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Tri City Swim Team competes in meet of champions
South Central Swim Association Meet of Champions
LaRose June 24
The Tri City Swim Team participated in the South Central Swim Association Meet of Champions in LaRose June 24.
Many Tri-City Team swimmers had personal bests, and the team won the Sportsmanship Award, voted on by the eight team coaches and league officials. Standout swimmers included Top 3 finishes by Ella Billiot, Caroline Izaguirre, Zachary Campbell, Landon Broussard and Luke Orlando. Orlando also won high point for his age group.
Tri City Swim Team A Relay Results
Male 100 Free Relay 8 & under: 1:36.19, Trent Stockstill, Aiden Geisler, Joseph Berry, Robert Dupont.
200 Free Relay 10 & Under: 3:05.68, Justyn Gilmore, Austin Geisler, Cadyn Fabre, Jeremy Gilmore.
200 Free Relay 11-12: 2:22.00, Jake Clements, Carson LeBlanc, Matthew Klein, Zachary Campbell.
200 Free Relay 15-18: 1:52.26, Grayson Wells, Caleb Perry, Ty Kapp, George Hoff.
200 Medley Relay 11-12: 2:51.99, Carson LeBlanc, Zachary Campbell, Jake Clements, Noah Castaneda.
200 Medley Relay 13-14: 2:15.32, Landon Broussard, Luke Orlando, James Klein, Angelo Spitale.
200 Medley Relay 15-18: 2:12.44, Caleb Perry, George Hoff, Ty Kapp, Grayson Wells.
Individual Results
25 Free 6 & Under: 37.67, William Carrington.
25 Free 7-8: Robert Dupont 23.13; Trent Stockstill 23.43; Joseph Berry 23.91.
50 Free 9-10: Cadyn Fabre 44.06; Jeremy Gilmore 47.23; Justyn Gilmore 51.95.
50 Free 11-12: Zachary Campbell 33.01; Carson LeBlanc 33.77; Jake Clements 37.54.
50 Free 13-14: Luke Orlando 26.88; Landon Broussard 27.77; Angelo Spitale 28.50.
50 Free 15-18: Grayson Wells 26.30; Ty Kapp 27.84; Caleb Perry 28.03.
25 Back 6 & Under: William Carrington 49.34.
25 Back 7-8: Joseph Berry 26.28; Reece Arceneaux 31.50; Aiden Geisler 33.18.
50 Back 9-10: Austin Geisler 52.82; Cadyn Fabre 57.90; Jeremy Gilmore 59.89.
50 Back 11-12: Zachary Campbell 40.01; Carson LeBlanc 41.09; Jake Clements 47.32.
50 Back 13-14: Landon Broussard 30.89; Logan Haines 42.54; Remington Begley 45.10.
50 Back 15-18: Grayson Wells 33.27; Caleb Perry 34.83; Ty Kapp 37.63.
25 Breast 7-8: Zephan Soileau 49.20.
50 Breast 9-10: Justyn Gilmore 1:02.87; Austin Geisler 1:13.28.
50 Breast 11-12: Carson LeBlanc 48.91.
50 Breast 13-14: Luke Orlando 35.55; Angelo Spitale 39.23; Logan Haines 44.68.
50 Breast 15-18: George Hoff 40.74; Ryan Armond 42.25.
25 Fly 7-8: Robert Dupont 30.00; Aiden Geisler 30.24.
50 Fly 9-10: Jeremy Gilmore 1:11.15; Daniel Vasquez 1:20.80.
50 Fly 11-12: Jake Clements 49.06; Noah Castaneda 51.88.
50 Fly 13-14: Luke Orlando 31.10; Landon Broussard 33.23; James Klein 41.56.
50 Fly 15-18: Grayson Wells 29.24; Ty Kapp 29.32; Caleb Perry 30.59.
100 IM 9-10: Justyn Gilmore 2:08.33.
100 IM 11-12: Zachary Campbell 1:22.23; Carson LeBlanc 1:34.26.
100 IM 13-14: Luke Orlando 1:10.59; Landon Broussard 1:14.20; Angelo Spitale 1:17.28.
100 IM 15-18: Grayson Wells 1:13.14; Caleb Perry 1:15.31.
Tri City Swim Team A Relay Results
Female
100 Free Relay 8 & Under: 1:27.7, Caroline Izaguirre, Emma Lind, Abigail Macaluso, Ella Billiot.
200 Free Relay 10 & Under: 3:08.03, Catherine Izaguirre, Isabella Spitale, Addison Loupe, Abigail Foreman.
