Patti Ibert posed Tuesday in front of full shelves at the Emergency Aid Center in Franklin. The Emergency Aid Center is funded by United Way for South Louisiana. Also helping at the center were volunteers, Mary Ann Jack and William Deslatte.
After receiving an Arts Residency at the Historic Carver Theater in New Orleans, Soulful Productions Inc. will perform its final performance of Single Black Female back home at the Teche Theatre for the Performing Arts on Saturday, Feb. 23 at 7 p.m.
Started by Ed “Tiger” Verdin and the late Tyra Yarber, Soulful Productions has wowed audiences and critics with its acting, direction, set and lighting design in the regional theatre world. Single Black Female is a two-woman show with rapid-fire comic vignettes that explore the lives of thirty-something African American middle-class women in urban America as they search for love, clothes and dignity in a world that fails to recognize them amongst a parade of stereotypical images.
SBF 1, an English literature professor played by LaDaisha Bowles Webber, and SBF 2, a corporate lawyer played by Tiffany Dupas, keep each other balanced as they face their fears of rejection, hopes for romance and reminisce about black girlhood wounds.
Critics say, “Webber and Dupas put on a dynamic display of chemistry, charisma and comic timing, owning the stage with confidence and grace,” while thrusting Soulful Productions within the already fast moving entertainment mecca and established theatre companies. “A promising start for the new troupe in town, making Soulful Productions a company worth watching in the new year.”
Soulful Productions is including Single Black Female into its Black History Arts celebration, which will feature black visual and literary artists as well as black filmmakers in the region. They will also be featuring a teaser of a new film, Quiet and Clear, by director Andre Rangiah and executive producer Andre Verdun Jones. The film explores a young, black, teenage girl shamed after losing her virginity and enters an arm wrestling match with small town patriarchy to reclaim control over her body. The films principle character, “Peezoo,” is Johnise Bowie, will be in attendance to discuss the filmmaking process and what the role as a young black woman meant to her. This film is currently making its rounds cross country in the film festival circuit.
Verdin, executive director of Soulful Productions and Teche Theatre for the Performing Arts Board member, said his vision of the arts in Franklin and St. Mary Parish. “Beyond of course the immediate productions we are currently producing we are striving to promote Arts Education within our local schools whether public, private or Charter,” he said. “Unfortunately, with the arts being the first budget cuts in our local schools we have to fill this void.”
Backing up the talk, Soulful Productions has partnered with the St. Mary Parish School Board to provide a free production of his play, The Forgotten Healer, an autobiographical play about the life of Dr. Emma Wakefield, Louisiana’s first African American female doctor, portrayed by St. Mary Parish talented educator Fallon Mitchell. The full production “A Celebratory Tribute to the African American Woman” which includes an excerpt of The Forgotten Healer and starts with Sojourner Truths’ “Ain’t I a Woman” speech through present day Solonge Knowles’ “I Belong Here. Do You?” will be performed in Houma at H.L. Bourgeois Auditorium March 9.
Tickets for both productions may be purchased at eventbrite.com or at Lamp Lighter Antiques in Franklin. With a busy future ahead from New Orleans and beyond, Soulful Productions can be followed by their webpage www.soulfultheatre.com and all social media platforms.
Hundreds of young people from across Louisiana were named state champions during the 84th annual LSU AgCenter Livestock Show held Feb. 9-16 at the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center.
To qualify for the state show, competitors had to first participate in parish and district livestock shows across Louisiana. At the state show, 1,930 youths exhibited 1,874 breeding animals, 1,292 market animals and 1,415 birds, according to the AgCenter Livestock Show manager Dwayne Nunez.
Judges at the LSU AgCenter Livestock Show named more than 2,000 state champions in various breeds of beef and dairy cattle, goats, hogs, poultry and sheep.
Here are those who received honors from St. Mary Parish:
Broilers
Champion Bantam Game — Layne Battaglio, St. Mary Parish 4-H.
