Obituary

Obituary for Charles Anthony Lipari
The family and friends of Charles Anthony Lipari sadly announce the loss of their husband, father, grandfather, friend, and hero after a short illness at the age of 92 on Friday, June 30th. He joins his beloved mother and father, Frank Lipari and Lena Cutrera Lipari, in heaven, and his two younger brothers, Lucien Lipari and Frank Lipari, as well as his granddaughter Amanda Coyne. The son of Sicilian immigrants and a recently discovered family who immigrated from Poland, Charles was raised and educated in Opelousas, graduating from AIC High School. He was active as a newspaper boy and in the Boy Scout troop his father founded, reaching the elite rank of Eagle Scout. While earning his bachelor’s degree in Petroleum Engineering at Louisiana State University, Charles was a member of Lambda Chi Fraternity, an active college tennis player, and a member of R.O.T.C., eventually earning a commission as 2nd Lieutenant. He served at the Bluegrass Army Ordnance Depot in Kentucky before being honorably discharged with the rank of 1st Lieutenant. Upon graduation from L.S.U. in 1956, Charles distinguished himself for 49 years in the oil and gas industry, starting as an entry-level engineer with Gulf Oil in Kilgore, TX, and Timbalier Bay Field in Lafourche Parish. The training in the oil trenches there earned him a job as Production Engineer at Gulf, followed by a long career at Tenneco Oil in Lafayette, Louisiana, where he worked his way up from Reservoir Engineer to Regional Production Coordinator. In 1981 he accepted a job at Graham Resources in Metairie, LA, as Vice President of Engineering and Acquisitions, a job he enjoyed until semi-retirement in 1992, at which time he created an oil and gas consulting firm that took him on adventures, such as travels to a Soviet Bloc country to evaluate oil properties at the center of a World Court lawsuit. Throughout his life, Charles was a devoted servant of the Catholic Church, participating in the Cursillo Movement, Lay Ministry, and President of the Parish Council in both Lafayette, LA, and Covington, LA. He was an active member of the American Society of Italian Heritage and a regular volunteer at the Northshore Food Bank, where among many other roles, he organized an annual golf tournament fundraiser. Charles also followed in his father’s footsteps as a Boy Scout leader. He was an avid hunter, fisherman, and honorary Cajun at his beloved Dos Gris fishing camp, where he taught his sons lessons of the outdoors. Charles kept up his childhood hobbies of coin and stamp collecting and cultivated a honeybee community for decades, producing gifts of honey for friends and family. But perhaps the most memorable role he filled was that of the 2000 Mardi Gras King Juno, an uncharacteristically center stage, but in the eyes of his family, completely appropriate honor. In his final years at Christwood Retirement Community, Charles was a revered pickleball player, puzzle solver, and, most importantly, caretaker for his wife, Alice. He is survived by the love of his life, Alice Castille Lipari, of Bellevue, Louisiana, whom he married in 1953, and his six children, Charles Anthony Lipari II and wife Marilyn Lipari of Tempe, AZ, Matthew Lipari and wife Maureen Lipari of Lafayette, LA, Stephen Lipari of San Antonio, TX and Santa Rosa, FL, Bernadine Lipari of Covington, LA, Ursula Lipari and husband Patrick MacLeod of San Antonio, TX and Ronald Lipari and Dina Lipari of Ponchatoula, LA. He also survived by his 12 grandchildren Brian Broussard, Sarah Broussard Bourgeois, Rachael Coyne, Madison Lipari, Anne Marie Lipari, David Lipari, Jordan Lipari Delellis, Jackson Charles Beamer, Georgia Kennedy Beamer, Jeremy Lipari, Jessica Dickinson, Bobby Grindell, and great-grandchildren Gavin and Isabella Bourgeois, as well as Gemma and namesake Charles Delellis. A Requiem Memorial Mass will be held Saturday, July 15, 2023, at 1 O’clock with a Noon Visitation at the St. Joseph Abbey Church located at 75376 River Road, St. Benedict, Louisiana, with a reception to follow at the Southern Hotel located at 428 E. Boston St, Covington, LA 70433. In lieu of flowers, Charles encourages you, instead to make a donation to the Northshore Food Bank at www.northshorefoodbank.org. 125 W. 30th Ave., Covington, LA 70433.