COVER STORY
Rhesa McDonald:
A Lifetime of
Community
Service
By Dean M. Shapiro
If it’s true what they say about us being the
products of the home environments in
which we were raised, then Rhesa Ortique
McDonald is living proof of that. She experienced
an upbringing that destined her for a lifetime
of service to others.
A retired educator, healthcare champion, civic leader and recipient
of multiple awards for community service, Rhesa’s activism
in the New Orleans community can be largely attributed to the
home environment that surrounded her while growing up in the
city’s Gentilly neighborhood.
Her father, the late Hon. Revius Ortique Jr., was a prominent
civil rights attorney and Civil District Court Judge who became
the first African American justice to sit on the Louisiana Supreme
Court. His long list of accomplishments and his dedication to the
improvement of the New Orleans community were an inspiration
to Rhesa, the only child of Ortique and his wife, Miriam Marie
Victorianne Ortique.
Rhesa fondly remembers what she called “a daily ritual” of the
three of them sitting down to dinner together to discuss what was
going on in their lives and in the community. “Despite having a
busy schedule, he always made time for the family to get together,”
she said. “At 4:30 every day we would eat together and then he
would go back to his office to be available for those clients who
worked during the day. He was very considerate of his family to
make sure we always had that time for ourselves.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY AB SYKES PHOTOGRAPHY
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