Roy Morris Fish

Roy Morris Fish (Louisiana attorney and banker)
Born	July 27, 1922 Walker Creek Lafayette County Arkansas, USA Resided in Springhill in Webster Parish and in retirement in Shreveport
Died	September 5, 2020 (aged 98) Shreveport, Louisiana Resting place: Springhill Cemetery in Springhill, Louisiana
Political Party	Republican-turned- Democrat (2004)
Spouse	Ann Norwood Fish (died 2017) Children: Ralph Norwood Fish (deceased) Morris Randal Fish Three granddaughters Parents: Roy Lee and Alice Simpson Fish Alma mater: Southern Arkansas University (Magnolia) Louisiana State University Law Center (Baton Rouge)
Military Service
Service/branch	United States Coast Guard
Years of service	1941-1945

Roy Morris Fish (July 27, 1922 – September 5, 2020) was a politically-connected attorney and banker from Springhill in Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana. A former chairman of the Webster Parish Republican Party, he switched allegiance in 2004 and became a Democrat​​ allied with the Louisiana Trial Lawyers Association, the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama, and the American Civil Liberties Union./

Fish was born to Roy Lee Fish and the former Alice Simpson in Walker Creek in Lafayette (pronounced LE FAY IT) County in southwestern Arkansas. He began public school education in Texarkana, Arkansas while his father worked there for the railroad at Union Station. Roy Lee Fish earned $90 per month (nearly 1,800 in 2020 dollars) but still managed to buy the family's home and a used Overland automobile. When the stock market crashed in October 1929 and the Great Depression began, the family moved back to the Walker Creek community and became sharecroppers. In this capacity Fish became a prolific picker of cotton. Despite the economic hard times, the Fish family prospered.

After high school, Fish attended Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia, and in October 1941, shortly before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the United States Coast Guard. He was discharged when the war ended and enrolled in law school at Louisiana State University in the capital city of Baton Rouge, from which he graduated in 1949. Fish worked for forty years in his law office in Springhill. Part of the time he was in practice with Charles McConnell, a former Springhill mayor and Jack Montgomery, a former one-term Democratic state senator. After he retired from his law practice, Fish was named president of the former Springhill Bank and Trust Company, a position that he filled for five years. In 1998, SBTC became part of Regions Bank.

Fish was the city attorney for Springhill. In the summer of 1972, he was an unsuccessful candidate in a nonpartisan race to be the District 10 delegate to the Louisiana Constitutional Convention, which met throughout 1973. Fish polled 1,746 votes (30.9 percent), but victory went to state Representative R. Harmon Drew, Sr., who topped the three-candidate field with 3,194 votes (56.5 percent). In third place with 714 votes (12.6 percent) was the independent journalist Eddy Arnold, then of Minden. ' He was active in the Louisiana Bar Association, from which he received in 1985 the President's Award for the most valuable service to the association. According to his obituary, Fish was one of the last of the "old school" lawyers who could handle a wide range of cases.

Shortly after coming to Springhill, Fish met and married the former Ann Norwood, and the couple had two sons, Ralph Norwood Fish (deceased) and Morris Randal Fish and his wife Debbie. When Ann suffered a debilitating stroke, Roy became her caregiver for eight years until Ann's death in 2017. Fish was a lifelong golfer and played his last game a week before his passing in Shreveport at the age of ninety-eight. He liked to travel and was also a voracious reader. He and his wife are interred at Springhill Cemetery. In addition to his wife and son, he was preceded in death by two sisters, Alice Faye Willis and Marilyn Fish Bryan. In addition to son Randal Fish, he was survived by three granddaughters, Holly Michelle Fish, Lauren Lee Fish, and Allison Ann Fish and her husband, Brennan Black.