Vic Stelly

Stelly authored an amendment to the Louisiana State Constitution which became known as the Stelly Plan.^[4] This amendment eliminated the state sales tax on food, drugs, and utilities and raised the state income tax.^[4] Lost state revenue was replaced with a state income tax increase primarily paid by upper bracket taxpayers.^[5]

Stelly was born in Carencro, Louisiana, and moved to Zachary, Louisiana, when he was four years old.^[1] His father, Gordon Stelly, was a petro-chemical operator, and his mother Dorothea Olive Martin Stelly, was a stay-at-home mother.^[6][1] He was an All-State football player at Zachary High School and graduated from Northwestern in Natchitoches where he also played football.^[1] He taught high school in Louisiana, getting his M.A. from Louisiana State University in 1965.^[1] Stelly was also an insurance agent for 25 years in Moss Bluff.^[1][7]

Stelly died from complications of COVID-19^[8] on December 26, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic in Louisiana, just 15 hours before his wife Terry died of the same illness and sixteen days short of his 80th birthday.^[9][10]

His papers are held by the Archives and Special Collections Department of the Frazar Memorial Library at McNeese State University.^[4]