C.W. Thompson

Clyde W. Thompson, known as C.W. Thompson (November 9, 1890 – May 30, 1951), was a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives who served from 1944 until his death in office. He was briefly succeeded as representative by his widow, Lizzie P. Thompson (1894–1973).

Thompson was a native and lifelong resident of Doyline, a village in northwestern Louisiana located in south Webster Parish near Minden. He was a farmer and businessman who operated a store and a cotton gin. In 1930, Thompson was elected to the Webster Parish School Board. He became the board president in 1936 and was thereafter president of the Louisiana School Boards Association. He left the school board to take his legislative seat in the spring of 1944. Jimmie H. Davis of Shreveport was the incoming governor. The outgoing representative, James E. Bolin, later the district attorney and a district and circuit court judge, was also a Doyline native. Bolin was away with the military in World War II and did not seek re-election. Thompson won the position without opposition in the Democratic primary.

Thompson died in the last year of his second term in the House. Governor Earl K. Long appointed Mrs. Thompson to finish her husband’s term. She did not seek a full term, and the position was won by E.D. Gleason of the Evergreen Coummunity near Shongaloo in central Webster Parish. Gleason also died in office, and in 1959, Earl Long, in his last term as governor, named Mrs. Gleason to finish her husband’s term under the same circumstances as he had with his designation of Mrs. Thompson eight years earlier.

The Thompsons are interred at the Doyline Cemetery located on College Street across from the First United Methodist Church. An unnamed infant Thompson is marked in the cemetery by the date July 21, 1926.