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Funeral services will be held on Friday, January 24, 2020 at 10:30 a.m. in La Chapelle de Martin & Castille in Lafayette for Melanie Ansley Aymond, 63, who passed away on Sunday, January 19, 2020 at her residence in New Iberia.
The family requests that visitation be observed at Martin & Castille’s downtown location on Thursday from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. and will continue on Friday from 8 a.m. until time of services. Entombment will be in Lafayette Memorial Park Mausoleum.
Survivors include three daughters, Casey Peltier (Jason), Gina McClurkan (Andy), and Jamie Nicholls (Chris); her mother, Felicia Thompson Ansley; her three sisters, Phyllis Gambino, Kim Pourciau and Michelle Bishop; her two brothers, Michael Ansley and Everett Ansley III; and four grandchildren, Stephen Peltier, Halli Peltier, Kailee Harris and Ryan McClurkan.
She was preceded in death by her loving husband Donald P. Aymond; her father, Everett Ansley, Jr.; and her maternal grandmother, Armide Thompson.
For a full and more detailed obituary and to sign the guestbook, please visit www.mourning.com
Martin & Castille-Downtown, 330 St. Landry St., Lafayette, La. 70506, 337-234-2311

Amanda Landry, advocate supervisor for the National Court Appointed Special Advocate Association of the Judicial District Court 16, and St. Mary Parish Sheriff Blaise Smith were the speakers at Wednesday’s Franklin Rotary meeting at the Forest Restaurant.
The program began with Landry, who explained what CASA is and does.
The National CASA mission statement is “to support and promote court-appointed volunteer advocacy for abused and neglected children so that they can thrive in safe, permanent homes.”
Landry said that there are three parishes that are covered by the CASA of the 16th JDC: Iberia, St. Martin and St. Mary.
The 16th JDC CASA is overseen by a board of directors who come from various civic organizations throughout the district.
“Our 16th JDC mission,” she said, “is to train, recruit and encourage our community to get involved and help these children, one at a time.”
According to Landry, there are 10,505 children in Louisiana with confirmed child abuse cases in one year. There are 7,868 children that enter the foster care system in Louisiana annually. And in St. Mary Parish, there are 89 children annually with open child abuse cases.
“At CASA, what we do is make sure those children don’t have to face it alone. We are going to be there every step of the way,” Landry said.
That is done through individual advocates trained by CASA in 30 hours of “intensive training” in interview methods and court report preparation.
Once training is completed, the advocates are sworn in as officers of the court.
It is now up to the advocate to keep monthly tabs on their assigned child, and to make sure the home they are in is a safe and effective home.
“We also ask that they follow up with all of the teachers and physicians to make sure that all of these children’s needs are being taken care of,” she said.
To find out more about the CASA of the 16th JDC, visit https://www.casa16jdc.org/.
Following Landry’s address was Smith’s report.
Smith won the general election in October of 2018, so Smith began his state of the parish list with his accomplishments as of ten months prior to winning re-election.
He said the first thing SMPSO did during this time was to increase their patrol divisions.
Of the five law enforcement districts in the parish, SMPSO was patrolling with three to four units assigned to each district. They increased that number to seven units, and now have a K9 on each shift.
“We secured the jail,” Smith said. “So now the jail is a locked-down facility. If you go to visit the jail, you have to call a phone number to get in and you have to call that same phone number to get out.
“Another of the things we’ve done is to hook up one of those old-timey air raid sirens. We put that there because there are a lot of communities that surround the jail, and in the past when they had escapes from the jail, the people that lived close by knew nothing about it until it was too late.
“So, we’re putting up early warning devices so that people will know that something is going on.”
He went on to tout reducing the debt at SMPSO to such a level that it is the first time in 23 years they didn’t have to borrow money to pay bills. He said the feat was achieved through budget cuts, eliminating overtime, and procuring refurbished patrol cars instead of new ones.
He also said his reelection last year came along with the assignment of a new, donated K9 asset to a US 90 patrol area of operation, a cold case unit to work with local families in solving cold cases, ongoing increases in deputy training, and an improved SMPSO shooting range with extended hours.
He closed by sharing jailhouse statistics. “Presently we have 250 inmates incarcerated in Centerville, 64 of which are Department of Corrections prisoners. We recently had two inmates get their GED (General Education Diploma) while incarcerated. I was told it was the first time in four or five years that has happened,” he lauded.
“We are working right now with a lot of programs for the inmates, to give them something to do when they get out other than come back.”
When asked what he estimated was the matrix for success for the Sheriff of St. Mary Parish, Smith said, “Never forget where you came from.”
He also said the most important thing to the SMPSO is that St. Mary Parish continues to grow into a better place to live.

PATTERSON — “We need a game plan” was the motto presented by New Age Patterson Civic Organization at its annual Martin Luther King Jr. celebration Monday at Zion Chapel Methodist Church in Patterson.
In keeping with Martin Luther King Jr., who was a leader in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968, the program followed the idea that “we need a game plan to demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice and to lift our nation from racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood,” according to the event program.
The event was broken down into quarters, following the game theme, and presenters wore black and white stripe shirts representing referees.
The guest speaker for the event was Mark E. Lewis, senior pastor at Mt Calvary Baptist Church in New Iberia. Lewis began by expressing his view on the celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. by saying, “I’m afraid that much of what we celebrate is not the authentic Martin Luther King. I believe we celebrate a sort of sanitized Martin Luther King,” Lewis said.
Lewis went on to describe what he believes to be the real Martin Luther King Jr. “The King that we celebrate today is not the same King that spoke up, spoke out, stood up, stood out because that King was radical and audacious and he was offensive to the power structure of America.
“We this morning are celebrating a King that has been reduced down to one speech and one line within that speech, but Martin King was more than his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech,” Lewis continued.
“In fact, Martin King was not in fact a self-proclaimed dreamer. He described himself more as a drum major and for those of you that know — a drum major is a big deal.
"The drum major comes out before the band does and most times the drum major puts on his own performance and his own production, but it was not all about him.
"He was simply the segue that led to the one sound, the many movements, and the many pieces that came together to bring us an orchestra performance,” Lewis described to those in attendance.
Lewis went on to compare Martin Luther King Jr. to the biblical Moses and explained that King worked towards nonviolence and love for all.
At the end of the program, those in attendance marched to the Carr-Robertson American Legion hall located at 1401 Live Oak St, in Patterson. The New Age Patterson Civic Organization had food, drinks, music and children’s activities available.