200 Free Relay 11-12: 2:29.69, Alexa Chaisson, Annemarie Campbell, Novalyn Sanford, Emerald Begley.
200 Free Relay 13-14: 2:12.09, Kaylee Percle, Natalie Kinchen, Maddie Albritton, Samantha Kinchen.
200 Free Relay 15-18: 2:07.22, Megan Soileau, Kylie Henson, Giuliana Spitale, Alyssa Gray.
100 Medley Relay 8 & Under: 1:46.30, Gianna Case, Ella Billiot, Caroline Izaguirre, Abigail Macaluso.
200 Medley Relay 11-12: 3:00.68, Alexa Chaisson, Annemarie Campbell, Novalyn Sanford, Emerald Begley.
200 Medley Relay 13-14: 2:34.11, Kaylee Percle, Madeline Bourgeois, Samantha Kinchen, Maddie Albritton.
200 Medley Relay 15-18: 2:28.28, Megan Soileau, Kylie Henson, Alyssa Gray, Natalie Kinchen.
Individual Results
25 Free 6 & Under: Meredith Loupe 34.22; Ava Berry 40.50.
25 Free 7-8: Ella Billiot 18.35; Abigail Macaluso 21.75; Caroline Izaguirre 22.64.
50 Free 9-10: Abigail Foreman 42.84; Addison Loupe 43.18; Catherine Izaguirre 45.99.
50 Free 11-12: Emerald Begley 33.17; Alexa Chaisson 36.87; Novalyn Sanford 38.95.
50 Free 13-14: Maddie Albritton 32.14; Samantha Kinchen 32.50; Kaylee Percle 33.98.
50 Free 15-18: Alyssa Gray 28.61; Megan Soileau 30.41; Kylie Henson 33.32.
25 Back 6 & Under: Meredith Loupe 38.53; Ava Berry 1:02.79.
25 Back 7-8: Caroline Izaguirre 22.14; Ella Billiot 23.29; Gianna Case 27.76.
50 Back 9-10: Catherine Izaguirre 57.41; Addison Loupe 57.83; Isabelle Carrington 1:02.97.
50 Back 11-12: Novalyn Sanford 49.48; Alexa Chaisson 51.95; Annemarie Campbell 56.24.
50 Back 13-14: Samantha Kinchen 40.68; Maddie Albritton 42.88; Kaylee Percle 43.33.
50 Back 15-18: Alyssa Gray 35.95; Kylie Henson 44.01; Deanna Carrington 45.18.
25 Breast 7-8: Emma Lind 30.52; Ella Billiot 30.69.
50 Breast 9-10: Isabella Spitale 1:02.84; Addison Loupe 1:04.41.
50 Breast 11-12: Emerald Begley 46.89; Annemarie Campbell 50.75.
50 Breast 13-14: Grace Campbell 44.41; Maddie Albritton 46.15.
50 Breast 15-18: Megan Soileau 42.84; Kylie Henson 43.86; Deanna Carrington 59.06.
25 Fly 7-8: Caroline Izaguirre 22.06; Katie Colgin 31.86; Gianna Case 32.78.
50 Fly 9-10: Natalie Faust 1:02.89; Isabelle Carrington 1:12.28.
50 Fly 11-12: Emerald Begley 46.02; Novalyn Sanford 51.26; Alexa Chaisson 51.61.
50 Fly 13-14: Samantha Kinchen 37.21; Natalie Kinchen 41.21; Madison Lancon 42.82.
50 Fly 15-18: Alyssa Gray 32.27; Megan Soileau 37.48; Briana Toups 58.78.
100 IM 7-8: Caroline Izaguirre 1:55.18; Emma Lind 2:03.31; Ella Billiot 2:03.60.
100 IM 9-10: Ashley Tabor 2:01.69.
100 IM 11-12: Emerald Begley 1:31.48; Novalyn Sanford 1:45.82; Annemarie Campbell 1:54.86.
100 IM 13-14: Samantha Kinchen 1:22.55; Maddie Albritton 1:27.70; Kaylee Percle 1:28.78.
100 IM 15-18: Alyssa Gray 1:23.10; Megan Soileau 1:23.92; Kylie Henson 1:31.46.
Patterson 14U All-Stars win state title
The Patterson 14U baseball All-Stars won the Babe Ruth State Tournament in Madisonville Saturday after concluding tournament play with a 3-0 mark and now will continue play at the Babe Ruth Southwest Regional in Plainview, Texas, July 20-25.
In the championship game Saturday, Patterson defeated Madisonville, 3-0, in three innings. The game was cut short following an injury on the Madisonville team that left them short of players.
Grant Hebert drove in three runs for Patterson.
