Chances are that Southwest Louisiana residents have likely heard Tom Hoefer’s voice at some point over the last 30-plus years.

Hoefer, 58, came to Southwest Louisiana in 1988 to work in radio. He has worked for the Calcasieu Parish Police Jury since 2005 and is the director of media and communications. He has also done radio broadcasts for various McNeese State University sports games since 2000.

Hoefer was born in Michigan and grew up in Salem, a city in southern Illinois. Shortly after his 16th birthday, he started working part-time at a radio station and continued to work there through parts of high school and college. The experience, he said, was invaluable.

“I was able to do a bit of everything,” he said. “I did news, disc jockey sports and production. My first basketball game that I covered was while I was a senior in high school. It was a girls basketball game, and I did the game for my classmates.”

Hoefer attended Eastern Illinois University in Charleston to study journalism. His intent was to write after graduation, but he ended up returning to Salem to work for the radio station.

After a year in Salem, Hoefer left to work for a radio station in Selma, Ala., where he continued to serve in a variety of roles. The station’s former general manager, George Swift, had already moved to Southwest Louisiana, but he would take periodic trips to Alabama and visit the station. During one such visit, Swift heard Hoefer covering a game.

“He thought I would be a good fit,” Hoefer said.

Swift hired Hoefer in 1988 to work for the radio station, then known as LA 99. His goal at the time was to move to larger markets over time. Those plans changed when he met Kaye Billeaudeaux, who was working at the front desk.

“She was the first person I met there,” he said. “I fell in love with the place quickly and with her. We were married in 1992.”

Hoefer said he was fortunate that Swift and others at the radio station offered him opportunities for advancement in his career. He eventually became program director and then moved into sales.

“They were thinking of me long term,” he said.

Hoefer’s childhood love of hockey led to his next career move. When the Lake Charles Ice Pirates came to town in 1997, he jumped at the chance to do play-by-play announcing.

“I couldn’t stand the idea of someone else doing it,” he said. “I begged Thom Hager to do it. They let me do that for a year, then hired me full time to do promotions.”

Hoefer described the three years working for the Ice Pirates as the “most fun you could imagine.” He left in 2000 to work for KPLC-TV and helped with transitioning its website to become more news-based. He spent four years there and was in charge of content and sales.

Hoefer began working for the Calcasieu Police Jury just in time for Hurricane Rita’s landfall in September 2005.

“It was quite a learning experience,” he said. “We were helping out with public information and the media.”

Hoefer’s job initially was overseeing the Calcasieu Government Channel, or C-Gov. In 2014, the department was renamed as communications and media, and Hoefer’s role evolved to being over C-Gov and public relations media.

Hurricanes have been some of Hoefer’s most stressful, yet memorable experiences while working for the parish. Hurricane Harvey’s 2017 landfall that caused widespread flooding throughout Houston and Southeast Texas was particularly challenging.

“We were on edge for so many days because we didn’t know if it was coming here or not,” he said. “It was a stressful time.”

Navigating Hurricanes Laura and Delta, the freeze in February 2021 and the May 2021 flood were all difficult, Hoefer said.

“That whole stretch of time was completely insane,” he said. “There is a lot of stress, but the most rewarding thing for me as a public information person was having an impact on people and perhaps giving them comfort. We had press conferences after Hurricane Laura, and people were able to see them online, even if they were at a hotel somewhere out of state.”

Hoefer has also done radio broadcasts of McNeese State University football, basketball, softball and baseball games since 2000. The type of job was a dream of his since childhood, having emulated broadcasters based in St. Louis, Mo.

“To be able to do Division 1 college sports on radio, 10-year-old me would have thought that’s pretty cool,” he said.

Despite not being a native of Southwest Louisiana, Hoefer said the region has become home over the past 34 years. He said he loves the culture and attitude of the people here, and, hurricanes aside, the warmer climate.

“I grew up with snow, ice and blizzards,” he said. “I prefer warm weather. There’s no question this is where I want to be.”