Steve Thompson (Louisiana Politician)

Steve D. Thompson (born December 15, 1935) is a real estate agent in Winnsboro, Louisiana, who served from 1988 to 1996 as a state senator for District 32,^[1] which encompasses all or parts of the seven parishes of Caldwell, Catahoula, Concordia, Franklin, LaSalle, Rapides, and Tensas.

Background[edit]

Thompson was a son of Walter T. "Slick" Thompson (1906-1961) and the former Ethel Parks (1910-2009), a native of rural Liddieville in Franklin Parish who spent fifty years as a classroom teacher for the Franklin Parish School Board. The couple is interred at New Winnsboro Cemetery, along with Steve Thompson's brother, William Parks "Billy" Thompson (1939-1998). He has another brother, Tommy Thompson of Shreveport and a sister, Betty Zane Williams of Baton Rouge.^[2] Thompson graduated from Winnsboro High School and attended Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.^[3]

Prior to his real estate business, he was involved in trucking.^[4] He received federal farm payments in the amount of $48,802 between 1995 and 2012, an average of less than $3,000 per year.^[5]

Thompson's first wife, Jeanette H. Thompson (born March 1934) of Winnsboro, from whom he is divorced, was a principal in Thompson Trucking.^[4]He has two children from the first marriage, James W. Thompson and Laura Thompson. From his second marriage to Sherrie Hardie Thompson (c. 1953-2014), the daughter of Oliver "Billie" Hardie (1926-2007) and Nell Wyles Hardie (born 1933) of Jonesville in Catahoula Parish,^[6] Thompson acquired a step-daughter, Tiffany Danielle Foster. Sherrie Thompson was a beauty contest winner, Miss Northwestern State University, and during the 1970s a legislative aide who also worked for then Governor Edwin Edwards and then Louisiana Secretary of State and later lieutenant governor, Paul Hardy of St. Martin Parish. Sherrie Thompson is interred along with her father at McFarlen-Gurie Cemetery in Jonesville, where she was reared. The Thompsons were living in Ferriday in Concordia Parish at the time of her death,^[7] but Steve Thompson is a registered voter in Precinct 16 in Franklin Parish.

Political life[edit]

Thompson unseated his fellow Democrat, William B. Atkins of Jonesville, in the 1987 primary election with 21,576 votes (50.27 percent) in a four-candidate field. Atkins trailed with 15,988 (37.3 percent).^[8]Thompson won his second term in the 1991 primary with 26,840 votes (63 percent). David I. Patten, a former member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from Catahoula Parish, trailed with 8,694 votes (20.4 percent).^[9]

As a senator, Thompson was the chairman of the Senate Local and Municipal Affairs Committee and served as well on the Agriculture and Finance panels.^[3]He did not seek a third term in 1995,^[10] when Noble Ellington of Winnsboro defeated fellow Democrat Roy Hebron of Ball in northern Rapides Parish to claim the seat.^[11]

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