Background
Smith was born in the Conway Community of Union Parish but resided in his adult life in the parish seat of Farmerville.
Smith was born in the Conway Community of Union Parish but resided in his adult life in the parish seat of Farmerville.
In the first term he represented only Union Parish.Thereafter from 1972 to 1992, he was the sergeant-at-arms of the Louisiana State Senate. Smith was one of eight children of the Reverend J. Duff Smith (1891-1962) and the former Sallie Jane Turner (1889-1955). The Reverend Smith served in the state House of Representatives from Union Parish from 1944 to 1948 during the first term of Governor Jimmie Davis.
In August 1946, Smith was ordained as a deacon by the Antioch Baptist Church in Farmerville and for six decades was the caretaker of the Antioch Cemetery, where he and many of his family members are interred.
He worked for construction of a monument on the Alabama Landing Road near the Dean Community in honor of an "Unknown Soldier" of the American Civil War. He was survived by a sister, Lucille Smith Dawson (1920-2010) of Iowa, Louisiana.
He outlived his six other siblings. In September 2013, the Louisiana Highway 33 bridge over Lake Doctorate’Arbonne in Farmerville was named in Smith"s honor.
The legislative bill to rename the bridge was introduced by Republican Representative Rob Shadoin of Ruston, whose House District 12 includes part of the territory once represented by Smith, whom Shadoin calls "one of the greatest men of Union Parish".The Senate sponsor of the legislation is Mike Walsworth, a Republican from West Monroe.
He was a member of the Gideons International, Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Legion, Lions International, Masonic lodge, the Order of the Eastern Star, and Woodmen of the World.