Retirement
In 1980, Parker appeared before the House Retirement Committee, chaired then by Shady R. Wall of West Monroe, to appeal for improved retirement benefits for the lesser state constitutional officers, including herself as treasurer and the secretary of state, education superintendent, insurance commissioner, elections commissioner, agriculture commissioner, and attorney general. Greater benefits were then being paid to legislators, former governors, and judges than to the constitutional officers. Wall adjourned the committee without acting on Parker's request. Few on the committee seemed sympathetic to Parker's appeal. One committee member in fact, Ron Gomez of Lafayette, tried to reduce the retirement payments of former governors, judges, and legislators back to the level of Parker and the other constitutional officers, but Wall refused to recognize Gomez to offer his amendment.
Parker served until January 1, 1987, when she retired with nearly a year and a half left in her fifth term. Mary Landrieu, her fellow Democratic woman and then a state representative from New Orleans, was elected in 1987 to succeed her as treasurer. Mary Landrieu defeated three fellow Democrats for the post, including two legislative colleagues, former U.S. Representative Anthony Claude "Buddy" Leach, Jr., a wealthy Leesville businessman and the current Louisiana Democratic Party state chairman, and (2) Kevin P. Reilly, Sr., then the CEO of the Lamar Advertising Company in Baton Rouge.
On her retirement, Mrs. Parker received an honorary doctorate from her alma mater, Northwestern State University. In 1976, she was named Baton Rouge's "Woman of the Year. She was also listed in "Who's Who in America." In 1994, she, along with Virginia Shehee, Virginia Martinez, and Lindy Boggs, was among the first nine inductees into the new Louisiana Center for Women and Government Hall of Fame at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux. In 1996, Parker was inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield. She is a Baptist.
Parker and two other Louisiana Democrats, U.S. District Judge Adrian Duplantier and former State Representative Risley C. Triche of Napoleonville in Assumption Parish, were interviewed for the 2001 book Welfare Racism: Playing the Race Card Against America's Poor. The three testified to their personal knowledge of racism in 1960-1961 in Louisiana against African American public assistance recipients. Parker's expertise on the matter is based on her former tenure as head of the State Welfare Board.
Read more about this topic: Mary Evelyn Parker
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667)