Reserve Champion Bantam Game — Layne Battaglio, St. Mary Parish 4-H.
Reserve Champion Bantam Modern Game — Gage Battaglio, St. Mary Parish 4-H.
Champion Standard American — Layne Battaglio, St. Mary Parish 4-H
Best Patterned Breed, Male — Layne Battaglio, St. Mary Parish 4-H.
Market Goats
Reserve Champion Market Goat — Keri Landry, St. Mary Parish 4-H.
Market Swine
Reserve Champion Hog — Keri Landry, St. Mary Parish 4-H.
Champion Hampshire — Keri Landry, St. Mary Parish 4-H.
Reserve Champion and Champion Louisiana-bred Yorkshire — Laila Hidalgo, St. Mary Parish 4-H.
Breeding Swine
Reserve Champion Louisiana-bred Duroc — Laila Hidalgo, St. Mary Parish 4-H.
Champion Louisiana-bred Commercial Gilt — Keri Landry, St. Mary Parish 4-H.
Although the event showcases examples of the state’s important livestock industries, AgCenter administrators say it is much more than that.
“This show is much more about recognizing champion young people than it is about naming champion animals,” Bill Richardson, LSU vice president for agriculture said. “Every youngster who participated in this show is a champion because of the dedication, skills and knowledge they’ve demonstrated by caring for their animals.”
The parade rolled Saturday and didn't let the weather spoil the occasion.
A local parent has concerns about a breakfast program in public schools.
Anthony Bourda presented a plastic bag with an apple preserves-filled-breadstick, a small juice box and a yogurt cup.
Bourda said he had just dropped his high schoolers off at Franklin Senior High School and saw the breakfast offerings being apportioned by bag to individual students as they filed into the school.
He added that the “lady” handing out the plastic bag breakfasts was keeping track on a clicker and didn’t seem to let any student pass without being handed a bag, whether they wanted it or not, as some arriving students reportedly voiced not wanting to take the bag but were made to take it anyway, as the clicker was pressed.
Bourda said he volunteers at the Franklin Recreation Center and has heard from the kids at the recreation center that at school, “the food is horrible” and “now they are feeding us in a bag.”
He said those students and his own kids told him that the lunches are even worse.
“When they told me that they ran out of food the other day,” Bourda said, “that’s when I decided to take action and look into it.”
He said he spoke with principal Ty Burdett on Facebook concerning the school running out of food to serve during lunch earlier that week, and was told that some of the kids had left the lunchroom before they could be served the back-up option which had been prepared.
Bourda said that from what he understood, this was the breakfast menu provided by the state, but also said he didn’t believe the state wanted it to be served in a plastic bag.
He said he reached out to the St. Mary Parish School Board and spoke with an employee, who said that she orders the food from the state, but that how it is served is out of her hands. He also said he had attempted to reach Claire Guarisco, supervisor of school food service, for two days but to no avail.
Bourda framed his concern through the argument of experience, saying, “Don’t institutionalize our kids. When I was in prison, I was used to being institutionalized, and that’s how they fed us (in bags). But, the purpose of that was, ‘If you don’t want to be fed like a dog and caged up like a dog, then don’t do whatever it is you did to come here.’
“But it was up to me to decide that if that’s how you get fed in jail, then I’m not going back there. But, my kids are just trying to go to school for a better life and better opportunity. They aren’t guilty of anything.”
The menu page of the St. Mary Parish Schools’ website states, “For Breakfast: We’re continuing our ‘FIRST THINGS FIRST’ campaign to promote the importance of breakfast for kids’ ability to learn in the morning.
“Kids must choose a fruit serving as part of their complete school breakfast. In addition to the fruit, kids must take at least two other items for a complete breakfast, with lots of grain options (most whole-grain rich, as with lunch), milk, occasional vegetable choices, and protein options, too.
“Fat-free and low-fat milk (unflavored or flavored) may be offered, but kids can choose not to take milk if they choose enough other items.”
