LAFAYETTE - Louisiana State Police say the first black woman to become a state trooper has died.

  

Trooper Brooks David, a state police spokesman, says funeral services were scheduled Wednesday in Lafayette for 68-year-old Joyce Stephanie Isaac Thibodeaux, who died June 21.

  

David said in an email that he doesn't know her cause of death.

  

He says Thibodeaux retired in 1997 after 21 years as a detective in the gaming division. She entered the Louisiana State Police Academy in 1976, after two years in Lafayette city police.

  

After retiring, Thibodeaux earned a bachelor's degree in sociology at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette.

  

The obituary on the Syrie Funeral Home website says she is survived by a sister in Lafayette and two children, three grandchildren and one great-grandson, all living in Atlanta.