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A beacon once again

Sat, 08/17/2019 - 3:21pm

Rudy Duchan, closer to camera, and Carl Bundy put out "CQ" calls for contacts during Saturday's International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend operation on the Berwick riverfront. They're members of the Bayouland Emergency Amateur Radio Service. The annual weekend challenges ham radio operators in lighthouse communities, like Berwick with its Southwest Lighthouse (visible in the background), to log communications with one another. Duchan and Bundy reported contacts from California to Ontario to New York.

The Daily Review/Bill Decker

'Easy Rider' star dies at 79

Fri, 08/16/2019 - 6:01pm

Death comes a week before St. Mary remembers iconic hippie-road movie

Next weekend's Bikers on the Bayou in Franklin and Amelia has turned into a memorial event.

Peter Fonda, the son of a Hollywood legend who became a movie star in his own right both writing and starring in the counterculture classic “Easy Rider,” has died. His family says in a statement that Fonda died Friday morning at his home in Los Angeles. He was 79.

The official cause of death was respiratory failure due to lung cancer.

Born into Hollywood royalty as Henry Fonda’s only son, Peter Fonda carved his own path with his non-conformist tendencies and earned an Oscar nomination for co-writing “Easy Rider.” He never won an Oscar but would later be nominated for best actor in “Ulee’s Gold.”

The family says this is one of the saddest moments of their lives and asks for privacy.

The Bikers on the Bayou event, originally scheduled for July 13 but postponed by Tropical Storm Barry, was conceived as a way to mark the 50th anniversary of "Easy Rider," parts of which were filmed in St. Mary. Bikers on the Bayou is now scheduled for Aug. 24.

Among the actors who played major roles in the film, only Jack Nicholson remains alive. Dennis Hopper, who rode chopped motorcycles with Fonda's character across the Southwest and Gulf Coast on the way to Mardi Gras in the movie, died in 2010. Terry Southern, who won praise for his work on the satirical "Dr. Strangelove" screenplay, died in 1995. Fonda, Southern and Hopper shared an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay for "Easy Rider."

Police learn about the autism spectrum

Fri, 08/16/2019 - 10:37am

Submitted Photo
Starting in July, officers with the Morgan City Police Department began learning about autism in an effort to better recognize the various ways to identify and interact with people who fall within the Autism Spectrum Disorder. On Tuesday, the training continued with an interactive presentation given to Morgan City officers by St. Mary educators Colleen Hammonds and Sarah Theriot.

Lighthouse Weekend

Fri, 08/16/2019 - 10:35am

The International Lighthouse Lightship Weekend is this weekend. It's a worldwide amateur radio event, and the Bayouland Emergency Amateur Radio Service will set up Saturday at the Berwick lighthouse, hoping to make contact with other lighthouses around the country. The public is invited to see amateur radio demonstrated.

