Interviewer(s): D. Austin. Houma, LA

Affiliation: University of Arizona

I met Moye Boudreaux at the ecology festival hosted by the Barataria-Terrebonne Estuary Foundation in Thibodaux. She was sitting near our booth resting when she realized that we were doing a history study. She and her daughter came over and talked about their experiences in the oil and gas industry. Moye had sent a message to the email address we set up for the project. We exchanged cards and agreed to meet the following week. Moye was very happy to set up a time to get together, and we met at the Terrebonne Council on Aging, where she is helping the organization set up new offices, partially furnished by Exxon.

Moye was born in 1939 in Palestine, Texas and first arrived in Louisiana as a young girl when her father took a job in a newly developed oilfield operated by Tidewater Oil Company in Venice, Louisiana. Moye grew up in Venice, moved with her family to Houma for a few years as a young teenager, and then returned to Venice to finish high school. Moye began working in the oil and gas industry right out of school and worked for Exxon until her retirement in 1994. Among her other activities, Moye was president of the Desk and Derrick Club, a women's club organized in New Orleans in 1949 to help educate women employees about the oil and gas industry.