Guarisco said of the pilot program, “What this is, is a national movement with two models: Breakfast in the Classroom or Breakfast Grab-n-Go. What is going on at Franklin Senior High is Breakfast Grab-N-Go.
“The goal of the program is to increase breakfast participation.”
She said the idea behind the mobile breakfast program is to alleviate the need for students to have to go to the cafeteria to participate in the program.
A cart meets the students as they arrive, and every student is afforded the opportunity to grab a bagged breakfast, as well as options of milk and fruit, as they enter school for the morning.
“At Franklin High School the breakfasts are free to all,” she said.
She also acknowledged the reports of bags being counted and handed to each student as they passed.
Guarisco said the stipulation of one of the grants she received for the program was that the recipients of the breakfast couldn’t eat in the cafeteria as well, because it defeats the point. “Besides, the cafeteria staff is who is serving at the carts.”
In regards to students accepting the breakfast and that appearing to be mandatory, Guarisco said such was not the case, and that each participating school opted to inform students and parents of participation in the program in their own way.
As for the program itself, “I actually wrote to and received three different grants,” she said. “I asked for all of the schools to participate. But, some schools’ (breakfast) participation rates were so high that they didn’t qualify for the grant.”
Guarisco said some of the grants she received were federal, and some were state. However, she said that in any event the schools’ participation in the free breakfast program was a choice made by the schools. If they wanted to take part and they qualified to receive the assistance, then the breakfast program was instituted.
As for the breakfasts being handed out in bags, Guarisco said, “This program was meant to help families who couldn’t make breakfast; and to help kids. I don’t understand why the bags are offensive. It’s just a way to transport the food to the front of the school. And this is the way they are doing it all over. We’re just trying to help kids and do the right thing.”
She said the bags are simply to make carrying the food easy and efficient as the students make their way to their morning classes, “as long as the principals at each school want it.”
“Franklin High is actually our pilot school,” Guarisco said. “We wanted to pilot it at a high school before instituting it around the parish, to work out any kinks.”
“Our average student participation for breakfast across the parish prior to starting this program was 40 percent, meaning that only 40 percent of attendees at school on any given day were eating breakfast.
“Our lunch participation was 80 percent. So, the kids would go to the cafeteria to eat lunch, but we were missing out on the kids eating their breakfasts.”
The culprit was thought to be accessibility.
Guarisco said, “It’s right there. It’s ready for you.”
For the time being, breakfast will continue to be served to the FSHS student body through the daily Grab-N-Go option, available and ready in the name of accessibility and healthy kids.
“All we want is for more kids to get their breakfast,” Guarisco said. “We are just trying to help. This is a great program and we just want to help the kids.”
Franklin Mayor Eugene Foulcard took an opportunity Tuesday to officially introduce newly instated Police Chief Morris Beverly to Franklin Rotarians at their weekly luncheon at the Forest Restaurant.
Beverly informed attendees, and the community at large, not to be alarmed if a uniformed officer soon comes knocking on their doors. He said it is part of a new community policing initiative he and the mayor have decided to pursue.
“So, don’t worry,” he said of any unexpected prospect of officers at the door. “We’re just trying to find out some of your thoughts and concerns.”
He mentioned he is a fan of Andy Griffith, sheriff of Mayberry, in the show by the same name which aired in the 1960s.
He said he appreciated that in the show, Griffith was portrayed as being intimately acquainted with the citizenry he was charged to protect and serve, and that that was one of the things he thought made Griffith such an outstanding sheriff in the show.
He said he wanted to emulate that trait as the police chief of Franklin.
Beverly further stated that working with Foulcard has kept him busy with as much as the two of them have endeavored in filling their days with the business of local progress.
Foulcard also addressed Rotarians Tuesday with a State of the City-esque speech outlining accomplishments and explaining processes from his first seven months in office, as well as things to come.
