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The women’s Krewe of Galatea will hold its tableau Saturday as the Tri-City area continues Mardi Gras festivities. Four more balls follow leading up to Fat Tuesday, Feb. 13.
The Krewe of Amani will celebrate 20 years of revelry.
Six area Mardi Gras parades will be held in succession starting Feb. 9 and ending on Mardi Gras Day.
Ball patrons are reminded that tableaus begin promptly and everyone should be seated prior to the krewe’s stated start time.
Krewe of Galatea
The women’s mystic Krewe of Galatea will hold its 49th ball at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Morgan City Municipal Auditorium. Viewing is by invitation only.
Queen and King of Galatea XLVIII Mrs. A.J. Dohmann and Brett Bagwell will make a farewell appearance.
Galatea will present its annual parade at 2 p.m. Feb. 11 in Morgan City. The procession will organize on Second Street under the U.S. 90 Grizzaffi Bridge and proceed to Onstead Street, Sixth Street, Marguerite Street, Ninth Street, Clothilde Street, Victor II Boulevard and ending at the auditorium on Myrtle Street.
Krewe of Dionysus
The Krewe of Dionysus will host its 39th coronation at 8 p.m. on Feb. 3 at the Berwick Civic Complex. The public may view the coronation free from the balcony.
A farewell appearance will be made by King and Queen Dionysus XXXVIII Mark Spradling and Kathie Spradling.
Dionysus will hold its alternating parade in Berwick this year at 2 p.m. Feb. 10.
The procession will line up on Gilmore Drive and turn on John Street, Robichaux Street, Mount Street, Gilmore Drive, right on La. 182, Tournament Boulevard, Fairview Drive then to Pattie Drive, where it will disband at Berwick Junior High School.
Dionysus will have a After Parade Dance at the Berwick Civic Complex. Tickets are $20 a couple and are available from krewe board members.
Krewe of Hannibal
The Krewe of Hannibal will hold its 38th tableau at 8 p.m. Feb. 3 at the auditorium. This is an invitation-only event for all viewing.
Bidding adieu will be royalty XXXVII King Hannibal Marcell Walker and Queen Cleopatra Chasity Bell.
Krewe members will participate in the Dionysus, Krewe of Amani and Siracusa/Greenwood Community parades.
Krewe of Amani
The Krewe of Amani celebrates 20 years with its coronation at 8 p.m. Feb. 10 at the Patterson Area Civic Center. Balcony viewing is available for $3.
Making a farewell appearance will be King and Queen Amani XX Dale Piggott and Neva Francis-Jennings.
Amani will hold its Lundi Gras parade at 2 p.m. Feb. 12 in Patterson. The procession will line up at Patterson High School and proceed down La. 182 (Main Street) and end at the Place Norman Shopping Center.
Krewe of Hephaestus
The oldest-chartered area krewe, the Krewe of Hephaestus, will hold its 58th carnival court at 8 p.m. Feb. 10 at the auditorium. Balcony viewing is free.
Taking to the stage for a final appearance will be King and Queen Hephaestus LVII David Patterson and Grace Pecoraro.
Krewe members will parade at 2 p.m. Fat Tuesday in Morgan City.
The procession will organize on Sixth and Sycamore streets and proceed down Sixth Street to Marguerite Street, Ninth Street, Clothilde Street, and Victor II Boulevard, ending at the auditorium on Myrtle Street.
Hephaestus will hold an After Parade Dance at the auditorium. Tickets are $30 and are available from krewe members. Music will be by “The Groove.”
Siracusa/Greenwood
The Siracusa/Greenwood Community Mardi Gras Parade will also be held at 2 p.m. Fat Tuesday in Siracusa Subdivision near Morgan City.
Participants will line up on Siracusa Road at 1 p.m. and proceed to James Street and Grace Street before ending at the Siracusaville Recreation Center.
Anyone wishing to participate or for information may call Leroy Trim or Mary Jones at 985-385-4224.
Parade Summaries
—Krewe of Adonis: Friday, Feb. 9, 7 p.m., Morgan City.
—Krewe of Dionysus: Saturday, Feb. 10, 2 p.m., Berwick.
—Krewe of Galatea: Sunday, Feb. 11, 2 p.m., Morgan City.
—Krewe of Amani: Monday, Feb. 12, 2 p.m., Patterson.
—Krewe of Hephaestus: Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2 p.m., Morgan City.
—Siracusa/Greenwood Parade: Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2 p.m., Siracusa Subdivision.

