{{Infobox officeholder
|name= Herman "Wimpy" Jones
|office= [[Louisiana]] State Senatorfor Senator for<br>District 36 (Bossier <br> and Webster parishes)
|term_start=1956
|term_end=1960
|preceded=[[John J. DolesDoles, Sr.]]
|succeeded=[[Harold Montgomery]]
|birth_date=December 19, 1905
|resting_place=Minden Cemetery
|residence=(1) [[Minden, Louisiana|Minden]], Louisiana
(2) [[Bossier City, Louisiana|Bossier City]], Louisiana|spouse=(1) First wife missing<br>missing
(2) Georgia Doty Jones (married 1941-1967, his death)
|children=Mary Elizabeth Jones Brocato<br>Brocato
Three grandchildren:<br>
Annette B. Seamands<br>
|footnotes='''Notes''':<br>
(1) Jones operated [[restaurant]]s in [[Minden, Louisiana|Minden]] and then [[Bossier City]] while he also developed an intense interest in local and state politics.<br>
(2) Jones barely topped [[Harold Montgomery]] in their 1956 [[Democratic Party|Democratic]] [[primary]] election confrontation and then lost 2–1 in their 1960 rematch.
}} '''Herman "Wimpy" Jones''' (December 19, 1905 – April 30, 1967) was a [[business]]man who served as a [[Democratic Party|Democratic]] member of the Louisiana State Senate for Bossier and Webster parishes in northwestern [[Louisiana]]. He held the position for a single term from 1956 to 1960, <ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.senate.la.gov/Documents/Membership/Documents/SenateMembership1880ForwardRevisedMar2011.pdf|title=Membership in the Louisiana Senate, 1880-Present (Bossier and Webster parishes)|publisher=Louisiana State Senate|accessdate=September 25, 2019}}</ref> which corresponded with the administration of [[Governor]] [[Earl Long|Earl Kemp Long]]. He was also the state fire marshal for [[Minden, Louisiana|Minden]] and for a time the assistant sergeant at arms of the Louisiana House of Representatives.<ref name=mph>"Funeral Rites Set Tuesday for Herman (Wimpy) Jones," ''Minden Press-Herald,'' May 1, 1967, p. 1.</ref>
==Background==
Jones was one of eight children born in Webster Parish to John Jackson Jones (1867–1957) and the former Stella I. Boucher (1872–1946). His siblings were Casey, Clyde, Lena, Louie, Delta Jones Botzong (1891–1979), A. Augustus Melvin Jones (1893-1985), and Loy Jones (1903–1907), who died at the age of three when Herman was barely a year old.<ref name=ancestry>{{cite web|url=http://google.com/search?q=cache:n3rN1Shxg5QJ:wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi%3Fop%3DREG%26db%3Djackiewiley%26id%3DI00792+Drayton+R.+Boucher&cd=14&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us|title=Wiley Family of Shongaloo, Louisiana|publisher=Rootsweb ancestry|accessdate=June 23, 2009; no longer on-line.}}</ref>
Melvin Jones and his wife, the former Lillian David (1895–1972), had three children, who were a niece and nephews of Herman Jones: Melba Jones Lowery (1921–2009), James Thomas Jones (1916–1986), and Augustus L. "Loye" Jones (1931–2011), who opened Loye's Pharmacy in Minden in 1963.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nwlanews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14818&Itemid=33|title=Obituary of Melba Jones Lowery|publisher=''Minden Press-Herald''|accessdate=July 3, 2009}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.press-herald.com/index.php/obituaries/1277-augustus-l-loye-jones|title=Augustus L. "Loye" Jones|publisher=''Minden Press-Herald''|accessdate=September 15, 2011; no longer on-line}}</ref> Melba Lowery was the wife of Dennis Lowery (1922-2012), a native of Yellow Pine in Sabine County in east [[Texas]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thetowntalk/obituary.aspx?n=dennis-lowery&pid=161045147|title=Dennis Lowery obituary|publisher=''The [[Alexandria Town Talk]]''|accessdate=November 14, 2012}}</ref>
Herman Jones graduated in 1924 from [[Minden (Louisiana) High School|Minden High School]], having played on champion football teams in 1921, 1923, and 1924.<ref name=mph/> He operated [[restaurant]]s in Minden and later [[Bossier City]] known as Jones' Kitchen and the Southern Kitchen, respectively. Jones' Kitchen was sold in 1951. It was renamed in 1958 as the "Southern Kitchen" under new owners Harold Martin "Happy" Turner (1911–1988) and [[John T. David]], the Minden fire chief and municipal mayor from 1946 to 1955. While residing in Bossier City, Jones was a member of the First [[Southern Baptist|Baptist]] Church there. He also served on the Bossier City Planning Commission and filled an unexpired term on the city council for Bossier City.<ref>''Minden Press,'' January 9, 1956, p. 8.</ref>
==Legislative races==
In 1947, Jones ran for the Louisiana House seat from Bossier Parish. He lost by seventy-seven votes to incumbent Representative Jimmy Boyd.<ref>{{cite web|url=
https://www.legis.la.gov/legisdocs/members/h1812-2020.pdf|title=Membership of the Louisiana House of Representatives, 1812-2020 (Bossier Parish)|publisher=Louisiana House of Representatives|accessdate=September 25, 2019}}</ref> In 1952, Jones narrowly lost a primary election to the state Senate to [[John Jones J. Doles, Sr.]], a banker from Plain Dealing banker in northern Bossier Parish whom Jones described as "a friend."<ref>"44 Candidates Qualified," ''Minden Herald,'' October 15, 1955, p.1.</ref>.On February 21, 1956, Jones rebounded to defeat businessman and former educator [[Harold Montgomery]] of Doyline in south Webster Parish in the Democratic [[primary]] runoff election for the Bossier/Webster Senate seat vacated by Doles after a single term. A third candidate, Minden businessman and educator Lloyd C. Starr (1899–1982), was eliminated in the first primary. Jones claimed, as having been the House assistant sergeant-at-arms, that he knew personally nearly 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.<ref>''Minden Press,'' January 17, 1956, p. 1.</ref> No [[Republican Party|Republicans]] sought the position. District 36 obtained its first Republican senator in 2007, when [[Robert Adley (Louisiana politician)|Robert Roy Adley ]] of Benton, switched parties shortly after his election as a Democrat.
