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Each year the Nicholls Reading Council locally sponsors a Young Authors Contest. The contest is open to all students K-12. First-place entries from each school, in the categories of Fiction, Nonfiction and Poetry, are sent to the Nicholls Reading Council for judging. All of those selected as first-place entries by the council are then sent for judging at the state level. Students are given a trophy, sponsored each year by M C Bank, and a gift bag, annually sponsored by Houma Target. Supporting teachers receive a gift card sponsored by Morgan City Walmart Neighborhood Market. Nicholls Reading Council member Kay Arceneaux assisted with recognition of students, along with photos by Natalie Duval, secretary of the Nicholls Reading Council

Morgan City High School’s state runner-up finish on the softball diamond was followed by multi players earning recognition on the Louisiana Sports Writers Association Class 4A All-State team.
The Lady Tigers had two first-team selections — senior pitcher Kennedy Hebert and senior utility pick Allie Vincent — and two honorable mention picks — freshman shortstop Haylie Crappell and junior third baseman Gracie Verrett.
Hebert, who earlier this summer was selected as the Gatorade Louisiana Softball Player of the Year, finished the season with a 25-5 mark and a 1.37 ERA. In 184 innings, she surrendered 59 runs (36 earned) on 105 hits with 86 walks and 268 strikeouts.
Offensively, the Nicholls State signee hit .591 with 16 doubles, seven triples, six home runs and 58 RBIs. She scored 37 runs, had a .646 on-base percentage and a 1.108 slugging percentage.
Vincent batted .505 this season. She had 45 hits, including one double, one triple, 10 RBIs and 49 runs. Vincent recorded a .574 on-base percentage and a .538 slugging percentage.
Crappell batted .386 this season with seven doubles, one triple and 34 RBIs. She scored 27 runs and had a .466 on-base percentage and a .489 slugging percentage.
Verrett batted .348 this season with five doubles, four triples and four home runs. She had 29 RBIs, scored 28 runs, had a .388 on-base percentage and a .620 slugging percentage.
Attempts to reach the quartet’s former high school coach, Tamara Keller, were unsuccessful.
The Class 4A Most Valuable Plyer award went to infielder Annemarie Peavy of Division II state champion Parkview Baptist, while Todd Schulz of Class 4A state champion DeRidder was named 4A Coach of the Year.
Other competitors from District 7-4A, which Morgan City competes in, who received honorable mention all-state recognition were: Assumption’s Abbey Aysen, Mattie Boudreaux, Alexis Clifton and Emily John; and E.D. White’s Scout Blades and Maddie Gros.
Additional reporting by www.bayoupreps.com.

The following are the Class 4A All-State Softball Team
P — Kennedy Hebert, Morgan City Sr. 25-5
P — Shelby Carlson, West Ouachita Jr. 12-5
P — Anna Bordelon, Parkview Baptist Sr. 13-1
P — Lauren Parson, DeRidder Sr. 17-7
P — Myka Lester, Westlake Jr. 18-8
C — Kelsey Mobley, Grant Sr. .404
IF — Madison Prejean, St. Thomas More Fr. .409
IF — Mackenzi David, Teurlings Catholic
IF — Jana Boudreaux Cecilia
IF — Annemarie Peavy, Parkview Baptist
OF — Ashlyn Roach, West Ouachita
OF — Audrey Greely, Parkview Baptist
OF — Kailey LeFrere DeRidder
UTL — Paitlyn Desormeaux St. Thomas More
UTL — Alexis Wadsworth Pearl River
UTL — Haily Ebey North DeSoto
UTL — Allie Vincent Morgan City
UTL— Katylon Ward Grant
MOST VALUABLE PLAYER: Annemarie Peavy, Parkview Baptist
COACH OF THE YEAR: Todd Schulz, DeRidder
Honorable Mention: Haylie Crappell, Morgan City; Gracie Verrett, Morgan City; Abbey Aysen, Assumption; Scout Blades, E.D. White Catholic; Maddie Gros, E.D. White Catholic; Mattie Boudreaux, Assumption; Alexis Clifton, Assumption; Emily John, Assumption; Brookelyn Sweeney, Belle Chasse.; Alara Taylor, Lakeshore; Riley DeLaval, St. Scholastica; Lauren Bloomer, Neville; Lacey Bonvillain, Beau Chene; Shelby Blaine, Northwood; Maddie Dauzart, Buckeye; Amanda Shelby, Neville; Taylor Cobb, DeRidder; Maicey Spillers, West Ouachita; Lauren Kreyenbuhl, Leesville; Bella Houck, Leesville; Zakayla Collins, Leesville; Keyana Poteat, Leesville; Layni Smith, Buckeye; Cami Courville, Cecilia; Madison Watson, Parkview Baptist; Brooklyn Green, DeRidder; Kaylea Godron, Grant; Bailey Pentz, Buckeye; Molli Perry, St. Thomas More; Jordie Wilhite, West Ouachita; Aubrey Joslin, DeRidder; Sydney Webster, North DeSoto; Alexis Dennis, Buckeye; Ashley Hunter, Benton.

