[1][2] The son to Jesse and Willa Mae Dykes, he graduated in 1941 from the since defunct Pine Grove High School in St. Helena Parish.

The redistricting was required to accommodate increased representation by African-Americans, and District 11 was reassigned to the corridor from Hammond to Slidell.

[5] When state Senator Thomas H. Hudson of Baton Rouge, the chairman of the committee which had overseen the redistricting, became the Democratic candidate for Louisiana's 6th congressional district in 1986, Dykes worked for the successful election of GOP candidate Richard Hugh Baker, a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives.

Rayburn, meanwhile, remained in the legislature until his own defeat in 1995 by Republican Phil Short.

On April 23, 1988, Dykes shot and killed Harold Bernard Vige in Montpelier, La.