Larkin I. Smith
Larkin I. Smith (June 26, 1944 – August 13, 1989) was an American politician from Mississippi.
Smith was born in Poplarville, Mississippi. He served at various positions in the Pearl River County and then Harrison County police forces, eventually becoming Chief of Police of Gulfport Police Dept. Gulfport, Mississippi and subsequently Sheriff of Harrison County.
In 1988, Smith ran for the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican from Mississippi's 5th District in the southern portion of the state after eight-term incumbent Trent Lott gave up the seat to make a successful run for the Senate.
He defeated Democratic state senator Gene Taylor and took office on January 3, 1989. However, he died on the night of August 13 in a plane crash in rural Perry County near Gulfport, Mississippi after returning from opening the Little League baseball "Dixie Youth World Series" in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. The bodies of Smith and pilot Chuck Vierling were not recovered until morning of the next day after a search in which rescuers had to bulldoze their way through the forest in which Smith's single-engine plane crashed. Smith's death was the second death in one week of a U.S. Representative in a plane crash. Representative Mickey Leland of Texas died in another plane crash in Ethiopia on August 7, 1989.
At the Dixie Youth World Series, two events occurred that would later take on ironic, tragic notes. Then-Mississippi Congressman Sonny Montgomery helped open the series along with Smith. As part of the opening festivities, a group of skydivers would parachute out of an airplane onto the playing field. Shortly afterward, Smith delivered a few remarks among which he joked "We're really glad to be here, but Sonny and I really wanted to sky dive in . . . Of course, if we had, you'd have been looking for us all night!"[1] And then afterward, as Montgomery would later recall "Our last conversation at the series was talking about the loss of Congressman Leland, and I told Larkin that he should be careful in traveling and performing his duties."[2] Smith did not normally fly from Hattiesburg to Gulfport, but as he had attended a memorial service on the coast honoring victims of Hurricane Camille on the twentieth anniversary of the storm that day and wanted to get to Hattiesburg for the baseball event, he felt pressed for time.
Taylor would succeed Smith in a special election held about two months after the crash. He would then be reelected every two years until 2010, when he was defeated by State Representative Steven Palazzo. His widow, Sheila Smith, ran unsuccessfully against Taylor in 1990 for the seat.
| United States House of Representatives | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Trent Lott |
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Mississippi's 5th congressional district January 3, 1989 – August 13, 1989 |
Succeeded by Gene Taylor |
