Ralph Falsetta


Ralph Joseph Falsetta, known as Big Ralph Falsetta, was a businessman from his native Donaldsonville in Ascension Parish near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who from 1975 to 1976 represented District 18 as a Democrat in the Louisiana State Senate.

Background

Falsetta was the son of Anthony "Tony" Falsetta and the former Rosa Regira, both natives of Italy. Tony Falsetta founded the Town and Country Club in Donaldsonville, where Fats Domino, Little Richard, and Irma Thomas often played during the 1950s.
Ralph Falsetta and his wife, the former Solange Simoneaux, had three children, Raphael Anthony "Rip" Falsetta ; Rosalyn F. Griffin, the widow of Charles Griffin; and Marilyn F. Diez and husband, Ronald.

Public career

Falsetta was the mayor of historic Donaldsonville, which was from 1829 to 1831 the Louisiana state capital. In 1981, as the newly elected mayor, Falsetta appointed a bond committee and worked to extend the Donaldsonville city limits to accommodate Sam Walton's Wal-Mart, which two years later opened a 45,000-square-foot store built outside the corporate limits. Several local merchants, a department store owner and a mortician-businessman, E. J. Ourso, the benefactor of the Louisiana State University E. J. Ourso College of Business, fought against the bonds for Wal-Mart construction. When Falsetta and Ourso appeared before the Louisiana Bond Commission, the two men nearly came to a physical confrontation until chairman B. B. "Sixty" Rayburn of Bogalusa, a member of the state Senate, admonished the two to "wait till you get back to Donaldsonville. The folks down there might enjoy it."
Falsetta filled the year remaining in the state Senate term of Louis Lambert, a Baton Rouge Democrat who was elected to the Louisiana Public Service Commission.
The Falsettas, who died three years apart, are interred at the Ascension of Our Lord Catholic Church Cemetery in Donaldsonville.