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Jeanerette man pleads guilty in attack on Chitimacha PD officer
LAFAYETTE, La. (AP) — A Louisiana man has pleaded guilty to resisting, attacking and threatening a Chitimacha Tribe police officer.
U.S. Attorney David C. Joseph, in a news release, says 61-year-old Barry David Bryce, of Jeanerette, entered the plea Wednesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Patrick Hanna to assaulting a police officer.
According to the guilty plea, the tribal officer pulled over Bryce’s vehicle Sept. 23, 2017 on suspicion of operating a vehicle while intoxicated. After conducting a number of field sobriety tests and observing Bryce, the officer arrested him. When he placed handcuffs on the man, Bryce began threatening the officer and kicked him.
Joseph’s statement Thursday said Bryce faces up to a year in prison, a year of supervised release and a $100,000 fine. A sentencing date has not been set.
Liability concerns stall farmer's market
A proposition to revive the farmer’s market in Franklin may be contingent on insurance issues.
Faith Broussard appeared at an earlier meeting of the St. Mary Parish Council asking for permission to hold the market on the courthouse square for better visibility than its former location at the Old City Market on Willow Street.
While council members were largely supportive of the idea, they asked legal counsel Eric Duplantis to research any issues that might be involved.
Duplantis reported Wednesday that he has not completed his analysis and asked for a bit more time.
He did say “there are potential liabilities if you do that and bring those vendors here. You’ll have to find a way to address that.”
Duplantis said he obtained agreements that other jurisdictional bodies have with similar markets, which mostly require proof of insurance and an indemnity agreement.
$1 million in liability insurance is fairly standard, and Duplantis said, “I’m not so sure that someone selling tomatoes is going to have a million dollars of insurance, but that’s not atypical of what they require.”
An indemnity agreement in the absence of liability insurance is “of no value,” Duplantis said.
“Right now I’m focused on protecting the parish from potential liability in the way other places have done.”
Chief Administration Officer Henry “Bo” Lagrange said another option may be a cooperative agreement with a public or private entity that meets the parish’s requirement in certain areas. Duplantis said that in some jurisdictions that has been done.
Councilman Dale Rogers said local citizens want the market, as indicated on social media.
The Normandy Invasion
Gerald C. Braud Sr., 94, says that between Saving Private Ryan and The Longest Day, the prior was closest to portraying what it was like on D-Day in Normandy, France when the Higgins boats dropped their ramps for the Allied invasion.
“The Longest Day showed them (Allied troops) hollering and running up the beach,” said Braud. “It wasn’t like that. We crawled up there.”
Then a Private First Class, Braud was an Army combat medic who was wounded on Omaha Beach during the invasion on June 6, 1944.
He recently received the French Legion of Honor medal during a commemoration of the 74th anniversary of D-Day at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.
For Father’s Day this year, Braud’s daughter and son-in-law, Lisa and Tom Bertrand, gave Braud a shadow box in which he displays his medals from his years of service: the Bronze Star, Purple Heart and French Legion of Honor among them.
Braud served in three campaigns: Normandy, Rhineland and Central Europe. He served in the 1st Squad, 1st Platoon, Company A, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Division, 1st Wave.
His company was the first group to land on Omaha Beach during the invasion.
In an article about Braud’s landing, written by his granddaughter, Rebecca M. Bertrand, and published in 2000 by the Banner-Tribune, she wrote, “Around 6:30 in the morning they jumped into the water which was over their heads. Their captain was shot in the head before he could get off the boat.
“My grandpa could not swim and his life preserver did not work. He had to use his gas mask to keep from drowning.
“He lost his helmet but found it when it bobbed to the surface. Then he let go of his first aid bag, which he had been assigned to carry, because it was pulling him under.”
Braud said he was off the boat for only 15 minutes before he was wounded by German machine gun fire from a “pill box” at an elevated position.
“My buddy asked me to help him get a wounded man out of the water,” he said, “and I was on my stomach, so I went to where he was, and I turned over onto my back, and that’s when the machine gun got me… shot me in the left leg.
“There were a bunch of bullets landing between my legs, and my buddy said, ‘Come help me get this man out of the water,’ and I hollered, ‘Well, I’m hit. I can’t.’”
Braud’s buddy was fellow medic Cecil G. Breedon who, after helping the wounded soldier for whom he had requested Braud’s assistance, came to Braud’s aid.
Breedon bandaged Braud’s leg, gave him a shot of morphine, and dragged Braud to higher ground as the tide came in. Braud said he later found out that Breedon made it all the way through D-Day “without a scratch.”
After three hours lying on the beach, a landing craft came to collect the wounded. Braud said they left him behind because the boat was full, but as the boat backed up, it ran into a mine.
The explosion killed all on board and the concussion knocked Braud unconscious.
He said, “When I came to, I was swinging in a litter on the hospital ship.”
Shortly thereafter, Braud had an operation that saved his leg from gangrene.
Once transferred to a hospital on land, he underwent another operation and stayed for five months, until he was well enough to return to the front.
Of Company A, 96 percent were wounded or perished at Omaha Beach on D-Day. Braud is the last surviving member.
He smirked as he told the story of coming back home to Franklin after the war.
He said there was no room on the bus for him to sit down, so after three European campaigns and a machine gun round to the leg, Braud had to stand during the bus ride from Mississippi to Franklin. Even then, he said the bus stop was nine miles from his house. The driver had to be convinced to drop him off at the house, so he wouldn’t be forced to walk the rest of the way, with his duffle, in the early a.m. hours, down the dark stretch between the station and his house.
