Mr. Thomas J. Schultz Jr. is a retired commercial fisherman in Biloxi, Mississippi. He was born on October 22, 1932, in Biloxi, Mississippi, to Mr. Thomas J. Schultz Sr. (born June 25, 1907, in Bon Secour, Alabama) and Mrs. Ophelia A. Quigley Schultz (born November 25, 1908, in Biloxi, Mississippi). His father was a fisherman and a boatbuilder. His father’s paternal lineage was Danish. His maternal lineage was Mississippi Native American. His mother was a housewife who also worked in the seafood processing industry. All of her family worked in the ice cream business until the death of the grandfather. Her father made the first one-cent ice cream cones in Biloxi. He sold them from a horse-drawn cart. Her mother also worked in a seafood processing factory. On July 14, 1970, he married his wife Rose (born in Biloxi in 1940), in Biloxi, Mississippi. They have four children, Rose Love Dellenger (born February 3, 1959), Dana A. Ennis (born November 8, 1964), Elliott Voinedich (born August 29, 1966), and Reva Rose Hopkins (born May 21, 1973). Schultz quit school to become a fisherman. He served for four years in the US Navy during the Korean War. Later he earned his GED. Other than his livelihood, he enjoys his grandchildren. He is a member of the Southern Shrimp Alliance. In 1983, he was the shrimp king.

Scope and Content Note:
He talks about commercial fishing, shrimping, equipment, boats, oysters, imported seafood, pollution, regulations, fishing seasons, nets, seafood-processing factories, multigenerational fishing family, father?s fishing, species in Mississippi Sound/Gulf of Mexico, gillnets, marketing catch, fuel costs, Hurricane Irene, Hurricane Katrina, boat building, Southern Shrimp Alliance, sea turtles, BP Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, TEDs, Governor?s Commission, oyster reefs, testing/monitoring waters and sea life, gigging flounders, Horn Island, tar balls, Ship Island, Cat Island, Deer Island, Gulf Coast seafood industry, sunken Spanish galleons, Vietnamese community.