December 6, 1942 -January 24, 2018
Funeral services for William Clark “Bill” Fontenot will be held Monday, Jan. 29, 2018, at 12:00 p.m. at Ibert’s Mortuary in Patterson, with a gathering of family and friends beginning at 10 a.m. Following the service, Bill will be laid to rest with his beloved wife in the Patterson Protestant Cemetery. Father Herb Bennerfield of St. Joseph Catholic Church in Patterson will conduct the services. Serving as pallbearers will be Bill Fontenot, David Fontenot, Gene Fontenot, Johnny Bennett, Cameron Fontenot, Seth Fontenot, Taylor Fontenot and David Fontenot Jr.
Bill, who was born and raised in Maurepas and was a 47-year resident of Berwick, passed away at the age of 75 with his family at his side in the early morning hours of Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2018, at Teche Regional Medical Center in Morgan City. The family would like to extend their sincerest gratitude to Dr. Natalie Dishman, the staff of Teche Regional Medical Center, and the staff of Heart of Hospice for the care, compassion, and love shown to Bill.
Those he leaves to cherish his memory include his five children, Bill Fontenot and his wife Suzi, Lisa Fontenot, David Fontenot and his wife Mickey, Gene Fontenot and his wife Tonya, and Jelena F. Bennett and her husband Johnny; two brothers, Ronnie Fontenot and his wife Joanne and Keith Fontenot and his wife Peggy; 12 grandchildren, Lori Landry, Bianca Bennett, Brittany Walker, Justin Bennett, David Fontenot Jr., Taylor Fontenot, Francis Fontenot, Nadine Landry, Lindsay Bennett, Cameron Fontenot, Seth Fontenot and Sydney Bennett; 19 great-grandchildren; and a host of nieces, nephews, family members and friends.
He was preceded in death by his loving wife, Frances Jean Vantromp Fontenot; his parents, Eugene Wilbert Fontenot and Mary Cecilia Picou Fontenot; and two brothers, Mike Fontenot and Robert Fontenot.
Family and friends may view the obituary and express their condolences online by visiting www.iberts.com.
Arrangements have been entrusted to Ibert’s Mortuary, Inc., 1111 Lia Street, Patterson, LA 70392, (985) 395-7873.

Jerry Ruffin Jr., 53, a native of Morgan City and resident of Houma, died Thursday, Jan. 11, 2018, at Ochsner Medical Center in Jefferson.
Visitation will be Saturday from noon until services at 2 p.m. at Jones Funeral Home in Houma. Burial will be at 11 a.m. Monday in Southdown Cemetery in Houma.
He is survived by his wife, Linda G. Ruffin; his son, Shamone Ruffin of Morgan City; three daughters, Jeri’Nisha Ruffin, Tapangie Ruffin and Nikita Ruffin, all of Houma; his father, Gerald Ruffin Sr. of Richmond, California; one brother, Brandon Ruffin of Oak, California; four sisters, Amy Ruffin of Bakersfield, California, Karen Gaither of Houston, Gabrielle Miles of New Orleans and Tina Ruffin of Pittsburg, California; and a host of other relatives.
He was preceded in death by his mother, and both his paternal and maternal grandparents.
Jones Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

Bad roads have been a headache in Louisiana ever since we’ve had roads to maintain and politicians who wanted to pave them with anything but tax money. The sticking points have been the same over the years: We want good roads, but nobody wants to pay for them. But in January 1913, former governor Jared Y. Sanders, made a different plea to a St. Landry Parish audience.
He said citizens should demand good roads, if not for themselves, for the poor horses that had to pull wagons through miles of mud.
Sanders, who was described by the St. Landry Clarion in its Jan. 25 edition as “one of the biggest men in Louisiana, both mentally and physically,” was a native of St. Mary Parish who served as speaker of the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1900 to 1914, lieutenant governor from 1904 to 1908, governor from 1908, and in the U.S. Congress from 1917 to 1921. One of his later claims to fame — or infamy — was a brief fistfight he had with Huey Long in a New Orleans Hotel lobby. (Reporters said Sanders won.)
One biographer describes him as the “father of the Good Roads Movement in Louisiana.” That movement began as a campaign in the late 1890s by enthusiasts who wanted to get their newly invented bicycles out of the mud. By 1913 it had turned into a national movement to give country folk the same benefits as city-dwellers who enjoyed paved streets.
It was apparently an idea that had some appeal in rural Louisiana. According to the Clarion, “Long before his arrival … the courthouse was densely packed with an enthusiastic … audience … [filling] every foot of standing room.” The crowd was made up of “representatives of every portion of St. Landry and Evangeline” and included not only public officials “but also an overwhelming number of our planters and farmers, bankers, merchants, professional men … [and] a generous sprinkling of our country’s purest and best product, the ladies.”
According to the Clarion report, Sanders “showed that every year [St. Landry Parish] spends some $30,000 on our ordinary dirt roads, and that we literally sink every cent of it in the mud, [since the roads remain] as inaccessible in bad weather as the year before.”
Because of that, he said, farmers “are wearing out and killing the teams that cost them so dear, not in hauling a fair load to market, at a fair rate of speed, but in dragging along, sometimes inch by inch, with from one-fourth to one-sixth of what would be a fair load on a decent road.”
Besides pity for the horses, the rural folk needed to think about the expense of it all. Farmers had to keep up “six horses or more to do less than one ought to be able to do … our wagons last one-fifth the time they should, our buggies one-sixth … [and] we have to buy seven sets of harness where one should serve us,” Sanders said.
Even then, despite “extra horses, extra vehicles, extra harnesses, small loads with big expenses … when a spell of protracted bad weather comes along we have to do one of two things: Stay isolated from our s neighbors and those we trade with, or get hopelessly bogged or at the best put to untold discomfort.”
So, what should be done to save the horses and fend off discomfort?
“We must do what other states have done,” Sanders said. “We must build permanent, scientific, well drained roads, roads which once built, we will only have to maintain, not to re-build anew every year, roads which we can travel on with comfort and even with pleasure, roads we will not have to approach as warily as we would a treacherous quicksand, roads we can depend on to take us with an ordinary team and a good load to our shipping points, our markets, or wherever we would, and tell our wives to expect us back for our meals.”
He urged quick action. To those “who tell us the taxes will be too heavy, we can answer that the roads are too heavy too,” Sanders said 105 years ago. “We must have good country roads and highways, and paved streets in our … towns and cities, unless we expect to let Louisiana, now rising in her progress, fall back in the mud.”
Does all of this sound vaguely familiar to you, too?
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.