Interviewer: Preetam Prakash

Affiliation: University of Arizona

I had been invited to visit the Slavonian Lodge in Biloxi by one of their members, PP600, after I had expressed my interest in local ethnic and industrial history when we spoke over the phone. PP600 introduced me to several members of the Lodge. One of those present with whom PP600 thought that it would be good for me to speak was Mr. Sekul. PP600 described Mr. Sekul as one of the last members of the lodge who still made his living as a shrimper. After being introduced to Mr. Sekul, I asked if he might be willing to take part in an oral history interview, to which he agreed. The interview was conducted in the Lodge itself.

Mr. Sekul was born in Biloxi, MS in 1950. His family was involved in the seafood business and his father was a shrimper, but Mr. Sekul did not immediately go into shrimping after leaving school. He worked at Ingalls Shipyard for a little over 10 years before getting into the shrimping business in 1982 when the shipyard experienced a downturn in work. He described the 1980s as a good time for the local seafood industry, a period when people were able to make a decent living shrimping and fishing. He noted that many of his friends in the industry had gotten out of it over the years to pursue various other lines of work, including in the offshore oil industry. He himself had never had any desire to go to work offshore and said that he had been able to do alright in the shrimping business until the early 2000s. Since then the rise in fuel costs and increased regulations, and the concordant decline in the price of shrimp had made things very difficult for people in the industry. Mr. Sekul also spoke at some length about his experiences in the aftermath of the BP oil spill of 2010.