Herman "Wimpy" Jones
Herman “Wimpy” Jones (December 19, 1905—April 30, 1967) was a businessman who served as a Democratic member of the Louisiana State Senate from Bossier and Webster parishes for a single term from 1956-1960. He was also the state fire marshal for Minden and for a time the sergeant at arms of the Louisiana House of Representatives.
Jones graduated in 1924 from Minden High School. He operated restaurants in Minden and later Bossier City known as Jones' Kitchen and the Southern Kitchen, respectively. The since defunct Minden eatery, which Jones sold in 1951, was renamed the "Southern Kitchen" under another owner. While living in Bossier City, Jones was a member of the First Baptist Church there. He also served on the Bossier City Planning Commission and filled an unexpired term on the Bossier City Council. In 1947, Jones ran for the Louisiana House seat from Bossier Parish. He lost by seventy-seven votes to incumbent Jimmy Boyd.
On February 21, 1956, Jones defeated businessman and former educator A. Harold Montgomery (1911-1995) of Doyline in south Webster Parish in the Democratic primary for the Bossier/Webster Senate seat vacated by John J. Doles (1895-1970) of Springhill in northern Webster Parish. Jones claimed to know personally virtually all the legislators and would hence be ready from the first day to represent the northwest Louisiana district. Jones polled 6,734 votes (50.7 percent) to Montgomery's 6,542 (49.3 percent), a margin of 192 votes. No Republicans sought the position. District 36 obtained its first Republican senator in 2007, when Robert Adley of Benton, the seat of Bossier Parish, switched parties shortly after being elected as a Democrat.
As senator, Jones served on the legislative Joint Segregation Committee and opposed desegregation at the height of the civil rights movement. He was a favorite of organized labor and supported voting by eighteen-year-olds, an issue not much discussed at the time, some fifteen years before the ratification of the 26th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The more conservative Montgomery returned to challenge Jones in the primary held on December 7, 1959. Montgomery led, 7,929 (46.6 percent) to 6,542 (38.5 percent), but two other candidates polled a critical 2,536 votes (14.9 percent). In the runoff election on January 9, 1960, Montgomery easily defeated Jones, 11,116 (66.5 percent) to 5,611 (33.5 percent) and won sixty-eight of the seventy precincts in what is now a revised District 36. In this same election, Jimmie Davis defeated fellow Democrat deLesseps Story Morrison to win the gubernatorial nomination. The Senate results finished Jones’s political career. Montgomery held the seat until 1968 and, after having been defeated for a term by John Willard "Jack" Montgomery, Sr. (no relation), he avenged his loss and returned to the Senate from 1972-1976.
Jones died of a brief illness in a Shreveport hospital at the age of sixty-one. Services were held in the funeral home chapel in Minden, with interment at Minden Cemetery. In addition to his wife, whose first and maiden names are not specified in the obituary, Jones was survived by a daughter, Mary Elizabeth Jones Brocato of Shreveport, and two brothers, Melvin Jones and James L. Jones, both of Minden.