On the mound, Reid Perkins held Madisonville to one hit in three innings. He was named the tournament MVP.
Patterson began state tournament play Thursday with a 13-5 victory against Madisonville. Patterson led just 6-5 through four innings before putting the game away.
Friday, Patterson defeated Ascension, 9-2, to advance to the title game.
At district June 15-18, in St. Francisville, Patterson swept Ascension in a best, two-out-of-three series, winning games 10-0 and 11-1.
During the tournament, Robbie Conner threw a no-hitter, while Blaz Mayon was named tournament Most Valuable Player.
As Patterson prepares for its Southwest Regional trip, the team will be holding several fundraisers this week to help defray trip expenses. Donations are being sought from individuals, businesses, and organizations who would like to help.
A spaghetti lunch plate fundraiser will be held Thursday at the Patterson Volunteer Fire Department from 10 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, a garage sale will be held from 7 a.m. until 1 p.m. each day at 700 Kem St. in Patterson (behind the Patterson Health Care Center). Also, Friday from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., the team will sponsor a Pitching Booth using radar to measure participants’ pitching speeds. Donations also will be accepted at the booth.
Saturday morning, a Glove Shake will be held on Catherine Street in Patterson from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. Donors may pass by and drop contributions in the players’ gloves.
Sponsorship ads will be sold for a state championship T-shirt, too. Businesses or individuals may place ads or names on the back of the T-shirt for their sponsorship. For a sponsorship form, please email therogerses@ cox.net.
Ways to get children excited about writing
Whether you’re writing an email or a novel, it’s vital these days to understand the craft of telling a story and telling it well. For kids, writing well helps not only at school but with many off-the-page skills, from confidence to creative problem solving.
What children may not understand is that writing can also be fun. Educators say there are many things parents can do at home to get kids excited about writing.
Here are seven:
USE WHAT THEY LOVE
Show your children there’s more to writing than book reports and research papers. Those are important, yes, but the first step to helping kids enjoy writing is giving them freedom to write about what they love.
“Every child, even the most reluctant writer, has something they’re excited and passionate about, and there’s a way in,” said Marjolaine Whittlesey, a teaching artist associate at The Telling Room, a Maine-based nonprofit writing center.
Youth-oriented creative writing centers around the country use similar techniques. Tim Whitaker, founder and executive director of Mighty Writers, in Philadelphia, said his group listens to what kids are interested in — from superheroes to girl power to basketball — “and we build our writing topics around that.”
BEGIN VISUALLY
Help kids learn to create new worlds out of pictures — ones they draw themselves or ones they find. Amy Rosenbluth, co-founder and executive director of Lake Erie Ink, an Ohio-based youth writing center, said her organization’s comic-making camps are among its most popular.
