Franklin Foundation Hospital will get a new name; city works on new image

Wednesday's St. Mary Parish Council meeting focused on Franklin, with congratulations for that city's 12-year-old Dixie All-Stars, news that Franklin Junior High will be the home of a new STEM academy and notification that the city's hospital will soon have a new name.

Franklin Foundation Hospital will be known as Bayou Bend Health System, hospital CEO Stephanie Guidry announced.

According to Guidry, state Sen. Bret Allain, Hospital Service District No. 1 Chairman Allen Randle and Mayor Eugene Foulcard, the move is about more than a name.

Guidry said the addition of a $19 million wellness center, now under construction on the hospital campus on Northwest Boulevard, justifies the change from "hospital" to "health system."

"We're going to transition from taking care of sick people to taking are of people so they don't get sick," said Allain, R-Franklin, who led the effort to obtain funding for the wellness center.

The center could demonstrate that Medicaid spending should focus more on prevention as a way to save money that would otherwise be spent treating illness and injury.

Bayou Bend drew the most votes among five possible names presented to a focus group, Guidry said. The runner-up was Pelican Bend.

Foulcard, a hospital board member as well as the mayor, sees the hospital improvements as part of an effort to "reimagine Franklin as a destination city."

The council passed a resolution supporting the name change.

Allian had more good news for Franklin and every other St. Mary community along U.S. 90. The state is moving toward what Allain called "smoothing out" the four-lane highway between New Iberia and Morgan City.

The current state cost estimate is $150 million.

A resurfaced U.S. 90 could attract traffic through St. Mary with the accompanying economic benefits, Allain said.

Also Wednesday:

--The council passed a resolution, and came up with $2,000 for equipment, for the Franklin 12-year-old Dixie All-Stars baseball team.

The team won its district title in Morgan City, took second in the state tournament in Metairie and qualified for the Dixie Baseball World Series next month in North Carolina.

--Councilman J Ina, who is also principal at Franklin Junior High, announced that the state will fund a new $1 million science, technology, engineering and math academy at the Franklin school.

Franklin Junior High is one of six sites around Louisiana where the academies will be established as a way to help at-risk young people.

The state government is paying for the academy on a three-year commitment.

--Morgan City wasn't overlooked in the laudatory resolutions. The council voted to congratulate Brenna Catherine Laubach, the 19-year-old Central Catholic graduate who was crowned National American Miss Louisiana Teen on July 17 in Baton Rouge. She's the daughter of Celine Lee Laubach and David Laubach, both of Morgan City.