John Laborde, Marksville native who built Tidewater Industries dies at 97

John Peter Laborde, 97, an offshore oil and gas industry leader and native of Marksville died Thursday at his New Orleans home.
He and his close family established Tidewater Compression Service in a small office in Marksville. The company became the United States’ biggest owner and operator of gas-compression services, said his son, Cliffe F. Laborde. Compression is necessary, he said, to get gas into pipelines.
The John Laborde family donated land and a small chapel in the Rexmere community that is still used today.
Laborde was born in Marksville and graduated from Hammond High School. He enrolled at LSU, but his education was interrupted when he, as a colonel in Army ROTC, was inducted into the Army in the early days of the United States’ involvement in World War II. Laborde graduated first in his class at Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia, his son Cliffe Laborde said.