By Marilyn Miller
Who knew that when Philip McInnis was in the fourth grade, he would watch as the Minden Crimson Tide basketball team brought home the 1958-59 State Championship trophy. Who knew that it would inspire him to play basketball, and that he would play varsity basketball at MHS from 1965 to 1967.
Who knew that years later, he would invite a pig-tailed Louisiana Tech basketball player and gold medal-winning Olympic athlete to address the Minden Lions Club. And who knew that even later, now Coach Kim Mulkey (without the pigtails, but with some eye-catching outfits), would lead the LSU girls’ basketball team to the National Championship trophy for Louisiana for the first time in history.
Not exactly six degrees of separation. But close enough!
Philip learned teamwork from basketball, and his father, Harry McInnis, Sr.
And the teamwork developed by today’s company owners Harry, George and Philip McInnis – and a committed, experienced corps of employees – has contributed many, many years to McInnis Insurance Agency’s nearly 100 years of success.
The two McInnis brothers and cousin relied on that teamwork when they decided to turn the ownership of McInnis Brothers Construction, Inc. over to its employees via an Employee Stock Option Plan (ESOP) in 2008. The successful company turned 75 in 2022.
“We have some employees who have been with us over 40 years,” Philip noted, “And others for 20 or 30. We have been incredibly blessed by the quality of our people.”
Teamwork has always been a part of the McInnis business plan. “We didn’t embark on much that we didn’t all agree on,” Philip said. “We expressed our differences at times, but could always come to a decision that we could live with.”
“I do remember one time that we had to take a vote!” he admitted, adding that always relying on a consensus of the company owners “would never be a way that I would recommend running a board or business.” But Phillip and Harry’s father, Harry McInnis, Sr., and George’s father, John McInnis, Jr., were very close as brothers and partners, and they “set a pretty good example for us. I recognize how positively unusual it was!”
WORSE YEAR THAN COVID?!
The year 2003 was a BAD one for Philip McInnis, even though the voters gave the then chairman of the Minden/South Webster Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors a win. It was a long, drawn-out battle to introduce the serving of alcoholic drinks in restaurants. Philip remembers it as “stressful.” But he has no regrets. “Although it didn’t happen overnight, I don’t think we would have the selection of restaurants we have now if not for alcohol sales.”
The year 2003 also saw Phillip spending six months going to five different specialists to try to diagnose a back problem. He still has trouble with it today.
And on November 30, 2003, his “Pop,” Harry McInnis, Sr., died at the age of 90 after months spent in decline.
“I would go through COVID again before I’d repeat 2003,” Philip admits.
HIS TROUPER ALWAYS
Through the ups and the downs of business, civic work, and chamber of commerce service, Philip has always been able to rely on one person, his wife, Kathy Windham McInnis, who he married 36 years ago.
“Kathy should have been up there receiving the (Achievement) award with me,” he said, thanking his wife, who gives him feedback on many projects, and persevered with children, dogs, and cats when he was AWOL at the office.
The couple has two children, Meg and Mark.
Margaret E. (Meg) McInnis Weeks, who is married to Stephen Weeks, works in the Cataloging Dept. at the Webster Parish Library in Minden. Mark Philip McInnis, Jr., is married to Lucy McInnis and they live in Raleigh, North Carolina. Mark is a broker for RT Specialties, a large insurance brokerage.
Philip is a life member of First Methodist Church of Minden. He has served in many capacities, including chairmanships of the Administrative, Board of Trustees, Pastor-Parish Relations, and Stewardship committees and councils.
Very civic-minded, Philip has served as chairman (2003) and member of the Executive Committee for the Minden/South Webster Chamber of Commerce, and multiple terms as a member of the Chamber Board of Directors.
He served as chairman of the Minden Medical Center Advisory Board, and was a member of the NW LA United Way board, the Strand Theatre Corporation board, the Shreveport Symphony board; and has been affiliated with many trade associations, including the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of Louisiana Board of Directors for eight years.
Philip is fond of his time with the Minden Lions Club, which he has served as president. He was also the recipient of the Lion of the Year Award. But his fondest memories are of roasting other members in “Sweetheart Banquet” skits.
“I lost a lot of friends, but it was a lot of fun,” Phillip laughed.
Philip is also proud of being from a city which gives so much to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. He gives all credit and thanks to the incredible leaders who do an “unbelievable job of bringing our community together” for the event each year.
“Pete Treat was one of the neighborhood boys on Bay Creek Road,” he said of the organizer of the first “St. Jude Radiothon” over KASO radio, and which has now grown into the Minden St. Jude Auction. The world-reaching auction has raised over two million dollars for children with cancer and blood diseases in each of the past two years.
“This just shows you what Minden is capable of doing,” he said.
“LIFETIME OF ACHIEVEMENT”
The Greater Minden Chamber of Commerce’s Lifetime Achievement Award was the “nicest honor I’ve ever received,” Philip said. “It was totally unexpected. My wife and employees kept it a secret from me…it was great receiving the award, but I do have trust issues with them now.”
Philip said he was actually enjoying the banquet without having to take part in it, and watching emcees Tracy and Jake doing such a great job…
”And then they called my name out and I had to speak!”
And Philip McInnis has never been speechless!
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