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26 new COVID cases, one death in three parishes

Twenty-six new COVID-19 cases, half of them in St. Mary, and one fatality in St. Martin were reported for the 48 hours ending at midday Sunday.

The 13 new cases raise St. Mary's total since the pandemic began to 2,067. Eighty-seven COVID-positive St. Mary people have died.

Seven new St. Martin cases raised the parish's total to 2,302. The death reported Sunday was the parish's 65th.

Assumption has six new cases for a total of 834. Twenty-four COVID fatalities have been reported there.

Statewide:

--1,251 new cases raise the pandemic total to 187,961.

--20 new deaths raise the toll to 5,807.

--22 fewer COVID-positive people are in hospitals for a total of 622. Hospitalizations had risen four straight days through Friday.

--9 fewer people are on ventilators for a total of 72.

GAIL ANN 'MAMA G' ESTAY LEONARD FRIEDMAN

Gail Ann Estay Leonard Friedman, lovingly known as Mama G, a resident of Berwick, passed away on Friday,
November 6, 2020 at Ochsner St. Mary, at the age of 75.
Gail was born on February 10, 1945 in Morgan City, the daughter of Gilbert Estay and Marguerite Lajaunie Estay.
For nearly 20 years Mama G sat at her bar putting smiles on the faces of her patrons and was also known to give them a
hard time, as they visited Mama G’s Lounge. When she wasn’t entertaining her guests, Mama G loved her trips to the
casino as well as going on cruises. Of all the things Mama G did, the one thing she loved the most was the time she was
able to spend with her family, friends and bar family.
She will be sadly missed and lovingly remembered by two sons, Keith Leonard and wife Mena of Berwick, Jarrod
Leonard and companion Cindy Baker of Belle River; two grandsons, Kane Leonard and wife Megan of Youngsville
and Kolin Leonard and wife Nikki of Morgan City; three great grandsons, Karson Kane Leonard, Kohen Michael
Leonard and Ty James Leonard; two step granddaughters, Shannon Businelle and husband Matthew of Bayou Vista
and Brittany Baker of Berwick; two step great grandsons, Owen Businelle and Gavin Baker.
Gail was preceded in death by parents, Gilbert and Marguerite Lajaunie Estay; her first husband, Rogers Joseph
Leonard Sr.; her second husband, Paul Freidman; one son, Rogers Joseph “R.J.” Leonard Jr.; six brothers, Lewis,
Charleston, Lloyd, Wallace, Roland and Gilbert; four sisters, Yvonne, Deloris, Diane and Shirley.
Those honored to serve as pallbearers will be Raymond Pisani, Milton Boudreaux, James Stansbury, Spencer Aucoin,
Kenny Gaspard, Gary Burgess, Don Obst and Mac Bruno.
A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 1:00 p.m. on Monday, November 9, 2020 at Sacred Heart Catholic Church
with Father Toto Buenaflor officiating. A visitation will be held from 9:00 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. on Monday, November
9, 2020 at Twin City Funeral Home. Following services Gail will be laid to rest in the Morgan City Cemetery.

Fox joins other networks, AP in calling presidential race for Biden

Late Saturday morning, CBS News, ABC News, Fox News, CNN, NBC News and The Associated Press projected that former Vice President Joe Biden has been elected president based on results in Pennsylvania.

There was no immediate reaction from President Donald J. Trump or his campaign.

Fox News, which drew conservative criticism after calling a Biden victory in Arizona early in the counting process, trailed the other networks in declaring Biden the winner. That call for Fox came about 11 a.m.

Projecting a Biden win in Pennsylvania pushes his electoral vote total to 273 to 276, depending how each network called other states. The magic number in presidential campaigns is 270 electoral votes. The vice president-elect, Kamala Harris, would be the first woman to hold a national elective office.

The media outlet projections aren't official. The actual results will have to wait for official certification of the results by each of the states.

St. Mary Parish voters went for Trump 64%-35%. Trump won Louisiana's eight electoral votes with a 58%-40% victory.

