re: Did anyone know the baws who ran Knight Oil Tools?

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nope, that is not how that happened at all there was a push to build a stadium at STM, the Knights were one of the big donor families. As a part of the business plan for building the stadium there were some academic and spiritual facility expansions planned as well. Additional Classrooms, money for the Library, a chapel, etc Four of the big donor families banded together and offered to put in a field turf surface for the Stadium because on of the angles used to pitch the stadium was using it as a central Owner Parish facility for Jr High Football, Soccer, STM Marching Band, STM Soccer etc. The field upkeep would fall on the STM Coaches and the additional usage would tear it up. A conventional Grass field was installed in the new STM stadium. That year in the 2004 Football Semi-Finals, Keiland Williams of Northside HS practically single-handedly beat STM on their grass field in their new stadium. Heavy rains during pre-game and a light rain during the game turned into a giant mud pit. The mud made it practically impossible for STM to pass the football, but Keiland was overwhelming. The Four big donor families lead by Mark Knight pushed VERY HARD for field turf to be installed. Monsignor Richard Mouton of St Pius X said no to the field turf, he and the STM Board felt it would look bad. So Knight/Moody/Et al said, no field turf, no money for capital campaign the Monsignor and the Diocese bent the knee and allowed the field turf to be put in. Turns out it was an incredibly wise investment because the turf paid for itself many times over.

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Gotcha. That makes sense

I was there for that 2004 playoff game in the mud. It went down to the wire, but yeah Keiland Williams was the difference

Yeah Keiland was a monster.

What tenant(s) currently office or use the Knight facility? Is Knight even an entity at all and functioning as a restructured company?

SLEMCO moved most of their operations there. Got the building for pennies on the dollar due to the size and state of O&G. I'm not sure about the company, a lot of ex employees started small service businesses. My dad worked for one for a couple years before he retired.

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Once a sleepy South Louisiana city, Lafayette became a place where, as one longtime resident put it, oilmen would take helicopters to go get hamburgers. In 1981, with one in 15 Lafayette families boasting a net worth of at least $1 million, the New York Times labeled it the city “of a thousand millionaires.”

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If it never crashed, Lafayette would’ve eventually been the 2nd major metro in Louisiana after Nola. All that oil money would’ve eventually turned the Ragin Cajuns into P5 status like for real. Money changes everything. Look at schools like Baylor and TCU

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Some former employees started their own company.

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That happens a lot, connections and knowledge of the business is very valuable.

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Farmers driving Lincoln town cars on ponds,

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That’s very impressive. Lol