Dale Sittig remembers Holloway

Clyde Holloway, chairman of the Louisiana Public Service Commission and a former congressman, died at his home in Forest Hill Sunday.
He was 72.
Holloway suffered from complications with pneumonia.
Former state Public Service commissioner and state representative Dale Sittig remembers Holloway as a hardworking politician.
“Clyde Holloway was a very hard worker ... very sincere person. If he believed something, he believed in it,” Sittig said.
Sittig served from 1995 to 2008 on the state Public Service Commission and served a total of four years as chairman.
Holloway succeeded Sittig on the commission.
Sittig said he worked with Holloway on issues over the years.
“He is probably the easiest person to talk to,” Sittig said.
But it was Holloway’s hard work that impressed Sittig.
“Clyde would be in one end of the district in the morning and be at the other end that night,” he said.
“If you needed to speak to Clyde you could speak to Clyde directly. You didn’t have go through any employee,” Sittig said.
As of Wednesday, services had not been announced.
According to the Advocate, Holloway had been in ill health for several months, including a two-month stint in a Houston hospital over the summer, forcing him to miss meetings of the five-member board elected to regulate utilities, phone companies and intrastate trucking.
“A true public servant, Clyde spent his life advocating on behalf of the state and people he loved,” Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a statement. “From the time that he began his career in his beloved hometown of Forest Hill, to representing Louisiana’s 8th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, and then ultimately serving as chairman of the Louisiana Public Service Commission, he always remained accessible and a powerful voice for his constituents.”
The Advocate continued:
“His election to the PSC in 2009 made the Commission the first elected body in Louisiana with a Republican majority since Reconstruction. He chose not to run for reelection this fall, citing his failing health as the reason.
“Mike Francis, of Lafayette, and Reldon Owens, of Alexandria, both Republicans, and Mary Werner, a Lake Charles Democrat, are vying to replace Holloway in the Nov. 8 election.
“Holloway was at the vanguard of the state’s shift to conservative Republicanism when elected to the U.S. Congress in 1986.”