WAYNE EVANS MACALUSA

Fri, 08/16/2019 - 10:33am

Wayne Evans Macalusa, 63, a resident of Morgan City, passed away Wednesday, August 14, 2019, at his mother’s home, surrounded by his loving family, after battling a lengthy illness.
Wayne was born October 16, 1955, in Morgan City, the son of Dominick Macalusa and Doris Rhodes Macalusa.
Wayne was a very faithful man; he enjoyed sharing his knowledge of the Lord with others. He was a very unselfish person, with a huge heart of gold, which always led him to help those in need. He was very well-liked and always left a lasting impression on those he met. Spending time with family was so important to him, and usually that time would be full of laughter and sharing great food. He enjoyed watching his favorite sports teams, which included LSU, the New Orleans Saints, and the Atlanta Braves. He also enjoyed watching Western programs especially, John Wayne movies.
Before his illness, Wayne was self-employed and ran “Mac’s Lawn Care Service,” for 8 years. He took such pride and joy in his work, and acquired some very special customers during those years.
He will be sadly missed and lovingly remembered by his mother, Doris Rhodes Macalusa of Morgan City; one sister, Raye Ann Bernard of Georgia; nieces and nephews, Dana Rae Knowles and husband Shane, Ricky Adam Broussard, Kara Leigh Bernard and partner Cody, Nicholas Kyle Bernard and wife Luisa, Sam Macalusa and wife Stacy; numerous great nieces and nephews, cousins, and friends.
Wayne was preceded in death by his father, Dominick Macalusa; half-brother, Carl Dominick “C.D.” Macalusa; two nephews, Benjamin “Ben” and Frankie Macalusa.
Wayne’s family would like to thank Heart of Hospice, who helped care for him the past two months with such compassion, dignity, and above all, honesty. The family would also like to thank each and every person who helped in any way during this time.
Funeral services will be held at 2:00 p.m. Saturday, August 17, 2019 at Twin City Funeral Home with Monsignor Courville officiating. Visitation will be held Saturday, August 17, 2019 at Twin City Funeral Home from 10:00 a.m. until the time of services. After services, Wayne will be laid to rest in the Morgan City Cemetery.

JOHN LEE DELCO

Fri, 08/16/2019 - 10:32am

John Lee Delco, 54, a resident and native of Morgan City, Louisiana, passed away peacefully on Monday Aug. 12, 2019, at 4:25 a.m. at the Ochsner Medical Center in Jefferson.
Visitation will be Saturday, Aug. 17, 2019, at Jones Funeral Home, 715 Sixth St., Morgan City, from 12:30 p.m. until funeral time at 2 p.m. Burial will be in Morgan City Cemetery.
He is survived by his siblings, Raymond (Myra) Delco Jr., of Berwick, and Michael Delco of Morgan City; five sisters, Shirley Johnson and Lenora Delco both of Morgan City, Mrs. Calvin (Barbara) Brent of Chicago, Mrs. Sammy (Elizabeth) Briggs of Beaumont, Texas, and Judy Delco of Amelia; and a host of nieces, nephews, other relatives and friends.
He was preceded in death by his parents, a sister, his paternal grandparents, maternal grandparents and a brother-in-law.
Jones Funeral Home of Morgan City is in charge of arrangements.

BRADLEY JAMES BARKER JR.

Fri, 08/16/2019 - 10:31am

Bradley James Barker Jr., 25, a native of Morgan City and a resident of Gray, passed away on Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2019, in Houston.
Visitation will be conducted from 9 a.m. until funeral time at 11 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 17, at Eagle Wright Baptist Church, 3590 Hwy 316 in Gray. Burial will follow in Garden of Memories Cemetery.
He is survived by his son, Da’shon Torrell Cole “Bentley” of Gray; father Bradley J. Barker Sr. of Gray and Amina Gant of Zachary; brothers Jordan Franklin, Dyllian Barker, and Shermar Molden; sisters Kayla and Brahsay Barker, Lakeshia Taplett all of Gray and Shermane Molden of Morgan City; paternal grandparents, Crawford Jr. and Joeann Barker of Gray; maternal grandfather William “Billy” Bradford (Yvonne) of Morgan City; and a host of other relatives and friends.
He was preceded in death by maternal grandparents, great-grandparents and paternal great-grandparents.
Jones Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

JAHMARLA RAHKIAN GUIDRY

Fri, 08/16/2019 - 10:29am

Jahmarla Rahkiah Guidry, 33, a resident of Morgan City, Louisiana, and native of Fort Coffee, Oklahoma, passed away on Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2019, at 12:42 a.m. at the Teche Regional Medical Center.
Visitation will be observed on Saturday, Aug. 17, 2019, at the Jones Funeral Home, 715 Sixth St., Morgan City, from 9 a.m. until funeral services at 10 a.m.
She is survived by her mother, Marie Cynthia Short of Morgan City; one brother, Keajon S. Guidry of Oklahoma; two sisters, Tanika M. Short and Mrs. Earl (Jahnedrah M.) Moore Sr., both of Morgan City; one niece; four nephews; seven uncles; one aunt; and a host of cousins and friends.
She was preceded in death by her father, her paternal grandparents, her maternal grandparents, two aunts and one uncle.
Jones Funeral Home of Morgan City is in charge of arrangements.

