Thomas Clausen

Thomas Greenwood Clausen (December 22, 1939 – February 20, 2002) was an educator from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who was the last elected state superintendent of education, a position which he filled as a Democrat from 1984 to 1988 during the third administration of Governor Edwin Edwards.

Background

Clausen's mother, Leonell Wilkes Clausen, who died in 1999 was a native of Centerville in St. Mary Parish. She lived in Verdunville, also in St. Mary Parish, where Clausen was born, but she spent her later years in Baton Rouge. "Mama Nell" Clausen, as she was known, drove a school bus, delivered food to shut-ins, worked in a school for the handicapped, and was a justice of the peace in St. Mary Parish. Clausen's sister, Sally Clausen, is a retired educational administrator who was from 1995 to 2001 the president of Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond and from 2008 to 2010 the Louisiana commissioner of higher education under the supervision of the Louisiana Board of Regents. Clausen's stepbrother, Kenneth Gray, was originally a foster child reared by their mother.

Educational career

Clausen taught in public school for five years and was from 1967 to 1972 an assistant professor at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana. From 1972 to 1976, Clausen was an assistant superintendent, with duties in special education, under superintendent Louis J. Michot.

Clausen was a member of the Louisiana Board of Commerce and Industry during the administration of Republican governor Murphy J. "Mike" Foster, Jr., like Clausen a native of St. Mary Parish. For the last two years of his life, Clausen was a special education teacher at Valley Park Alternative School in Baton Rouge. Upon his death of cancer