Additional reporting by www.bayoupreps.com

BALTIMORE (AP) — Orphaned when she was 11 years old after her father died from cancer and her distraught mother committed suicide, Kristen Holland was separated from her four siblings and grew up in foster homes.
So when the newly married Holland discovered she was pregnant in the fall of 2016, she was ecstatic. At age 35, she finally was getting the family she had yearned for all her life. A few weeks later when a cardiologist advised her to terminate her pregnancy to save her own life, Holland fought to preserve her child with every ounce of grit and determination she possessed.
“I’ve been through a lot, but I tell everybody not to feel sorry for me,” she said in the backyard of her Aberdeen home.
“My life has taught me to overcome the odds and fight through the challenges. When my doctor warned that I would probably die and that my baby could die too, I started to cry, but I never wavered. I had already heard the baby’s heartbeat. I was not going to terminate my pregnancy. For me, that was never an option.”
Suffering from heart failure, Holland and her husband, Roger, knew she was taking a huge risk. But, thanks to a combination of their own resolve, luck and the skill of their doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center, their gamble paid off.
Holland, Roger, his teenage son Travis and about 40 family members and friends threw a joyous party to celebrate Ayden’s first birthday. There was a backyard barbecue with hamburgers, hot dogs and chips, with Ayden’s beloved dump trucks doing double duty as serving dishes. There was a giant water slide for the children and a game of piñata. There was a running video of images taken during Ayden’s first year of life that played on an outdoor monitor and a string of photographs arranged by week and year.
Best of all, there was Ayden himself, a smiling, blond, blue-eyed little guy in robust good health who tips the scale at 28 pounds.
According to Dr. Stacy Fisher, Holland’s cardiologist with the University of Maryland Medical System, Holland was born with a congenital heart defect that resulted in her having just two leaflets of the aortic valve instead of three. Successful surgery at age 2 widened the valve, and for the next three decades, Holland was symptom-free. A trim 100 pounds, she worked up to 60 hours a week as a waitress at the International House of Pancakes, a job that kept her in great physical shape.
In a way, it was Holland’s lack of symptoms that magnified the risk. In the past, children with congenital heart defects rarely lived long enough to become pregnant, Fisher said. That changed due to major medical advances made in the 1970s and 1980s, and there’s now a group of young women with histories of heart disease who don’t realize that getting pregnant could endanger their lives.
It wasn’t until Holland went for a routine check-up at the end of her first trimester that she was diagnosed with severe heart failure. Fisher told her that if she didn’t terminate the pregnancy, her chance of surviving for the next six months was no greater than 50 percent.
“In the past, my heart just had to pump enough blood for me,” Holland said. “Now, it was pumping for two of us. My doctors were afraid that when I got to the 26th to 30th weeks of my pregnancy, my heart would give out and I would die.”
Roger Holland told his wife that he would support whatever decision she made. But secretly, he was terrified.
“I don’t have really good luck,” he said. “I knew I could lose them both. I went out and bought a baby tree for Ayden, a little red maple that I planted it in the front yard. I know it sounds silly, but I told myself that as long as the tree kept growing, it would mean that Ayden would live and would come home to me, and so would my wife. That’s how I kept myself thinking positively.”
On April 26, when she was 28 weeks pregnant, Holland was admitted into the hospital to undergo a procedure that used a balloon to open the aortic valve. The operation succeeded but the valve tore, allowing blood to seep out. Holland remained in the hospital for the next six weeks while doctors monitored her heart around the clock. On June 8, 2017, when Holland was 36 weeks pregnant, she gave birth to Ayden by Cesarian section. Three days later, she had surgery to replace the defective valve in her heart.
“After the surgery, I took a deep breath,” Fisher said. “I looked at this beautiful baby and his beautiful mother. I was so humbled and grateful that they would be able to move forward and have healthy lives.”
The doctor has a message for prospective mothers who, like Kristen Holland, have histories of pediatric heart disease:
“Get checked out before you get pregnant,” said Fisher, also an associate professor of medicine and pediatrics with the University of Maryland’s School of Medicine. “That’s the take-away from this story. If Kristen had known before she got pregnant how tight her aortic valve was, we could have done something about it then and she would have gone on to have a normal pregnancy. If you know what’s going on ahead of time, you can avert a lot of the risk.”