Remembering past festivals

Judy Hidalgo, mother of current Shrimp and Petroleum Festival Queen Jeanne Hidalgo, revamped the Past Kings’ Club’s Shrimp and Petroleum Festival display case in Morgan City Municipal Auditorium.
“It’s never a bad thing to give back a little,” said Hidalgo.
Hidalgo said she noticed the exhibit case lacked appeal when she attended the children’s theater at the auditorium. She requested permission from the director of the Shrimp and Petroleum Festival and president of the Past Kings’ Club to revamp the display case.
“Other festivals look to our festival for tradition. Just the magnitude of it. I felt like the case and the condition it was in didn’t portray that,” said Hidalgo.
The revamped Past King’s Club display contains all of the original items, such as retired crowns, pictures that explain a bit of history, and plaques with the past royalty, that were already in the case. Hidalgo added a picture of the current royalty and two retired trains to the display case.
One train is the previous train that was retired in 2007 and the other is the 1972 train of past queen Renee Favret, which was made out of a shrimp net and sent overseas to be hand beaded and sewn.
Hidalgo, who spent two weeks to complete the revamp of the enclosure, hand-scrubbed the trains and retired crowns. She reframed the pictures, and reorganized the plaques and other items in the case.
Hidalgo said that she took pride in revamping the case because Morgan City has a lot of history that citizens should be proud of and can see it frequently in the auditorium. In addition, Hidalgo wanted the people to see the case at its best during her daughter’s coronation. The display case was donated by the Past Kings’ Club in 1991.