Mosquitoes may help solve mosquito problems

Fri, 08/16/2019 - 10:24am

BATON ROUGE – In autumn, as the heat becomes a bit more bearable and football season approaches, people begin to spend more time outdoors where they are sure to be plagued by that quintessential Louisiana nuisance—mosquitoes.
And mosquitoes are more than just an annual annoyance.
Mosquitoes are common pests and vectors for diseases. But what if more mosquitoes were actually the solution?
Rebeca De Jesus Crespo, an assistant professor and landscape ecologist in LSU’s College of the Coast & Environment, is exploring why virus-carrying mosquitoes proliferate in New Orleans and San Juan, Puerto Rico and how promoting mosquito diversity may reduce disease transmission.
And she is looking for New Orleans citizens who would like to assist in her research.
De Jesus Crespo was part of a team of scientists that explored how habitat alteration has led to flooding and water pollution problems in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and whether these factors could be related to increasingly common outbreaks of diseases such as dengue, Zika, and chikungunya (pronounced “CHIK-ən-GUN-yə”) there.
They found that unlike regular rainwater, flooding in these neighborhoods may have brought an influx of nutrients in the water, which were linked to higher virus concentrations in the mosquito vectors. I
n another study, De Jesus Crespo found that wetland cover helped to reduce temperatures in the city of San Juan, and that this was associated with lower cases of dengue in certain neighborhoods.
San Juan and New Orleans are similar in that both are metropolitan cities experiencing an increase in flooding, water pollution and urban heat islands.
Both cities contain yellow fever mosquitoes, the main mosquito vectors of Zika. Other species that could carry Zika are also present, including Asian tiger mosquitoes in New Orleans and Caribbean treehole mosquitoes in Puerto Rico.
While all three species can bite humans and other animals, yellow fever mosquitoes prefer to snack on humans, while the other two species are more opportunistic and bite other animals more often.
These mosquito species are natural competitors, and De Jesus Crespo believes that increasing the presence of Asian tiger mosquitoes (and Caribbean treehole mosquitoes) could reduce the population of yellow fever mosquitoes —the vector that is most likely to transmit viruses to humans. Currently, Asian tiger mosquitoes are the dominate species in North America and, presumably, New Orleans. De Jesus Crespo believes that may be why New Orleans does not experience Zika epidemics like those in San Juan, yet.
“New Orleans has more of a winter, unlike San Juan, and it gets too cold for yellow fever mosquitoes to survive that long here.
"But the question is whether, in the future, hotter temperatures due to climate change would lead to more favorable conditions for transmission from any of these vectors,” De Jesus Crespo said.
Yellow fever mosquitoes are better adapted to higher temperatures than Asian tiger mosquitoes. Therefore, if New Orleans were to become hotter and drier, that may tip the scales to favor yellow fever mosquitoes and increase the risk of Zika.
“If you combine that with other factors such as floods and water pollution, which also seem to favor the disease, then we may have an even bigger problem,” De Jesus Crespo said.
So, this August, De Jesus Crespo and her graduate student, Rachel Rogers, are going to visit local mosquito hot spots in New Orleans in order to map the mosquito populations of these two species.
“If we are able to say, ‘In this neighborhood the temperature gets really hot, there’s no tree cover, and it’s flood prone and so we got all these surges in nutrients and it just so happens that we have more abundance of yellow fever mosquitoes here than in other neighborhoods,’ then that’s data that we can use to make projections into the future to see how the risk could change,” De Jesus Crespo said.
They will work closely with the New Orleans Mosquito, Termite and Rodent Control Board to define their study sites, particularly flood prone neighborhoods, and they are hoping to find residents who are willing to help.
They plan to collect the mosquito data by placing traps in people’s homes that will help them characterize adult mosquito populations, and if the mosquitoes are feeding preferentially on humans or other animals.
They will also collect data on nutrients, flood risk, temperature and tree cover around the homes to determine if any of these traits are associated with mosquito trends.
If you live in New Orleans, and are interested in participating, please contact Rebeca De Jesus Crespo at rdejesuscrespo1@lsu.edu.

