Early Years and Education
Richey was born into a middle-class family and reared in the Woodland subdivision of Ferriday in Concordia Parish near the Mississippi River. Though its population is under 4,000, Ferriday is the hometown of some half dozen well-known personalities, including the cousins Jimmy Swaggart and Jerry Lee Lewis, and the television news commentators Howard K. Smith and Campbell Brown.
Richey is one of five children born to Verne Richey (1914–1993) of Beauregard Parish and his wife, the former Johnnie McIntire (1919–1996) of Baton Rouge. After World War II, the Richeys settled in Ferriday because Verne became the business manager for the Concordia Parish School Board. Mrs. Richey was a sixth-grade teacher. Verne and Johnnie Richey are interred at Magnolia Cemetery in Beauregard Parish.
At Ferriday High School, Richey set the school scoring record in basketball. He was the first freshman and four-year starter in the history of the school. He was also first-string All-District for his last three seasons. On of his Ferriday classmates, Rick Nowlin, later served in the Louisiana House from Natchitoches.
In 1965, Richey was elected president of the Kiwanis-sponsored Key Club International, a high school service organization. He traveled some 30,000 miles (50,000 km) during his senior year to attend Key Club activities and conventions.
After high school graduation in 1966, Richey studied for two years at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, where he was a student senator. He and Pete Maravich were freshmen teammates on the LSU basketball team. In 1968, Richey transferred under a basketball scholarship to McNeese State University in Lake Charles in Calcasieu Parish. He graduated from McNeese in 1971 with a Bachelor of Science degree in business education and a minor in physical education. He continued as a graduate assistant at McNeese while he obtained a Master's degree in physical education and a minor in school administration.
In the fall of 1972, Richey entered the Loyola University New Orleans College of Law in New Orleans. In his second year, he was on the undergraduate faculty as an instructor in physical education. He obtained his law degree in 1975.
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