As senator, Jones served on the Joint Legislative Committee on [[Racial segregation|Segregation]], under chairman [[William Rainach]] of neighboring Claiborne Parish. Like Rainach, Jones 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]].<ref>''Minden Press,'' January 9, 1956.</ref> Unlike Rainach, Jones was noncommittal on the recurring issue of [[right-to-work]] legislation, having urged in 1958 a state constitutional amendment on the matter to gauge voter support. "It is a very controversial issue and ought to be decided by the people. We should get the [right-to-work] thing settled once and for all."<ref>"Legislators Ask Right-to-Work Vote," ''Minden Press,'' February 24, 1958, p. 1.</ref> Jones campaigned for reelection in 1959 by noting that he had obtained twenty-three road contracts for Bossier and Webster parishes in the administration of [[Governor]] [[Earl Long|Earl Kemp Long]] during a period of three and one-half years.<ref>''Minden Press,'' August 17, 1959, p. 1.</ref>
The [[conservative]] Harold 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 Democratic 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 [[precinct]]s precincts in what is now a revised District 36. In this same election, [[Jimmie Davis]] defeated fellow Democrat [[Chep Morrison|deLesseps Story "Chep" Morrison, Sr. (1912-1964) ]] to win the [[governor|gubernatorial]] nomination. The Senate results finished Jones’s political career.<ref>''Minden Press,'' December 9, 1959, and January 11, 1960, p. 1.</ref>
Jones announced that he would oppose Montgomery again in the primary held on December 7, 1963, but he withdrew from the contest before the balloting began.<ref name=mph/> Jones called himself an [[Independent]] and endorsed unpledged electors for the 1964 presidential campaign, a position originally held by Montgomery too.<ref>''Minden Press,'' December 9, 1963, p. 1.</ref> However, the nomination in 1964 of [[Barry Goldwater]] by the Republican Party ended the free-elector movement.
==Death and family==
Jnes 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, the former Georgia E. Doty (1910-1977), he was survived by a daughter from a previous marriage, Mary Elizabeth Jones Brocato (1928-1994), and her husband, Joseph Albert Brocato (1921-2007), a [[Roman Catholic]] veteran of [[World War II]], who for sixty-two years was affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. In 1990, Governor [[Buddy Roemer]] awarded Brocato the "Caddo Parish Older Worker of the Year Award."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.osbornfuneralhome.net/home/index.cfm?action=public:obituaries.view&o_id=100024&fh_id=10282|title=Joseph Albert Brocato|publisher=osbornfuneralhome.net|accessdate=June 19, 2015}}</ref> The Brocatos are interred at Forest Park East Cemetery in Shreveport.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Brocato&GSfn=Mary&GSbyrel=all&GSdyrel=all&GSst=20&GScnty=1117&GScntry=4&GSob=n&GRid=112179067&df=all&|title=Mary Elizabeth Jones Brocato|publisher=findagrave.com|accessdate=June 19, 2015}}</ref>
Jones had a surviving brother, Augustus Melvin Jones (1893-1985) of Minden,<ref name=mph/> and a brother-in-law, Keith Cassius Doty (1919-1990) of Bossier City, a veteran of the First United States Army Special Service Force of World War II, who is interred at Hillcrest Memorial Park in Haughton in Bossier Parish.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Doty&GSfn=Keith&GSbyrel=all&GSdyrel=all&GSst=20&GScnty=1116&GScntry=4&GSob=n&GRid=121234406&df=all&|title=Keith C. "KC" Doty|publisher=findagrave.com|accessdate=June 19September 25, 20152019}}</ref>
Georgia Jones was born in Mills in Keya Paha County in northern [[Nebraska]], a daughter of George and Blanche Doty. She attended public schools in Huron in Beadle County in east central [[South Dakota]], and relocated to Bossier City during the 1930s. She and Jones married in 1941. After his death, she returned to South Dakota and resided in Beresford. She died at the age of sixty-seven in Viborg, in Turner County in southeastern South Dakota. She is interred at Riverside Cemetery in Huron.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=105339641|title=Georgia E. Doty Jones|publisher=Findagrave.com from ''The Daily Plainsman''|location=Huron, [[South Dakota]]|date=July 15, 1977|page=2|accessdate=June 19, 2015}}</ref>
Through his maternal uncle, Robert Riley Boucher of Springhill in northern Webster Parish, Jones was a first cousin of former state Representative and Senator [[Drayton Boucher|Drayton Rogers Boucher (1908-1983) ]] (pronounced BUTCHER), who held the same senate seat as Jones from 1940 to 1952.==References=={{reflist}}{{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Herman "Wimpy"}}[[Category:Louisiana People]][[Category:Business People]]
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[[Category:State Senators]][[Category:Democrats]][[Category:Baptists]]