Katie Planche Friedrichs of Covington was born on May 19, 1929, as Catherine Planche. Her grandfather left New Orleans for the northshore during the Civil War, and as descendants of a French-born immigrant her family spoke Parisian French.
"As a child I can remember my parents and aunts abruptly switching to English when I entered the room," she once said.
Her father was Maurice P. Planche who, with his business partner E. J. Frederick, opened the St. Tammany Ice and Manufacturing Plant in Covington, making and selling ice and later producing and distributing the first electricity in town. The plant had the largest flowing water well in the state at one time. Her father was also a partner in the first Ford dealership in Covington.
She was a native and lifetime resident of the Ramsay area and lived for many years on land alongside the Bogue Falaya River which had been settled by her family. As a young girl, she was reported to be the first female to show cattle with 4-H in Louisiana.
She was graduated from Saint Scholastica Academy and Louisiana State University with a Masters degree in Physical Education and Dance, and she later studied at Columbia University in New York.
member of Playmakers Theater in Covington.
Katie Planche married Andrew V. Friedrichs Jr., and they lived in Covington.
She was the first dance director at Southeastern Louisiana University, beginning her work there in 1951 and retiring in 1984. Friedrichs built the SLU dance department virtually from scratch and is credited with bringing modern dance to Southeastern.
According to Martie Fellom, Friedrich's successor at SLU, Friedrichs brought dance legend Charles Weidman to Southeastern for several artist residencies during her tenure at the college. Weidman is known as one of the big four pioneers of modern dance, along with Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and Hanya Holm, Fellom explained. Friedrichs studied dance with Wiedman, Holm, and Graham, three of the big four.
A group of early dancers who were under the instruction of the university's original director of dance instruction Katie Planche Friedrichs
Friedrichs credited Southeastern’s first dance instructor, Dorothy Hoyle, with nourishing her love of modern dance.
“She instilled in me the love of modern dance,” Friedrichs said. “She talked my parents into sending me all over the United States to study – Columbia University in New York, Colorado College, and the University of California at Berkeley. Fortunately, my parents could afford to send me.”
According to Fellom, "If she had not brought modern dance to Southeastern with a degree program, I probably would not have attended. I was the third or fourth dance major to graduate in the program.”
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In 1972, Ms. Friedrichs led a session at a conference on "Preparing the Elementary Specialist" held in the Ozarks of Missouri which was sponsored by the Task Force on Children's Dance. In 1980 she contributed to a significant publication on Childrens' Dance that presented research from dance professionals across the nation. It was published by the National Dance Association (Society of Health and Physical Educators).
Among Katie's many accomplishments was an acting part in the movie "Kingfish: A Story of Huey P. Long" which was filmed in Louisiana in 1995. In 2001 she was elected president of the St. Tammany West Chamber of Commerce Auxiliary.
On April 2, 2009, the Southeastern Louisiana University dance program presented the university’s first tap dancing concert and dedicated it to "Professor Emeritus of Health, Physical Education
and Dance Katie Planche Friedrichs."
She died at 80 years of age on October 17, 2009, in Ramsay, Louisiana, and is buried in the cemetery at St. Joseph Abbey.
In 2012, the Playmaker's presentation of "Bell Book and Candle" was dedicated to her in recognition for her contributions to the organization and her giving the play's director Melanie Hayno her first role in Playmaker's 1978 production of "Gypsy."
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