Biloxi, MS

Interviewee Collection Sort ascending Description Interviewer Date of Interview Location of Interview Affiliation
Walter Chataginer Turtle Excluder Device Oral Histories

Interview with Walter Chataginer, Chief of Marine Patrol for the State of Mississippi Dept. of Marine Resources.  Interview contains information on enforcing federal TED laws, reactions toward conservation measures by the fishing industry, general information on the shrimping industry and narrator's recollections of working on shrimping vessels.

Stephanie Scull-DeArmey Biloxi, MS Maritime and Seafood Industry Museum, University of Southern Mississippi
William Perret Turtle Excluder Device Oral Histories

William Stanley "Corky" Perret was born November 22, 1942 in Cottonport, Louisiana.  He attended USL where he obtained a Master’s degree in Fishery Science. Mr.

Stephanie Scull-DeArmey Biloxi, MS Maritime and Seafood Industry Museum, University of Southern Mississippi
Noah Saunders Turtle Excluder Device Oral Histories

Interview with Noah Saunders, born September 21, 1963 in Biloxi, MS. Saunders was a gear manufacturer who invented the Supershooter TED in collaboration with National Marine Fisheries Services.

Stephanie Scull-DeArmey Biloxi, MS Maritime and Seafood Industry Museum, University of Southern Mississippi
Tommy Schultz Turtle Excluder Device Oral Histories

Thomas Schultz Jr. was born in Biloxi, Mississippi October 22, 1932. Thomas was a 3rd generation shrimper. After forty-five years of shrimping, he retired then went to work for the Mississippi State University at the coastal research experimental seafood processing plant in Pascagoula for twelve years. His first job was at a bakery where his uncle was the baker. He quit school at the age of fourteen to work on his daddy’s boat. He was involved in a summer research program at Cape Canaveral Channel tagging turtles.

Stephanie Scull-DeArmey Biloxi, MS Maritime and Seafood Industry Museum, University of Southern Mississippi
Donald Baker Turtle Excluder Device Oral Histories

Interview with Donald Baker, born on October 2, 1939 on Deer Island, Mississippi.  Baker is a shrimp fisherman who speaks about his use of TEDs, changes in the shrimping industry, equipment, fishing techniques and procedures, business aspects of operating a vessel. Other Topics: Hurricane Camille of 1947, growing up on coast, prices of fuel and supplies, profits, fish species, fisheries management

Stephanie Scull-DeArmey Biloxi, MS Maritime and Seafood Industry Museum, University of Southern Mississippi
David Burrage Turtle Excluder Device Oral Histories

David Burrage was born January 7, 1953 in Hampton, Virginia. He attended Old Dominion University where he received a science degree then attended University of Rhode Island for his graduate studies in Marine Affairs. He works with the Sea Grant Extension Program in Mississippi and is an Extension Professor.

Stephanie Scull-DeArmey Biloxi, MS Maritime and Seafood Industry Museum, University of Southern Mississippi
Leroy Duvall Ethnicity in the Seafood Industry on the Mississippi Gulf Coast

When Leroy Duvall refers to himself as one of the younger people, it's despite his 64 years, but it's without a trace of irony. Part of it is that he is the President of the Fleur de Lis Society, a club half the size of what it once was because its membership is slowly passing from old age. And part of it is that, after 30 years of shrimping on the Gulf, his body still feels young. Eventually, the economic repercussions of endangered turtles forced him to retire from shrimping, and when Hurricane Katrina washed away his bakery, he retired from that, too. Mr.

Francis Lam Biloxi, MS Southern Foodways Alliance
Corky Hire Ethnicity in the Seafood Industry on the Mississippi Gulf Coast

Corky Hire may have had an inauspicious beginning to his shrimping career, taking over for his ailing father, but now 70 years later, his memories of working the Gulf are almost all fond ones. His time on boats, through the 30's and 40's, was during a time when Biloxi's seafood industry was growing tremendously and ail schooners were being replaced by powered boats, and Croatian families were making the shift from immigrant laborers to cannery owners and professionals.

Francis Lam Biloxi, MS Southern Foodways Alliance
Frank Parker Ethnicity in the Seafood Industry on the Mississippi Gulf Coast

Even in a town like Biloxi, it's not often someone can claim seven generations of fishing heritage. The line in Frank Parker's family may have stopped at six when his parents pushed him to go to college and consider other lines of work, but the years of growing up playing on the dock had him pretty well convinced he was going to go back out onto the Gulf. So at 24 years old, 12 credits shy of graduating, Frank decided to listen to the sirens and bought himself a boat. The funny thing, though, is that his parents listened to them too.

Francis Lam Biloxi, MS Southern Foodways Alliance
George Trojanovich Ethnicity in the Seafood Industry on the Mississippi Gulf Coast

Georgo Trojanovich is, as he says, "The only real Croatian in Biloxi." But in a city as proud as this one is of its Croatian heritage, everyone here knows what he means: with the arrival of Croatian families tailing off by the second half of the 20th century, Georgo is one of the few - yes, perhaps only - Croatian-born immigrants in town. A distant relative of a local restaurateur, Georgo came as a teenager to escape Tito's Communist regime, working as a dishwasher at Mary Mahoney's restaurant.

Francis Lam Biloxi, MS Southern Foodways Alliance