UPDATED: Berwick, Patterson fall in Friday night football action

St. James scored early and did so multiple times as it cruised past Berwick 49-13 in District 9-3A action in Berwick.
The Wildcats, Class 3A’s defending state champions, took a 14-0 lead after a quarter, led 42-0 at halftime and 49-0 after three quarters.
Berwick (1-5 overall, 0-3 in district) scored two fourth quarter touchdowns, the first on a 14-yard pass play from Cru Bella to Zane Griffin and the second on an Andre Engleton 2-yard run.
Daniel Jupiter led the Wildcats (4-2, 2-1) with 12 carries for 162 yards and three touchdowns, while quarterback Marquell Bergeron had 3 carries for 31 yards and a score. He also completed 8 of 14 passes for 162 yards and two touchdowns.
Shazz Preston was his top receiver with 4 catches for 97 yards and a touchdown, while Kobe Brown had 2 receptions for 35 yards and a touchdown.
St. James had 359 yards of offense (197 rushing and 162 pass-ing).
“They’re a great football team,” Berwick coach Mike Walker said. “There’s a reason they’re the defending state champions. They have tons of athletes all over the field, do a good job of getting those athletes in positions to put you in a conflict defensively, and they did some things that we just didn’t have an answer for on offense.”
Bella led Berwick’s offense as he completed 10 of 24 passes for 118 yards with one touchdown and one interception.
Kaeden Thomas led Berwick’s receivers with 5 catches for 52 yards, while Zack Gonzales had 3 receptions for 50 yards. Zane Griffin had 1 reception for 14 yards and a score.
As a team, Berwick had 220 yards of offense (102 yards rushing and 118 yards passing).
Walker credited the Wildcats’ defense, who he said was just as “explosive” as their offense.
“Hats off to them,” Walker said. “They did a good job executing, and we just didn’t make enough plays.”
Berwick will return to action Friday when it travels to face E.D. White in District 9-3A action.
Patterson falls to Donaldsonville
The Patterson Lumberjacks fell to Donaldsonville on the road 54-24 in District 9-3A action Friday.
Donaldsonville out-scored Patterson in three of the four quarters, taking a 22-7 lead after a quarter and extending its lead to 38-14 at halftime.
While Patterson cut its lead to 38-17 after three periods of play on Jose Rivera’s 22-yard field goal, Donaldsonville outscored the Lumber-jacks 16-7 in the final period.
Despite the final score, Patterson totaled 403 yards of offense (370 passing and 33 rushing).
Joseph Larson led Patterson’s offense as he completed 18 of 26 passes for 312 yards with two touchdowns and one interception.
K.J. Paul was the team’s leading receiver with 10 catches for 194 yards and a score, while Tylon Walton had two receptions for 72 yards and a touchdown.
Jayden Harvey had a touchdown run for Patterson, as he finished with four car-ries for 8 yards.
Patterson (2-4, 1-3) will return to action Thursday when it hosts St. James in District 9-3A action.

Wounded bald eagle returns to the wild via Lake End Park

On Friday, while Twitter battles raged and the nation’s future was being decided ballot by ballot, a bald eagle with a broken wing flew back into freedom in Morgan City.

The eagle, its head still covered in juvenile brown feathers rather than the familiar white, was nursed back to health by the Louisiana Wildlife Hospital and released to the wilds of Lake End Park on Friday.

Believed to be a female based on its 8.4-pound weight, she was found in May at the park. She was handed off to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and then to the Wildlife Hospital. The hospital accepts about 2,000 animals a year for treatment and possible return to the wild, according to its website.

The eagle had an injured wing tip, which is difficult to treat for the same reason fractures of the small bones in the human hand are difficult to treat, said Dr. Mark Mitchell, the LSU professor of zoology who also runs the Wildlife Hospital.

The hospital’s goal is to return animals to their own habitat. Typically, wounded birds of prey are introduced to a large flight cage with a human. The bird’s natural instinct to avoid the person gives it some motivation to regain and exercise its power to fly.

Mitchell said the Lake End Park eagle's injuries might have crippled its power to fly. The hospital administered fluid therapy, antibiotics, analgesics and other medication. But the fear was that it would never be able to be returned to the wild and could end up as an educational display.

The eagle came into Mitchell’s care in August. He saw enough hope to recommend they watch the eagle to see if she might recover her power to fly.

She did.

