In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dwight Landreneau was driving his golf cart to his deer stand when his phone rang. On the line was then-Gov. John Bel Edwards.
Landreneau, a stout, soft-spoken man with square glasses, was in his late sixties and finally ready to retire after a long career that any rural Louisianan might envy: starting as an LSU AgCenter agent with crawfish farmers before climbing through the ranks to become Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s director of state parks, then secretary of Wildlife and Fisheries.
After several attempts at retirement, he had finally made peace with stepping away for good.
But the governor had one more job for him…