In 1944, Pete was drafted by the United States Army to fight in World War II.  He was stationed in the Philippines and later in Germany.

After his Honorable Discharge from the Army in 1948, he moved to, Wisner, Louisiana, and began a logging and sawmilling partnership with Wade Buffkin.

In 1950 he purchased a café named Charlie’s that also served as a dance hall in Sicily Island, Louisiana.  Two years later he acquired a gas station where he sold minnows he caught in rivers and streams.  His enterprise expanded adding another two bait stands in Wisner and Monroe.  The market for minnows increased so tremendously that he approached his Uncle Walter McGehee for a partnership deal in starting a minnow farm.  Pete became the first person to raise minnows commercially.  That same business, Wisner Minnow Hatchery, INC is still in operation today.

By the early 1960s we hatched our first crop of catfish fingerlings and by 1970 were farming over 700 acres of catfish.  It was also in 1970 that we opened our first processing plant, with a capacity of only 25,000 pounds per week.  From 1982 on we began increasing our production capacity to keep up with the expanding market.  Today we process over 300,000 pounds per week.