Fred L. Schiele

Who was Fred L. Schiele?

Fred Lyle Schiele, Sr., known also as Buddy Schiele, served from 1964–1968 as a United States Democratic Party member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from Concordia Parish in the eastern portion of the state adjacent to the Mississippi River. He did not seek reelection in the 1967 primary election but instead unsuccessfully opposed incumbent Sheriff Noah W. Cross. On April 6, 1973, Schiele was appointed sheriff by Governor Edwin Washington Edwards, pending a special election, after Cross was forced to resign after twenty-five years in office because of the failure of the appeal of his federal conviction of perjury. Edwards settled on Schiele because the two had been legislative colleagues, and Schiele managed Edwards' 1971–1972 gubernatorial campaign in Concordia Parish.

Schiele was one of four sons born in Vidalia, the parish seat of Concordia Parish, to Catesby Edward Schiele and the former Lucille Rountree. He graduated in 1951 from Vidalia High School. In 1981, at the age of forty-eight, he procured his bachelor’s degree in business administration from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.