On Friday, Mitchell and several LSU veterinary students put the eagle in a pet carrier and brought her from Baton Rouge to Lake End Park. They placed the carrier on a grassy strip between La. 70 and a tree line along the lake.

Mitchell hoped the grassy area would give the eagle some runway space. He compared large raptors to 747 jets that need room for takeoff.

But the eagle impressed her audience. When a student opened the carrier, the eagle hopped onto the bottom edge of the opening and bounded once onto the grass. She hopped again and struggled for a split second to grab air with its wings.

And she was gone, flying along the ground for few yards and then into a tree.

“She needed very little runway,” Mitchell said. “She took off like a Piper Cub, straight up.”

She perched there for 20 minutes or so, to the noisy displeasure of birds on nearby limbs, and then took a spin around Lake Palourde.

Mitchell said he hopes people will develop respect for large birds of prey, which he said control the population of pests including rats and mice.

And, as he noted on this day when the presidential vote count wore on, the bald eagle is the symbol of the nation.

“Every kid in the U.S. and every kid in Louisiana deserves to see a live bald eagle,” Mitchell said.

He estimated that the eagle ate $3,000 worth of food while in the care of the hospital, which is funded through private donations.

To learn more about the hospital, go to https://www.lsu.edu/vetmed/veterinary_hospital/services/wildlife_hospita....

St. Mary lawmakers look back at special session

St. Mary’s state legislators looked back at the recent special session Wednesday with some pride in having helped hurricane victims and displaced Louisiana high school students hoping to qualify for TOPS, and for movement on a couple of multimillion-dollar capital projects.
State Reps. Vincent St. Blanc, R-Franklin, and Beryl Amedee, R-Gray, and state Sen. Bret Allain, R-Franklin, spoke about the special session Wednesday at a St. Mary Chamber luncheon at the Petroleum Club of Morgan City.
St. Blanc pointed to relief for southwest Louisiana high school students forced to finish high school out of state because of this year’s hurricanes. The students will be eligible for free Louisiana state college tuition under the TOPS program if they meet the guidelines set out by the Legislature.
Lawmakers also found $85 million for the unemployment insurance trust fund, boosting the fund back over the $100 million mark and avoiding, at least for now, the need to borrow from the federal government and impose additional charges on businesses.
Even then, Allain said later, “we’ll probably have to borrow another $100 million from the feds.”
St. Blanc also pointed to additional funding for the Main Street funding program for small businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
This year, the Legislature turned aside efforts to create no-excuse absentee and mail voting as a coronavirus measure, and Amedee counted that as an accomplishment. She said it avoided the long counting process that battleground states are going through with the presidential election.
Amedee also spoke in support of the petition put together by GOP lawmakers to limit Gov. Joh Bel Edwards’ power to impose emergency measures to control COVID-19.
The petition is based on a little-used state law. It says the petition can be presented to the governor and end the emergency proclamation on which the measures are based for seven days.
Attorney General Jeff Landry has backed his fellow Republicans. Edwards has sued to stop enforcement of the petition.
Amedee said Edwards’ measures were imposed unilaterally without consultation with lawmakers.
“To us, that means the people have no voice in the matter,” Amedee said.
On Thursday, Edwards extended Phase 3 coronavirus measures for another month.
Allain noted that the governor vetoed legislation by Mark Wright, R-Covington, that would have allowed lawmakers to block individual COVID-19 restrictions without meeting in person.
The St. Mary senator preferred Sen. Page Cortez’ legislation, which would have created a panel to oversee the governor’s coronavirus measures.
Allain said St. Mary will benefit from two big projects.
One is the Bayou Chene Flood Control Structure, designed to prevent back-flooding in St. Mary, lower St. Martin and surrounding parishes. The $80 million project will eliminate the need to sink a barge in Bayou Chene, a remedy used four times since 1973 at a cost of millions each time.
All the contracts for the Bayou Chene project have been awarded, Allain said. He praised St. Mary Levee District Chairman Bill Hidalgo, Executive Director Tim Matte and the district’s staff for their work.
The other project is the $9 million wellness center at Franklin Foundation Hospital.

