William Breard Bonnette

With gratitude, love and respect for an abundant life well-lived and shared, the family of William Breard Bonnette announces his passing on June 22, 2023, at his home in West Monroe, LA, surrounded by family and loved ones.

Funeral Services will be held at 3:00 P.M. Sunday, June 25, 2023, in the chapel of Mulhearn Funeral Home West Monroe, LA with Rev. Rick Crandall officiating.  Interment will follow in the Pleasant Hill Church Cemetery in West Monroe, LA.  Visitation will be held from 1:00 P.M. until Service Time on Sunday.

Born at home in the Okaloosa community on Christmas Day in 1932, he humbly lived in the West Ouachita Parish area his entire life.  He jokingly bragged that he finished in the top 10 of his graduating class of Okaloosa High School of 9 students.  Breard is a veteran of the U.S. Navy, attended college at ULM and worked for 33 years as a pipe-fitter at Graphic Packaging.  During his retirement years, he developed property and worked right up until his aortic aneurism in December of 2016.  Breard’s most successful accomplishment was his confession of faith and baptism as a testimony to all those who loved him.

Breard is preceded in death by his parents, William Volmer Bonnette and Elma Bunn Bonnette and his brother, Kenneth Bonnette.

Survivors include his wife of 72 years, Shirley Thatcher Bonnette; daughter, Sheila Bonnette Vallery and husband, Bill; son, Doyle Wayne Bonnette and wife, Melinda Harper Bonnette; daughter, Angie Bonnette Biscomb; grandchildren, Brian Lewis, Julie Lewis Posey and fiancée, Mike D’Angelo, Jonathan Carpenter, Meleah Bonnette Jones and husband, Jamie Jones, and Wesley Bonnette and wife, Katie Crandall Bonnette; 11 great grandchildren; and 1 great-great grandchild.

Pallbearers will be Tommy Coleman, Wesley Bonnette, Brian Lewis, Jamie Jones, Trey Devillier, and Mike D’Angelo.  Honorary Pallbearers will be The Old Geezer’s Club.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to St. Jude Children’s Hospital.

The family extends love and appreciation to care givers at Always Best Care, A First Name Basis, and Compassus Hospice Care.  A special note of appreciation to Breard’s first grandchild, Brian Lewis, who has given love and care above and beyond the call of duty.