He snickered after recalling that one, and said that he never thought he was going to see the Statue of Liberty again, and that all kidding aside, he remembered being happy to be home and glad to be alive.
When asked what his first meal was once he got back, he thought about it briefly and said he remembered it being his mother’s fried chicken.
His father had been his idol since childhood, and since his father worked in a grocery store, Braud became a butcher for the next 34 years, and worked in a grocery store too, before retiring in 1993.
After having been back at home for a year, or so, he met Dot Landry of Ricohoc, and married her. They stayed married 69 years until her passing in 2016.
Braud said they didn’t travel, but that his wife knew how to help him with the effects of war.
She convinced him to finally put his service cap away and she didn’t chide him if he tossed in the night.
“She was good,” he said.
Another boon which Braud said assisted with post-war stress was that he and several other local veterans used to visit local schools and talk about their experiences overseas.
Braud said he thought this was like a form of therapy for him.
When asked what advice he could offer for younger generations on their rise to maturity, it would be to “put the guns down. If you want to shoot, go shoot in war.”
When asked for a concluding thought, he said, “Freedom isn’t free,” and he knows what it cost him, and he saw what it cost others.
These days, Braud’s favorite pastime is watching television and watching youngsters play ball.
He said that on television, he prefers to watch war movies, westerns and “shoot ‘em ups.”
And as for watching the youngsters, he said he prefers watching young boys play ball because they are not yet old enough to “fight like those big ones.”
Stroud discusses plans for MCHS football program
New Morgan City High School football coach Chris Stroud had considering leaving coaching for a year after helping lead Hahnville High School to a Class 5A runner-up finish a year ago as the team’s defensive coordinator.
Stroud, a St. Mary Parish resident who had moved back to the area last August due to family reasons, commuted daily to the St. Charles Parish school during the last year.
“It (commuting) was just a chore, so I was leaning towards getting out for one year to catch my breath, figure out what I was going to do,” he said.
However, an opportunity at Morgan City High School arose when head football coach and athletic director Ferrante Dominique resigned his post in June, just months after taking the position in January. Dominique replaced Eric Howard, who led the Tigers for one season.
With the help of a friend, Franklin High Principal Ty Burdette, Stroud is back leading Morgan City High School as its head football coach and athletic director after directing Morgan City High School from 2001-2004 as head coach.
Stroud said it is “God’s plan” that he is back at Morgan City, because he never would have dreamed he would have returned.
“But here I am, and ready to go,” he said.
In his second stint, Stroud will have a lot to get done in a short period as he will take over the program roughly two months before week 1 of the high school football season.
He said Thursday morning his to-do list would start with a meeting he held later that evening with players and parents.
“I’ve seen a handful of players in the weight room, but to be honest, they haven’t been showing up, and I understanding why,” Stroud said. “There’s been some change and chaos, so I’m here to solve that problem for them.”
Now that there will be a new head coach in charge, the players need to come back to the weight room and practice, Stroud said.
Stroud said he already has met with some of the Tigers’ assistant coaches and will have to put a staff in place.
Another step will be to “change the culture in the community,” he said.
“I’m going out, again, hoping the community welcomes me back, meeting the community again, but changing the culture and having a culture of excellence,” Stroud said.
He said three areas of importance for him are the classroom, the weight room and the locker room.
One of Stroud’s former players, ex-NFL wide receiver Brandon Stokley, is being inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Saturday.
Stokley learned that Stroud got the job when calling to thank Stroud for helping shape his career during Stroud’s time as an assistant at Comeaux High School.
Stokley said he wouldn’t have had the success he had without Stroud’s help.
“He was a guy that stayed on me,” Stokley said Thursday. “I wasn’t playing football, and he stayed on me about coming out to play.”
Stokley went on to play college football and eventually in the NFL.
“I think that’s a great hire, and I’m excited for him and his opportunity,” Stokley said of Stroud’s new position.
At Morgan City, Stroud will have additional practice time this fall as Dominique elected to forgo the Tigers’ spring practice and instead use that extra time in the fall.
From his limited talks with the coaches thus far, Stroud said he has heard the Tigers have been down offensively and have had offensive line issues.
“We’ve got to find some linemen,” he said. “We’ve got to get good in the trenches, and that’s the tough part.”
Stroud said once he sees the personnel he has, then he can make a decision on the type of offense Morgan City will run. He noted at Destrehan, a spread offense was used, while at Hahnville, the school utilized power football.
On defense, Stroud said he likes to run a 50-defense, but he said the last few years he has run a 3-3 stack look.
“We’re probably going to start teaching out of the 3-3, but when we’ve got to stop the run, we’ll probably morph down into the 50 a lot,” he said.
Asked how as athletic director he would help stabilize the department, which has had coaching turnover annually, Stroud noted that during his last tenure, he thought Morgan City had a good athletic department.
“Now part of that is we had some great coaches in place. … All of these sports, you need good people in place to get them running, but you also need community support,” he said.
Stroud said they had “great” community support, something he plans on drawing on.
“I think that from everything I’m hearing, the community is hungry for athletic success,” he said. “They want that, and they’re talking about problems that Morgan City hasn’t been focusing on athletics enough. To me, that’s music to my ears, because now you’ve got a community that’s hungry for athletics, and they want success, they want excellence, they want to win, they want championships, and that’s what you want to hear as a coach.”
Deslatte inducted into Morgan City U.S. Bowling Congress Bowling Association Hall of Fame
Spinella wins bowling association scholarship
Morgan City High School senior Jonathan Spinella was presented the Morgan City U.S. Bowling Congress Bowling Association's scholarship May 12 during the association's annual meeting and awards banquet.
