Career
A Democrat, Atkins succeeded District 21 Representative Dan Richey, then of Ferriday in Concordia Parish, who left the House after one term to run successfully for the District 32 seat in the state Senate. Then in the 1983 primary election Atkins unseated Richey after one term in the Senate by a huge margin, 28,724 (646 percent) to 15,776 (355 percent). This was the same election in which former Governor Edwin Edwards staged his comeback against Republican David C. Treen.
Four years later, Steve Doctorate. Thompson, a real estate agent from Winnsboro in Franklin Parish then unseated Atkins after a single Senate term in the 1987 primary.
Thompson received 21,576 votes (5027 percent) in a four-candidate field Atkins trailed with 15,988 (373 percent), nearly the same total that Richey had polled in 1983.
Number runoff election was required because Thompson received an outright majority of the votes cast. Atkins attended Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana.He formerly owned the Mission-Lou Truck Stop, Incorporated., in Vidalia in Concordia Parish, which was incorporated in 1994 but is inactive.
He owns the Mission Lou Internet Service at 521 Main Street in Natchez, Mississippi.
