Students and faculty of the Nicholls community walk past Research Vessel Miss Dee behind Gouaux Hall without knowing who it was named after and why it was named after Deanna Bonvillain.
Deanna Bonvillain was a secretary in the biology department for over 35 years. Gary LaFleur, associate professor of biological sciences said she was not just a secretary for the biology department, but she was like a mother to the faculty.
“On paper, we were all her bosses, but on the other hand, she had so much wisdom and experience that she told all of us what to do,” LaFleur, said.
To her daughter, Dana Aucoin, administrative assistant in the music department, Miss Dee was very well liked, cooperative and professional when she worked. Aucoin explained that her skills of typing were out of this world.
“She impressed me when she typed,” Aucoin said. “I would have guessed that she typed 200 words a minute. Her fingers would fly across the type writer.”
Outside of working, she was a matriarch who took the name of “Deedy,” which is what her grandchildren called her.
“She was the best grandmother that attended all the softball games, dance recitals, celebrations and was with me for all of my bad times,” Aucoin said. “That is more precious to me, because she was a great mother to me, but she was amazing to her grandkids.”
Miss Dee spread her motherly love to all the people that she knew. She looked at her coworkers here like her family according to Aucoin.
“My favorite memory with her was when we were in Las Vegas at a casino at 4 o’clock in the morning playing slots,” Aucoin said. “It meant a lot to me because she wanted to take me and my brother, Dean Bonvillain Jr., to Las Vegas and we went before she died.”
Miss Dee died of cancer on April 23, 2005.
“She left a legacy where the rest of us can look up to her for what she did here and try to strive to be as good as she is,” Aucoin said.
Miss Dee did her duties as a secretary by helping with purchases and making sure the photocopier was working like a regular secretary would, LaFleur said, but she did much more than just that.
“She would be the secretary but did above and beyond things like helping me find a house to live in when I first moved back here from Rhode Island in 1998,” Lafleur said. “She found a house for me and said ‘this is going to be a great place because you get to watch the parades from your house,’ and it was just the kind of thing I wanted to hear from my new job with a lady saying I can watch the parades from my house.”
Miss Dee also advised new faculty members on what to be careful with when first starting at Nicholls, LaFleur said.
“When working as a secretary of a department, you usually get thanks or a pin, but it was special to have a boat named after her,” LaFleur said. “It didn’t add up to all the thanks we owed her, but it was a significant gesture. The first big boat that we owned was named after her.”
The boat, R/V Miss Dee was bought in 2002-2003 for the Master’s program for marine and environmental biology. After she retired in 2002-2003, she was there to see the boat being named after her before she died of cancer.
Earl Melancon and Marilyn Kilgen, professors of biological sciences, had the final say of naming the boat after Miss Dee. Kilgen was the department head at that time.
The boat is a Hanko’s bay boat that was made locally in Morgan City. It is used for inside work in marine biology where students work inside the barrier islands up. The Melancon lab course uses it to sample oysters. The Ferrara lab course, taught by Allyse Ferrara, associate professor of biological sciences, uses it to catch garfish. The LaFleur lab course uses the boat to bring people to the barrier islands.
“R/V Miss Dee is a versatile boat that is not as fancy as LSU boats or other boats out there,” LaFleur said. “Just like the real Miss Dee, the boat is versatile and like an unsung hero that is not really in the limelight but it gets the job done.”