Trump vows to fight on as count continues

Editor’s Note: The Associated Press reported early Friday that Joe Biden had overtaken President Donald Trump in the Georgia vote count by fewer than 1,000 with 99% of the votes counted.

President Donald Trump Thursday evening said he would continue his fight against what he claimed was voter fraud in a number of battleground states as his race against Democratic nominee Joe Biden remained unsettled two days after polls closed.
“If you count the legal votes, I easily win,” Trump said. “If you count the illegal votes, they are trying to steal the election from us.”
Former Vice President Biden held a 264-214 electoral vote advantage over Trump Thursday with at least 270 needed to secure the victory. But Biden’s lead includes Arizona’s 11 votes, which was called by The Associated Press and Fox News early Wednesday but which is now tightening as more ballots are counted. The AP said Thursday it was reconsidering its decision to call Arizona for Biden.
Trump said during Thursday’s news conference that he expected to win Arizona.
The Trump administration has filed lawsuits against election officials in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Nevada over the counting of mail-in ballots in those states, claiming that his campaign officials have been blocked from observing the counts and other irregularities.
“We expect there to be a lot of litigation because we can’t have an election stolen like this,” Trump said, adding that the U.S. Supreme Court likely will need to settle challenges.
Because of pending lawsuits, the election outcome could be weeks from being determined.
The president also called out pre-election pollsters who had Biden winning big in states like Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin. Trump easily won Florida and Ohio, and Wisconsin’s unofficial vote counts show Biden winning by less than 1%. Trump campaign officials are demanding a recount there.
“The pollsters got it knowingly wrong,” Trump said. “They thought there was going to be a big blue wave. There wasn’t.”
He called the incorrect polling numbers “election interference ... that was designed to keep our voters at home.”
Trump also noted that he had big leads in states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania late Tuesday, but in the middle of the night the “numbers started whittling away in secret” as mail-in ballots were counted while Trump’s campaign was prevented from observing the counts.
“They’re trying to rig an election,” he said, an allegation that Democrats have said is nonsense.

Big plays power Central Catholic

THIBODAUX — Central Catholic used big plays to score early, and Covenant Christian could not keep up, dropping a 41-6 decision Thursday at John L. Guidry Stadium.
The Lions dropped to 0-5 overall and 0-2 in district 8-1A.
Central Catholic (2-3, 2-1) scored on the game’s first possession on a 60-yard touchdown pass. The Lions came right back and drove to the Eagles 2-yard line, but a fumble gave the Eagles the ball.
On first down, Kye Morgel broke a 74-yard run down to the Lions’ 24. Morgel later took it in from the one, and Central Catholic led 13-0 with 2:40 left in the first.
Covenant’s only score came on the next series, with quarterback Conner Matherne hitting Malachi Ayo on a 60-yard touchdown strike.
“I give Central Catholic credit,” Covenant Christian coach Cullen Matherne said. “Tommy Minton is a great coach with a great program. Those guys came out swinging. We got a great play from Malachi. But they made their adjustments, and we made ours, and they just out-executed us.”
It was all Eagles after that. Central Catholic made it 19-7 on a seven-play, 67-yard drive.
Matherne chose to go for it on fourth and 10 from their own 48. An incompletion gave the Eagles a short field, and six plays later, quarterback Caleb O’Con took it in from the seven. The two-point conversion was good, and Central Catholic led 27-6 going into halftime.
Covenant took the second-half kickoff and tried to convert again on fourth down, this time from their own 36. A Conner Matherne run was short, and the Ea-gles took advantage, scoring in three plays to make it 34-6.
“We knew we were down. We knew where we were in the season, and I didn’t want to bow down,” Matherne said. “I said if we’re going to go for it, we’re going to go for it. We’re not going to play conservative. If they came back and scored, so be it, but I told the guys we were going to play to win.”

Ribbon-cutting for Purple Lemon

The Purple Lemon in Bayou Vista recently held a St. Mary Chamber of Commerce ribbon-cutting to celebrate its one-year anniversary. Stacey Lancaster, director, and employee Annette Blanco cut the ribbon. They were joined by local officials, chamber representatives and customers, among others. Not pictured is Kim Carrier, a director for the nonprofit. (The Daily Review/Geoff Stoute)

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