He first pointed to the overlay work taking place on roads around the city, where crews have been patching rutted and potholed roads with fresh tar.
Next, he harkened back to October’s job fair in conjunction with the Southern Louisiana Community College campus in Franklin, saying almost as many as 50 new jobs reportedly came from the several day affair.
“The city of Franklin has also begun instituting Project Front Yard,” Foulcard continued. “With Project Front Yard, we would like to bring a sense of pride back into our city by concentrating on clean-up initiatives, block by block in Franklin, by cutting grass and picking up trash.
“We figure if it starts at home, we feel like it will spread to the different areas throughout Franklin.”
Foulcard went on to say that as of July 1, the city has been “aggressively” working on the removal or restoration of blighted homes.
He then addressed the need for properly working streetlights in neighborhoods and on local streets, saying, “If you see a streetlight out, let us know. They have a number on the pole, you can call CLECO or you can call City Hall, so we can be proactive in addressing the situation.”
He pointed to the $1.8 million rehabilitation to the sewer plant at Northwest Boulevard as being a success in infrastructure expansion and approximated May as the proposed time of completion.
He said he has been working closely with Fire Chief Chuck Bougeois in repairing, installing, and extending water lines at various points in the city, and has re-written municipal safety manuals, increasing acceptable safety standards for all municipal employees, and with Chief Beverly and the police department, as well.
Foulcard recalled the recent work done by the Downtown Merchants Association, most especially, the Jingle and Mingle shopping and crafts Christmas festivities which took place on downtown Main Street last December.
Foulcard called it, “like a Hallmark movie,” describing the trolley-car and Christmas crafts of the two-block event; and he said he is looking forward to this year’s Artists and Appetizers function.
He closed by teasing plans for an amphitheater where the old Center Theater used to be, with more concrete news to follow, once those plans have solidified.
The 14th annual Eagle Expo & More will be Friday and Saturday in St. Mary Parish and features presentations on eagles, other birds of prey, wildlife and nature, along with boat tours of the area.
Cajun Coast Visitors and Convention Bureau, also known as the St. Mary Parish Tourist Commission, hosts the event.
The second annual Water & Nature Expo, part of the Eagle Expo & More, is from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the former M.D. Shannon Elementary School gym and free to the public. Included in that event are exhibits and presentations on outdoor recreation, wildlife, water safety and protecting St. Mary Parish’s natural resources.
Also Saturday at the Water & Nature Expo, there are two Wings to Soar presentations by Dale Kernahan and John Stokes on various birds of prey. Those presentations will be at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. and are free to the public.
Full registration to the Eagle Expo & More comprises one boat tour, the Wings to Soar presentation sponsored by Rotary Club of Morgan City, a Friday Night Social and entrance to the Water & Nature Expo.
Boat tours will go on as scheduled as long as conditions are safe. If too much rain falls and the boat captain deems the conditions unsafe, the tour will be canceled. Officials will also cancel tours if lightning strikes in the area near the time of the tour, Cajun Coast Executive Director Carrie Stansbury said.
Full registration to Eagle Expo & More costs $105, including boat tours 1, 2 or 3. All Friday tours and Captain Ivy tours (boat tour 4) are already sold out. Boat tours 1, 2 and 3 cost $60 individually. As of Tuesday, spots were still available for the following Saturday tours: 8 a.m. Captain Caviar (Tour 1), 10 a.m. LUMCON (Tour 3), 11 a.m. Captain Caviar (Tour 1), 2 p.m. Captain Caviar (Tour 1), 2 p.m. Captain Billy (Tour 2) and 2 p.m. LUMCON (Tour 3).
Boat tour guests should arrive 30 minutes prior to their boat tour. Boat tour 1 will be on a covered flat bottom boat with a bathroom on board and visit the Atchafalaya Basin with John Burke, known as Captain Caviar, to view the American Bald Eagle.
