Charles Fuselier

Charles Auguste Fuselier, Sr. (born December 1942), is the retired sheriff of St. Martin Parish in South Louisiana. Known for innovations in his office, Fuselier was the sheriff from 1980 until c. 2003, when he resigned prior to the nonpartisan blanket primary for what would have been his seventh term.

Fuselier's father, Charles J. Fuselier, was the sheriff prior to 1978, when he died in office. Fuselier was elected sheriff in 1979 and took office in the summer of 1980, after the two-year interim period of Sheriff Allan B. Durand (1919–2006). Durand had been chief deputy under the first Sheriff Fuselier and continued thereafter as first deputy under Charles A. Fuselier until Durand's retirement. He was reelected in 1983 with more than 86 percent of the ballots cast. In his last contested re-election in 1995, Fuselier polled more than 65 percent of the vote over three opponents. He was succeeded by Ronald J. "Ronny" Theriot (born 1946), an Independent and former major with the Louisiana State Police, who assumed the office on October 16, 2003.

In 1983, Fuselier oversaw the completion of a new jail; in 1990, the installation of a parish-wide 911 system; in 1991, the creation of a sheriff's substation, and in 1995, the construction of a facility for juveniles. In 1996, he received the National Sheriff of the Year award, an honor for which he expressed "shock". Then U.S. Representative Jimmy Hayes of Louisiana's 7th congressional district, since disbanded, honored Fuselier in a speech delivered on the floor of Congress. In his address, Hayes noted that Fuselier initiated a local partnership between the sheriff's office, the St. Martinville chief of police, and the American Association of Retired Persons to create the first TRIAD program in St. Martin Parish, which works to prevent crimes against senior citizens. In 1999, the St. Martin Parish sheriff's office under Fuselier became the first in Louisiana to receive the imprint of the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies.

Though Fuselier's political career occurred while he was a Democrat, the office of Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler lists Fuselier and his wife, the former Lyndahl Hobgood (born June 1943), as Republican voters, as of December 2013.

As a student from 1953 to 1959 at St. Martinville Senior High School, an entity of the St. Martin Parish School Board, Fuselier was active in 4-H. Thereafter, as sheriff he was heavily involved in the promotion of 4-H programs. In 1981, he established the Charles Fuselier Livestock Award, named for his father, and the subsequent Charles Fuselier Scholarship in 2002. In 2008, he was inducted into the 4-H Hall of Fame, housed in a museum in Avoyelles Parish south of Alexandria.

In 2003, Fuselier was inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield. As of 2014, only four other sheriffs have received this designation, Cat Doucet, Leonard R. "Pop" Hataway, Harry Lee, and Jessel Ourso.