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. Perret was Assistant Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries responsible for marine and fresh water fish and fish activities.  Then he was Deputy Director of the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources until his retirement shortly before the interview. After his retirement he became a contractor for the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources as a liaison with various federal and state agencies and participated at Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission and Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council meetings. Mr. Perret worked with shrimpers during the governmental mandates of TEDs. He returned to his family home in Cottonport, Louisiana which was built as a Catholic school for the town in the late 1800’s and purchased by his grandparents.

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William grew up in a very rural area of central Louisiana. Cottonport, Louisiana. He had his own horse right in the middle of town. It was a town of about 1,600 people and his father was the only dentist in town. He grew up on a small farm with farm animals and there were tenant farmers that provided the family with vegetables and raised cotton. William sold eggs and milk to the neighbors. He was born during World War II and can remember one Christmas his mother, grandmother and maid putting little lightbulbs in various colored paints to have different colored light bulbs for Christmas. His dad would come home for lunch every day and he remembers the day his dad came home saying to his mother, “the war is over”. The family had a camp on Grand Isle. His grandfather, uncles, father were all doctors and dentists. There were no doctors on the island so when the Perrets would get there they would treat all the locals with ailments. The locals would bring them fish and shellfish in exchange for treatments. William would get on a shrimper’s boat with his father or uncle and this old shrimper had bottles with weird looking animals in alcohol and he would sit there and hold those bottles and thought that’s what probably got him first interested in fisheries. He mentions he probably initially was more interested in wildlife until he had the realization that wildlife is easy and marine fish are tough; that’s where the issues are. So, he got into fisheries.