Jim Bradshaw: Looking for the town that never was

Fri, 08/16/2019 - 10:13am

By JIM BRADSHAW

It created a mystery and a good bit of fun when a crew from the state highway department showed up in downtown Crowley in early August 1948 to put up a sign reading “Dura 4 miles.”
The arrow on the sign pointed to the east, which seemed to place the town midway between Crowley and Rayne.
That caused some head scratching since nobody had heard of Dura until the sign went up.
Alden Sonnier, for example, wrote in his “Acadiana” column in the Aug. 12 edition of the Rayne Weekly Acadian, “We have been living here 34 of our 35 years and did not know there was a place called Dura.”
It didn’t show up on the latest state maps, post office officials didn’t know anything about it, nor did the Southern Pacific railroad, and nobody driving down U.S. 90 could find even a trace of the place.
Sonnier’s readers offered some clues. One found a telephone exchange map that showed Dura “about a quarter-mile north of the overpass” between Crowley and Rayne.
Another found it on a map of Acadia Parish printed by the federal Public Roads Administration in 1941. But there was still nothing to show that a town had actually existed there.
That prompted Red Mitchell, city editor of the Crowley Post-Signal to write to the highway department to ask about the sign and the town. I. L. Thomas Jr., a traffic and planning engineer, wrote back:
“I can easily imagine the excitement caused by the discovery of an entirely new town by the Department.”
He said the sign was a mistake. There was no Dura.
The Weekly Acadian headline a few days later, “Hapless Dura Dealt Death Blow By Louisiana Highway Officials.”
“The city of the future is no more and the road signs which have dotted Highway 90 have been removed. … Dura has been eliminated from the earth … [with] a stroke of a pen and an order from state [highway] headquarters,” the newspaper reported.
“A certain amount of sadness is attached to the passing. … Knots of citizens in the cities and towns of Acadia Parish have enjoyed pondering over its past or future as the case may have been. Jokes were made about Dura.
“The day [of] the … order … a report was received that the rice in Dura had been combined. The proprietor of a nearby tavern announced to his patrons he was seeking office as Dura’s mayor. … Parish newspapers were said to be planning to hire Dura correspondents.”
The Post-Signal commented, “That appears to be that. And we can’t say that we’re glad. We were beginning to like Dura. … We can see its busy commercial and industrial section, buzzing with activity. … We can see children playing along its tree-lined streets. … Dura could be quite a place.”
It eventually emerged that a community named Dura had been discussed by planners during a burst of home building after GIs came home to settle after World War II.
It never got beyond the talking stage, but Sonnier was probably not alone in the sentiment expressed in his column:
“But the thought of it will haunt us. Never again will we be able to drive more than half-way to Rayne without wondering whether or not we have passed or are passing through the main street of Dura.”

A long-standing error
I have been one of those who perpetuated the erroneous account that the name Acadiana was used first in 1963 after a New York typist added an extra “a” to an invoice sent to Lafayette’s Acadian Television Corp., which used it to describe the KATC viewing area.
That was probably its first use to describe a geographical area, but the word “Acadiana” was used at least as early as 1946 in the Crowley Post-Signal as a reference to the body of south Louisiana folklore, and then by Red Mitchell and Alden Sonnier as the name of a column appearing in the Post Signal and the Rayne Weekly Acadian.
They used it in the sense of “things pertaining to Acadia Parish.”
A collection of Jim Bradshaw’s columns, "Cajuns and Other Characters," is now available from Pelican Publishing. You can contact him at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.