The second tour will journey into the backwater of Bayou Black with Billy Gaston, swamp tour operator of Cajun Man’s Tours. The vessel is also a covered flat bottom boat with a bathroom. Visitors will have the opportunity to see several birds of prey including bald eagles, ospreys and various species of hawks. Other birds that are likely to be encountered include various species of ducks, wading birds and some song bird species.
Boat tour 3 will actually consist of two boats touring Turtle Bayou with LUMCON. Guests can view bald eagles and get a glimpse of an eagle nest. Other birds likely to be encountered include anhingas, double-crested cormorants, red-shouldered hawks, white ibis, yellow-rumped warblers, Carolina chickadees and various species of terns and gulls.
The fourth boat tour will visit Bayou Long with Captain Ivy and includes various waterways, such as Lake Verret, Bayou Magazille, Four Mile Bayou, Grassy Lake, Bayou Cheramie, Bayou Milhomme, and Lake Palourde. On this tour, visitors will be able to view bald eagles and their nests, along with blue herons, great egrets, belted kingfishers and white ibis.
On Friday, CC Lockwood will host a photography workshop with a minimum of 10 students and maximum of 16. The workshop requires separate registration from the rest of the Eagle Expo & More and includes a field trip to Bayou Black. Contact 225-245-5008, 227-763-1259 or cactusclyd@aol.com to register.
For additional information on the Eagle Expo & More, contact Cajun Coast at 985-380-8224, 800-256-2931 or info@cajuncoast.com.
The Krewe of Hannibal and the Krewe of Dionysus will each present a ball Feb. 23.
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The following are the radio dispatch logs from the Morgan City Police Department. To report unlawful or suspicious activity, call the police department at 985-380-4605.
Tuesday, Feb. 19
8:18 a.m. 6300 block of La. 182; Disturbance.
8:21 a.m. 900 block of Seventh Street; Alarm.
9:13 a.m. 1400 block of Railroad Avenue; Assistance.
9:58 a.m. 300 block of Second Street; Medical.
10:03 a.m. 1200 block of North Prescott Street; Theft.
10:20 a.m. 900 block of Willard Street; Arrest.
11:07 a.m. 2400 block of Pecan Street; Removal of subject.
11:28 a.m. 900 block of Marguerite Street; Complaint.
12:00 p.m. 1000 block of Hickory Street; Complaint.
12:38 p.m. 1500 block of Federal Avenue; Complaint.
2:50 p.m. 3000 block of Catherine Street; Complaint.
3:05 p.m. 10 block of Glenwood Street; Arrest.
3:31 p.m. La. 182; Traffic incident.
3:48 p.m. Sixth and Duke streets; Juvenile problem.
4:01 p.m. 700 block of Myrtle Street; Complaint.
4:15 p.m. 700 block of Franklin Street; Warrant.
5:25 p.m. 300 block of Grizzaffi Street; Assistance.
6:08 p.m. 600 block of Egle Street; Disturbance.
6:26 p.m. 500 block of Egle Street; Disturbance.
8:43 p.m. 300 block of Aycock Street; Assistance.
9:10 p.m. 1000 block of Florence Street; Disturbance.
10:07 p.m. Glenwood Street; Suspicious person.
10:43 p.m. 800 block of Brashear Avenue; Stand by.
11:10 p.m. 1000 block of La. 70; Assistance.
11:21 p.m. 700 block of Myrtle Street; Arrest.
Wednesday, Feb. 20
12:06 a.m. 900 block of First Street; Criminal trespassing.
1:13 a.m. U.S. 90 West; Reckless driving.
1:26 a.m. 700 block of Myrtle Street; Arrest.
3:46 a.m. 1700 block of Dale Street; Arrest.
Franklin Banner-Tribune
P.O. Box 566, Franklin, LA 70538
Phone: 337-828-3706
Fax: 337-828-2874
Morgan City Review
1014 Front Street, Morgan City, LA 70380
Phone: 985-384-8370
Fax: 985-384-4255