“When you’re writing a comic, you’re learning all the elements of writing a short story, or really writing anything,” she explained. “We teach them storyboarding. They start out with character development, then setting, conflict, all the same elements, but you get to draw your character first before you add the words.”
SHARE PEERS’ WRITING
Kids may feel more motivated to write when they’re exposed to work by their peers, said Caroline Patterson, executive director of the Missoula Writing Collaborative in Montana. “Several times we’ve had students who hear work by kids their own age and go, ‘Well, I could do that,’” she said.
Many youth writing organizations, like New York City-based Writopia, publish student work online that parents can share with their kids.
AVOID CRITICISM
“Be an ally to your writer — celebrate and love whatever they’re writing,” said Rebecca Wallace-Segall, executive director of Writopia.
Parents should be “laughing when the child is trying to be funny, being moved when there is something emotional, these are very sensitive moments. These are high stakes moments when a child is sharing their writing. Don’t take them lightly, don’t laugh in a condescending way even if it feels a little bit off — hold all that in.”
That helps kids feel heard and excited about their work, which will lead to more writing.
Rosenbluth, of Lake Erie Ink, urges parents not to focus on spelling and grammar when their children are working on creative writing.
“Spelling and writing don’t have a lot in common,” she said. “Writing is thinking. It’s creating.”
This doesn’t mean you can’t go back and work on the mechanics later, she stressed, but they shouldn’t be the starting point.
DEMONSTRATE THAT THE PEN HAS POWER
Brian Townsend, a Chicago-based fifth-grade writing teacher in the Kipp Charter Schools network, tries to show his students how they can use writing to make a difference. He shares motivational speeches and inspirational songs to demonstrate how good writing can communicate powerful messages. He even had his students write letters to their senators about a bill that would affect the food served in their cafeteria.
He wanted to remind them of the real purpose behind writing: to effect change.
CHANGE THE QUESTIONS
Jaya Mukherjee, a program manager at a youth literacy center in Chicago, Open Books, said parents can use writing prompts that might be more effective than starting with a direct question. Ask young writers, for example, to list 10 things they would save from their home if it were on fire, and then have them pick one item from their list and write about why they chose it. That approach might remove the daunting feeling of staring at a blank page.
WRITE WITH THEM
Several experts said sitting down to write beside your child can be a powerful technique. As Whittlesey said, “By doing it alongside them, I think we’re demonstrating that we’re excited about writing too, and that it’s accessible to everyone.”
Monkey troupe antics vex Florida park
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — There’s an upswing in monkey business in and around a state park in Florida, where bands of non-native rhesus macaques live along a river that’s popular with kayakers and tourists.
Officials have closed two walking areas at Silver Springs State Park because of unwanted monkey interactions with park guests. An observation deck and a boardwalk are off-limits because the primates have essentially taken over.
Matt Mitchell, the assistant director of Florida State Parks, said rangers are checking areas each morning for monkey activity.
“Park staff may temporarily close use areas if monkeys are spotted during these checks,” he wrote in an email. “Park staff also respond to reports of monkeys in public use areas by guests.”
Researchers estimate anywhere between 150 and 200 wild rhesus macaques live at the park and an unknown number live outside.
A video shot by a family showing seemingly aggressive monkeys on one of the park’s boardwalks made the rounds recently on social media.
Park rangers try to warn visitors not to feed the 20-pound, 2-foot tall mammals and are stepping up patrols in sections where there are high possibilities of monkey-human interaction.
The monkeys were introduced to the area in the 1930s by a tour boat operator named Colonel Tooey. He thought it would be a good idea to release six macaques on a small island in the Silver River and call it Monkey Island to draw tourists.
“He thought they would stay on Monkey Island,” said Eben Kirksey, a Florida native and a professor of environmental humanities at UNSW Sydney in Australia. “But they are good swimmers.”
