Steve Thompson (Louisiana politician)


Steve D. Thompson is a real estate agent in Winnsboro, Louisiana, who served from 1988 to 1996 in the Louisiana State Senate for District 32, which encompasses all or parts of the seven parishes of Caldwell, Catahoula, Concordia, Franklin, LaSalle, Rapides, and Tensas.

Background

Thompson was a son of Walter T. "Slick" Thompson and the former Ethel Parks, 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. He has another brother, Tommy Thompson of Shreveport and a sister, Betty Zane Williams of Baton Rouge. Thompson graduated from Winnsboro High School and attended Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.
Prior to his real estate business, he was involved in trucking.
Thompson's first wife, Jeanette H. Thompson, of Winnsboro was a principal in Thompson Trucking. He has two children, James W. Thompson and Laura Thompson. From his second marriage to Sherrie Hardie Thompson, the daughter of Oliver "Billie" Hardie and Nell Wyles Hardie of Jonesville in Catahoula Parish, 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 Paul J. Hardy. 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, but Steve Thompson is a registered voter in Precinct 16 in Franklin Parish.

Political life

Thompson unseated his fellow Democrat, William B. Atkins of Jonesville in Catahoula Parish, in the 1987 primary election with 21,576 votes in a four-candidate field. Atkins trailed with 15,988. David I. Patten, a former member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from Catahoula Parish, trailed with 8,694 votes.
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. He did not seek a third term in 1995, when Noble Ellington of Winnsboro defeated fellow Democrat Roy Hebron of Ball in northern Rapides Parish to claim the seat.