By Jeffra Wise DeViney

2023 Holly Beach Crab Festival honorees Linda and Gerald Touchet, formerly of Holly Beach, were the honored business this year. For 66 years, T&T General Merchandise was a main attraction to Holly Beach not only for groceries, bait, fishing supplies and beach necessities, but for great souvenirs and novelty items. Irvine and Teresa Thibodeaux honeymooned in Holly Beach and never left, according to their son-in-law, Gerald. Touchet, a school teacher, would work summers in the store and married the Thibodeaux’s daughter, Linda.

After Linda’s parents failing health she and Gerald ran the store and kept it a “family affair” with their daughter, Angela, later working there as they went on to take over operations of the store and run it for another 12 years until 2005. When Hurricane Rita took the business.

The Touchets, their daughter, Angela and her husband, Patrick, were on hand during the 2023 Holly Beach Crab Festival “Meet & Greet” held on Friday, June 9. The Touchet family was honored with a plaque that read “Presented to: Gerald & Linda Touchet. Thanks for 66 years of serving Holly Beach” with a gold key illustrated.

The Touchets dedicated the plaque in honor of the Thibodeaux family for founding the business and declared it a “Blessing” for the family to have all worked together and lived together.