Hugh G. Parker, Jr.

Hugh Griffin Parker, Jr.
Parker in later years
Born	(1934-07-25)July 25, 1934 Bastrop, Morehouse Parish Louisiana, USA
Died
Resting place	Memorial Park Cemetery in Bastrop
Residence	Bastrop, Louisiana
Alma mater	Bastrop (Louisiana) High School Louisiana State University
Occupation	Architect: Monroe/West Monroe Convention and Visitors Bureau Charles Wyly, Sr., Tower of Learning
Spouse(s)	Sarabeth Boughton Parker (married 1963-2007, his death)
Children	Sharon Lynn Johnson Lee Anne McDonald Six grandchildren
Parent(s)	Hugh, Sr., and Jewel Flynn Parker

The Wyly Tower of Learning, named for the benefactors Sam Wyly and Charles Wyly, is the most prominent building on the Louisiana Tech University campus in Ruston, Louisiana. It was designed by Hugh G. Parker, Jr., c. 1970.

File:Revised, Calvary Church, Minden, LA IMG 5848.JPG

Parker designed some fifty churches, including Calvary Missionary Baptist in Minden in Webster Parish.

Hugh Griffin Parker, Jr. (July 25, 1934 – November 3, 2007), was an architect from his native Bastrop in Morehouse Parish, Louisiana. He overcame the worst impact of polio as a youth to design during a 45-year career many public and private buildings, most in North Louisiana.

Background

Parker was the son of Hugh Parker, Sr. (1909-2007) and the former Jewel Flynn (died 1988), originally from Oak Ridge in Morehouse Parish. In 1949, at the age of fifteen, Parker contracted polio and underwent treatment in New Orleans and thereafter recuperation in Warm Springs, Georgia. In 1952, he graduated from Bastrop High School; four years later, he received a degree in architectural engineering from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

In 1963, Parker married the former Sarabeth Boughton (born c. 1943); the couple had two daughters, Sharon Lynn Johnson and husband, Charlie, of Garland, Texas, and Lee Anne McDonald and husband, Clay, of Choudrant in Lincoln Parish. His surviving sister is Merrilee P. Rogers (born c. 1936) of Garland.

He was a Paul P. Harris fellow of Rotary International of Monroe, Louisiana.

Career

Parker began practicing solo in 1959. In 1961, he joined the firm founded in the 1940s by the late Allen Turpin. The company underwent several transitions before it assumed the name "Hugh G. Parker, Jr., Architect, Inc." in 1988 in Monroe.

Parker was particularly known for his design of government and educational buildings, churches, residential homes, financial institutions, and state parks, such as Lake Claiborne State Park near Homer, Louisiana. His best known projects were the Monroe/West Monroe Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Wyly Tower of Learning at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, and the football arena (Malone Stadium), the baseball stadium, and the activities center at the University of Louisiana at Monroe.

Parker designed the city hall and police station in Bastrop. His work is shown in the design of some fifty church buildings, including the Lea Joyner United Methodist Church and Trinity Lutheran Church, both in Monroe, the McGuire United Methodist Church in West Monroe, the Calvary Missionary Baptist Church in Minden in Webster Parish, and reconstruction of St. Joseph Catholic Church in Bastrop. Parker worked for school boards on such projects as the gymnasiums for Morehouse Junior High School and his alma mater, Bastrop High School. He handled some fifty construction projects for various school boards in Ouachita, Claiborne, Richland, and Franklin parishes, as well as the Monroe City Schools.He also designed the Ouachita Independent Bank in West Monroe.

Parker was affiliated with the American Institute of Architects and the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards. In 2002, he was member of the regents of the Louisiana Architectural Foundation. Parker retired in 2004.In 2006, Timothy Mark "Tim" Brandon (born August 1967) acquired the Parker firm and relocated it to West Monroe, with branch offices in Natchitoches, Louisiana, and Dallas, Texas.

Parker died the next year at the age of seventy-four. Services were held at the First Baptist Church of Bastrop, of which he was a member. Along with his parents, Parker is interred at Memorial Park Cemetery in Bastrop.