Many generations of monkeying around ensued, aided by the relative lack of natural predators (other than alligators, which often eat young, naïve primates on the riverbanks). The monkeys thrived in the warm climate and the park at one time sold “monkey chow” so visitors could feed the primates.
At one time in the 1980s, there were 400 of the animals in the park, prompting state officials to try to wrest control of the situation. Some of the females were sterilized. Previous attempts to cull the group drew strong opposition from locals — especially when some captured primates were sold to research labs.
“At least from a cultural perspective, the people who live in Ocala very much value their presence in the community,” Kirksey said. But once again, state officials are considering options to control the primates — after all, viral videos of charging monkeys aren’t the best publicity for the park. Mitchell said the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has been notified and is monitoring the monkeys.
There have been 18 confirmed reports of bites and scratches from the animals since they arrived at the park. Experts say monkeys can carry and transmit Herpes B-virus, but there’s no evidence that anyone has gotten sick from the Silver Springs monkeys.
“You definitely don’t want to get near them. You don’t want to antagonize them,” said Steve Johnson, an associate professor of wildlife ecology at University of Florida who researches the monkeys.
Johnson said there are four or five groups of monkeys in the park, and other groups are outside the park.
Recently, a homeowner 4 miles (6 kilometers) away captured photos of some 50 monkeys swarming his deer feeder. Brian Pritchard’s automatic camera, anchored to a tree, was even inspected by one monkey, whose face practically fills a frame as others cavort in the background.
“Anybody who lives on our river, they always have the possibility of seeing the monkeys,” said Pritchard, a 33-year-old taxidermist. “As long as you don’t bother them, they don’t bother you.”
Wheel House for July 12
HOSPITAL
Service District 2 board of commissioners meeting 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 12, at St. Mary Chamber of Commerce, 727 Myrtle St., Morgan City. Public welcome.
PINK GALA
#Survivors Take Over is 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. July 22 at Siracusa Recreation Building, 1110 Grace St., hosted by New Revelation Dance Ministry and The Pink Panthers. Entry: $10 advance; $15 at door. For info call Teneka Gash, 985-519-4237.
DEEP WATERS
Ministries, 1120 Lia Drive, Patterson, celebrating the pastoral anniversary of Overseer Muriel Brown and Pastor Sharon Brown at 3 p.m. Sunday, July 23. Guest speaker Pastor Mitchell Williams, God of A Second Chance Outreach Ministry, Morgan City. Public invited.
WOMEN
South Louisiana Women Conference “Taking it to the Real” is 9:30 a.m. Saturday, July 29, at Living in the Light Ministries, 2106 La. 182 East, Bayou Vista. Speakers: pastors Sheila Ledet and Izetta Ledet. Lunch served, door prizes given. For info call 337-578-5615.
OPEN HOUSE
At Berwick Elementary School for kindergarten to fifth grade is 6 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 3. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. Students invited to attend and may bring supplies.
ORIENTATION
At Morgan City High School is Aug. 1 for: seniors, 8:30 a.m.; juniors, 10:30 a.m.; and sophomores, 1 p.m. Freshmen and new incoming students meet Aug. 3 at: 8 a.m., last name begins with A-M and 10:30 a.m. last name begins with N-Z. Students will receive locker combinations, ID cards, and a tentative schedule. Freshman Day will additionally include a welcome session from administrators, school tour and organizational information. Freshmen parents encouraged to attend. Dress code is casual school appropriate. All students required to pay $25 school fee for: locker, planner, ID card, math and English fee. Parking permits are $5.
OPEN HOUSE
For Morgan City High School is 6 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 17. Students return to school on Tuesday, Aug. 8.
VFW post donates wheelchairs
Submitted Photo
Raymond Rutledge, quartermaster of VFW Post 4222, is shown donating five wheelchairs on behalf of the post to Morgan City Health Care and Rehabilitation Center. Receiving the chairs are, from left: Donnie Joseph, Michael Ryman and Jeremy Ryman.
