KLIC - Virginia K. Shehee

Virginia K. Shehee has enjoyed a long and distinguished career. She began working at the insurance company while still in high school. After graduation from Centenary College with a degree in English, she worked in Europe and Washington, DC. When she returned to Shreveport, she began working for Kilpatrick Life Insurance Company once again and also became a licensed funeral director so she could work for her family's other family business, Kilpatrick's Rose-Neath Funeral Homes and Cemeteries, Inc. In 1971, she became President/CEO of both companies and remains in that position today.

Mrs. Shehee is one of the most well known businesswomen and philanthropists in the State of Louisiana. She serves as Chairman of the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra and the Strand Theatre. She is Chairman Emeritus of the Biomedical Research Foundation of NW Louisiana. In 1996, the multi-million dollar Biomedical Research Institute was dedicated in her honor. She was the first woman elected to the Louisiana State Senate and the first woman to receive the Omicron Delta Kappa honor society.

With awards too numerous to mention, her proudest achievement is carrying on the companies begun by her father in 1932. Upon his death in 1956, her mother carried the torch until her untimely death in a plane crash in 1971. Her four children, Shane, Andrew, Nell and Margaret, all serve as officers and directors of both companies carrying the family tradition of service to the communities where the businesses are located.