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Van Vincent Bodin of Huntsville, TX, passed on Thursday, October 17, 2019 in Huntsville. Mr. Bodin was a native of Franklin, Louisiana.
He was preceded in death by his parents, Joseph Oleus Bodin Sr. and Laura Fernandez Bodin; two sisters, Lola Ann McLoughlin, and Olie Rita Jae; four brothers, George Manly Bodin, Bruce Anthony Bodin, Bennett Joseph Bodin, and Joseph Oleus Bodin, Jr (Celina Mae); and brother-in-law Francis Plauche.
Van is survived by his wife of 65 years, Ruby Dupré Bodin; two children, Christina Lyn Bodin-Turner and Dana Vincent Bodin; two sisters, Janet Bodin and Judith Plauche; brother-in-law, Ronald R. Jae; two grandchildren, William Bodin and Branden A. Bodin. Mr. Bodin is also survived by a host of nieces, nephews and other relatives.
Please see www.shmfh.com for Service details, as well as to submit condolences to the family.

Franklin – Shortly after 6 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 19, Louisiana State Police Troop I began investigating a two-vehicle fatal crash on La. 182 near Penn Road in St. Mary Parish. The crash claimed the life of 50-year-old Donna C. Dupre of Jeanerette.
The preliminary investigation by State Police revealed Donna Dupre was a passenger in a 2019 Honda Civic being driven southbound on Penn Road by 20-year-old Kylan Dupre. For unknown reasons, Kylan Dupre failed to yield at the stop sign as she entered La. 182. Upon doing so, the Honda was struck by a westbound 2008 Kia Sorrento.
Despite being properly restrained, Donna Dupre suffered fatal injuries and was pronounced deceased at the scene. Kylan Dupre, along with the driver of the Kia, and the passenger of the Kia were all properly restrained and were transported to a local hospital with moderate injuries. Impairment is not suspected, but toxicology samples were taken from the drivers for analysis. This crash remains under investigation.
Louisiana State Troopers would like to take this opportunity to remind motorists to always make good decisions while operating motor vehicles. Never drive while impaired, fatigued, or distracted, and follow all traffic laws. While not all crashes are survivable, wearing a seat belt greatly increases your chances of survival. Taking simple precautions such as these can often mean the difference between life and death.

Patterson made multiple special teams miscues in Friday’s District 9-3A contest with E.D. White at Patterson.
The visiting Cardinals (3-4 overall, 1-1 in district) made the Lumberjacks (2-5, 0-2) pay for their mistakes, cruising to a 65-7 victory.
E.D. White scored on a punt return, a kickoff return and scored touchdowns shortly after a blocked punt and a muffed punt. It also capitalized on a fake Patterson punt attempt, while another punt return for a score was nullified via a penalty.
The visitors also had a second-quarter safety.
“We work harder on special teams probably than we do anything else, and I’ve never been involved in a game where we just self-destructed in the special teams,” Patterson Coach Don Jones said.
Jones also said he didn’t know how the fake punt call came about, because he said he didn’t call it.
While E.D. White led 23-7 at halftime, the big quarter came in the third period when the Cardinals scored 35 points, taking advantage of Patterson special teams miscues to score quickly.
“Special teams gave them most of their points,” Jones said. “I’ve been doing this a long time. It’s probably one of the most embarrassing defeats I’ve had in my lifetime, and I’m sure everybody feels the same way here, I’m sure, but hey, I’m the head coach. Put the blame on me. I’ve been there and done it, and you never give in. You never give up.”
With the win, E.D. White snapped a four-game losing streak.
“I didn’t care how we did it,” E.D. White Coach Kyle Lasseigne said of ending the streak. “I just wanted to break the losing streak.”
Lasseigne said his team’s offense made the difference for his squad in Friday’s win.
“We were able to get the defense off the field,” Lasseigne said. “Offense was able to keep the football, keep drives going. We had a lot of short fields. We scored on special teams so much, and that contributes to the win.”
Jones said the Lumberjacks had been playing “pretty good football” until Friday.
“Last week, like I said, we didn’t have our best defensive player, and this game tonight, playing at home, I thought we were ready to play,” Jones said. “We had three good days of practice, and once we self-destructed in the kicking game, it was virtually over. … I don’t have any excuses. I’m the head coach. Blame it on me. I thought we had a good week of practice, good preparation. The kicking game’s been solid all year.”
Early on, Patterson actually scored the game’s first touchdown on its second drive of the night when Kyler Paul reached the end zone on a 6-yard run with 3:10 remaining in the first quarter. The Lumberjacks led 7-0 after a period of play.
E.D. White responded with a 7-yard touchdown run by quarterback Cailun Griggs and an extra point by Landon Brignac to tie the game at 7.
The Cardinals took the lead for good on a 50-yard punt return for a touchdown by Branton Vicknair for a 14-7 advantage with 7:32 remaining in the first half.
E.D. White led 23-7 at halftime after stopping the Lumberjacks on fourth down at the E.D. White 7 with 2.8 seconds remaining in the half.
Things just crumbled from there for Patterson as Quinn Strander returned the second-half kickoff about 80 yards for a score for a 30-7 lead with 11:45 remaining.
The Cardinals’ offensive scoring drives in the second half covered as long as 59 yards and as little as 2 yards.
Patrick Shonacher led E.D. White’s run game with 12 carries for 64 yards and two touchdowns.
In all, the Cardinals totaled 206 yards of offense (177 rushing and 29 passing).
Patterson had 175 yards of offense (142 rushing and 33 passing).
Allen Langston led Patterson’s ground game with 23 carries for 90 yards, while quarterback Tylon Walton had 11 carries for 45 yards.
Paul also had a rushing touchdown.
Through the air, Walton completed 3 of 15 passes for 33 yards.
Kylan Griffin was his top receiver with one reception for 18 yards.
Patterson will return to action this Friday when it hosts Donaldsonville in another District 9-3A contest. The game also will be the Lumberjacks’ homecoming.

