McLain’s biggest single, country ballad “Sweet Dreams” by songwriter Don Gibson, hit the No. 15 spot on the U.S. Billboard Adult Contemporary charts in 1966. In the years before his death at 85, he frequently toured with Lafayette musicians Zachary Richard and C.C. Adcock, two of the best-known swamp pop-influenced players today…