Bob Hensgens

Craig Robert "Bob" Hensgens 2018–

Previously Hensgens was from 2011 to 2018 the state representative for District 47, which encompasses Calcasieu, Cameron, and Vermilion parishes.

Through his victory in a special election held on April 30, 2011, Hensgens became the 55th member of his party to serve in the 105-member Louisiana House. No Democrat filed for the seat though the district had cast two thirds of its votes in 2003 for the successful Democratic gubernatorial nominee, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Lafayette.

As a legislator, he succeeded State Representative Jonathan Perry, who narrowly won a special election for the Louisiana State Senate held on February 19, 2011. Hensgens defeated fellow Republican Linda A. Hardee (born January 20, 1948), an educator and a former mayor of Kaplan in Vermilion Parish, who carried the endorsement of the Louisiana Association of Educators. Oddly, Hensgens lent Hardee $200 so that she could pay cash for a portion of her filing fee. They both came to the Vermilion Parish clerk of court's office to register for the race at the same time, and she was short of the required $450 in cash.

Prior to his election to the House, Hensgens, as a Democrat, served nearly four years as the mayor of Gueydan, a town near Abbeville. Acting Mayor David Dupuis succeeded Hengens and served until the nonpartisan blanket primary held on October 22, 2011.

Craig Robert "Bob" Hensgens 2011–2018

Craig Robert "Bob" Hensgens 2007–2011

Originally from Cameron Parish, Hensgens graduated from Vermilion Catholic High School in Abbeville, the parish seat of Vermilion Parish. He attended Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge but dropped out after his father was killed in a farm accident. He thereafter received a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He is a former director of the Vermilion Parish hospital service district and since 2006 a managing partner in the health care company MH3F. Hensgens is also a former president of the Gueydan Chamber of Commerce.

Craig Robert Hensgens, known as Bob Hensgens (born January 26, 1955), is a Republican state senator for District 26, which encompasses the Louisiana parishes of Vermilion and portions of Acadia, Lafayette, and St. Landry. Hensgens won a special election on November 6, 2018, for the Senate seat with 60 percent of the vote. Nearly 51 percent of registered voters cast ballots in the senatorial contest. The position opened when Jonathan Perry was elected to the 4F judgeship on the Louisiana Court of Appeal for the Third Circuit.