Mayor Dustin Yates Is a Family Man

Istrouma High football coach Sid Edwards gained national attention when he was elected Mayor-President of East Baton Rouge Parish. It was surprising to some that a football coach would rise so high in politics. 

However, did you know another coach right here in East Baton Rouge Parish was recently elected mayor? It was our own St. George Mayor Dustin Yates! In fact, there’s no question that Dustin Yates would not be mayor of St. George today if he were not a high school football coach. 

Yates was born in Metairie in 1979. His dad was a firefighter and postal employee. 

He graduated from Jesuit High School and earned a Bachelor’s degree in education from the University of New Orleans. 

After coaching at Jesuit and De La Salle, he spent three years coaching in St. John Parish. 

Then in 2005 he moved to Baton Rouge to accept a coaching position at Woodlawn High School. 

Coaching is what brought the future mayor to Baton Rouge. Shortly after coming to Woodlawn, he joined the St. George Fire Department in January 2006. 

“Firefighting was always in my head, going back to my dad,” he said.

At the St. George Fire Department rose from a firefighter to Lieutenant and then eight years into his service he joined the administration. Until recently, he serving as Chief Administrative Officer and Deputy Chief of the department. St. George is acknowledged to be one of the most outstanding fire services in the state.

As CAO, Yates was responsible for almost everything except the firefighters on the trucks. He handled the business side of the department and had a role in intelligence and disaster preparation. 

Dustin has been married to his wife Allison for 19 years. They have two children, Avery, 17, and Bennett, 15. 

Yates got involved in the St. George movement in 2013. Again coaching played the important role in this decision. 

“Norman Browning and I had coached together at Woodlawn, and Norman was all into the St. George movement. In the spring of 2013, we put together a group and started the first petition.”  The leaders were Josh Hoffpauir, Norman Browning, and Dustin Yates. 

Yates spoke throughout the community and worked hard on the petition. At that time, a law permitted people to withdraw their names from the incorporation petition, but not add them. 

So once the petitions were filed, there was a campaign to get people to withdraw their names. A few hundred people did and it was enough to sink the effort. 

During the second petition drive, organizers got thousands more names than necessary. In addition, the law had been changed to prevent withdrawal of signatures. 

The second petition resulted in a victory at the polls in October 2016. Mayor Yates said “Everything happens for a reason. We’re much better prepared for governing and much more appreciative of the opportunity after having lost the first petition. I think it has made the St. George movement better.” 

With the St. George movement and firefighting, Mayor Yates said he realized he had lost touch with coaching and he missed it! So once his kids were old enough to be involved in sports, he started coaching youth leagues. He especially enjoyed coached his daughters’s basketball team and his son‘s baseball team plus the middle school at St. George Catholic Church. 

The mayor said, “I think my lifelong ambition is to be a middle school football coach and cut the grass on the field! 

Like Coach Sid said, it would be difficult to coach and be mayor at the same time.

Yates loves the outdoors and loves to hunt and fish. 

Oddly enough, Yates and Sid Edwards knew each other long before either of them ever got involved in politics and once again it was through coaching. 

“My brother was at Jesuit when Coach Sid was there in 2005, and he absolutely loved Coach Sid as well as Coach David Brewerton who was an assistant with Sid at Jesuit.  Today Brewerton is head coach at Zachary High School. 

Despite the rigors of firefighting and now being mayor, Yates says he and his family live “a pretty simple life. We really haven’t changed. We certainly believe in traditional values, and we plan to keep them!”