You often hear the term “high stakes” in discussions of public education. Mostly it’s used to described the standardized tests on which our teachers, schools and students are judged.
But everything about education, the future of our children, is high stakes. So it’s natural that there would be controversies and sharp disagreements about schools from time to time.
One of the most recent involved Wyandotte Elementary and a concept called “departmentalization.”
That’s a big word for something familiar. It has to do with who teaches whom.
For many of us of a certain age, school worked this way:
In elementary school, you had one teacher all day. In junior high, maybe you had one teacher most of the time, but you moved around a little for gym class, or band, or music and art classes when those were still considered important.
Then came high school, where you had a different class every hour with a different teacher who specialized in that subject. We didn’t know it then, but high school was departmentalized.
You may have noticed that standards and expectations have been raised in recent years. As part of that process, the word came down from the St. Mary Parish public school administration that departmentalization would be extended all the way down to classes serving children as young as 5.
Wyandotte Elementary was slow to implement departmentalization for its youngest students. The district administration insisted. Some people objected.
The district administration won. In theory, specialization will help teachers prepare those youngsters for the high-stakes testing that begins in third grade.
A lot of things get wrapped up in the debate. It was about whether the parish administration or the principal should have that level of control at a local school. It was about holding on to the way we think schools should be.
Mostly, it was about how far we’re willing to go in pursuit of ever-higher scores on standardized tests. Is it worth tinkering with the bond between teacher and student, or replacing the individual talent of teachers with a state-approved script?
This problem is even tougher than your child’s Common Core homework.
On one hand, we have our own memories of teachers who made a difference in our lives — teachers like Florence Kinder, affectionately known as Flossie, who taught English and Latin in the largely German-American community where I grew up.
Mrs. Kinder was already close to retirement when I took Latin I. She was a tiny, gray-haired lady who had a classical academy education. She spent her days teaching Brandts, Meyers and Deckers about the Romans who tried to civilize Germanic tribes.
The irony soaked in later.
Occasionally, she’d stop a discussion of conjugations and declensions to rebuke the barbarians in the city government who couldn’t fix the roads — the Romans were great road-builders, you know — or buy a bust of Homer for the Latin classroom.
Flossie was a hoot.
Another teacher from that high school, Jeff Taylor, was the school newspaper adviser when I was on the staff.
That was almost 45 years ago. I haven’t made a dollar doing anything else since.
Everyone reading this has memories like that. We’d hate to see talented teachers, teachers who have the power to make lives better, reduced to script-readers who can only, in a phrase that has become a curse, teach to the test
The other side is that we depend on our schools more than almost any other public institution, and we need results.
St. Mary is an over-performer in the Louisiana Department of Education accountability system. We rank in the top third of Louisiana parishes despite a disproportionately large number of students from homes judged to be low-income. All three east St. Mary high schools have earned A grades.
In this time of transition for St. Mary’s economy, highly ranked public schools are vital.
Good schools — schools that can demonstrate they’re good — raise home values. When employers look around for places to move, good schools are one of the things they’re looking for.
Fairly or otherwise, test scores are the measure we have. St. Mary may be doing well compared to other Louisiana parishes, but Louisiana ranks poorly among the states, and the nation trails the educational performance in much of the rest of the Western world.
If we’re serious about improving education, standards have to go up. And that requires changes.
It would be nice to think we can show by objective measure that schools are getting better without doing away with our teachers’ ability to inspire young hearts and minds. We’re struggling to learn how to do that.
In the meantime, we’re putting a big burden on some small shoulders.
Bill Decker is managing editor of The Daily Review.