Guy Sockrider
Guy William Sockrider, Jr., was a businessman from his native Jennings, Louisiana, who served from 1948 to 1964 as a Democrat in the Louisiana State Senate. He represented all or parts of Allen, Beauregard, Calcasieu, Cameron, and Jefferson Davis parishes in the southwestern portion of his state.Biography
Sockrider was born to the former Myrtle Bell Clark and Guy William Sockrider, Sr. He graduated in 1938 from Jennings High School. In 1941, he married the former Ruth Grein, who died in 1964; he was left to rear their only child, Debbie Del Sockrider, who was only six years old at the time of her mother's passing.
In 1942, Sockrider enlisted in the United States Army and was assigned to the 89th Infantry Division. He advanced from second lieutenant, to first lieutenant, and captain. He was honorably discharged into the United States Army Reserve.
Sockrider worked ceaselessly from the age of twelve until his death at the age of eighty-nine. In 1949, he established Industrial Construction Company. In 1989, he launched the non-unionized IMTC and served as its chief executive officer.
In the state Senate, Sockrider served under Governors Earl Kemp Long, Robert F. Kennon, and Jimmie Davis. He sat on the Senate Finance Committee and chaired the industrial relations committee. He worked to upgrade McNeese State University in Lake Charles from a junior college affiliated with Louisiana State University to its own four-year institution. He worked to build the W. O. Moss Regional Hospital, a charity hospital in Lake Charles. Sockrider pushed for the establishment of the stadium for the McNeese State Cowboys football team. For eight years, he chaired the Louisiana Legislative Council.
Sockrider died at a hospital in Lake Charles. In addition to his surviving daughter, Sockrider had two stepchildren from a subsequent 1965 marriage to the former Jaquline Lott Morris, who died in 1993. He is interred at Prien Memorial Park in Lake Charles.
