Education
He graduated from the former Francis T. Nicholls High School at 3820 Saint Claude Avenue in New Orleans, since renamed for the African-American abolitionist Frederick Douglass and now a charter school, KIPP Renaissance High School.
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Edward Ripoll
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His service paralleled the third of the four nonconsecutive terms of Democratic Governor Edwin Edwards. Ripoll was one of five children of the late Edward Ripoll, Senior, and the former Mary Forster. He joined the United States Marine Corporation with service in World World War II from 1944 to 1945.
Thereafter, he was a longshoreman and steelworker and was employed until 1960 at Huerstel"s Bar and Restaurant at the intersection of Saint Claude Avenue and Independence Street, since a convenience store.
Ripoll then opened his own bar at 900 Piety Street at the intersection with Burgundy Street. In 1983, Ripoll challenged incumbent Democrat Representative Edward South. Bopp, a lawyer and former pharmacist, who led a four-candidate field with 5,631 votes (373 percent).
Ripoll claimed the second position in the general election with 3,426 votes (227 percent). Trailing in third place by 61 votes was another Democrat, later Republican, businessman Kenneth L. Odinet, Senior, of Arabi in Saint Bernard Parish.
Finishing fourth was former United States. Representative for Louisiana"s 1st congressional district, Richard Alvin Tonry, with 2,693 votes (178 percent).
Tonry had been forced from office in a scandal in 1977. In this same election, Edwin Edwards unseated one-term Republican Governor David C. Treen. In the second round of balloting, Ripoll unseated Bopp, 5,266 votes (531 percent) to 4,649 (469 percent).
In the House, Ripoll served on the Judiciary and the Municipal, Parochial, and Cultural Affairs committees.
He was unseated after one term by the Democrat Kenneth Odinet, who had also run in 1983. Odinet received 6,160 votes (591 percent) to Ripoll"s 4,269 (409 percent).
He collected funds from New Orleans bars to pay for Christmas baskets for needy children in the economically-depressed Ninth Ward. Ripoll sold the bar in 1994 and moved with his family to Arabi.
He died in Slidell in suburban Saint Tammany Parish at the age of eighty-two.
Membership
He was affiliated with the American Legion and was an honorary member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Of Irish extraction, Ripoll was a member of the Downtown Irish Club, which stages Saint Patrick"s Day parades.
