Hanson Memorial High School’s Drama Department will present “Growing Up: A Spring Musical Theatre Showcase” April 7 at 7 p.m. and April 9 at 3 p.m.
The show will feature songs from Broadway musicals such as Les Miserables, Hairspray, Waitress, Dear Even Hansen, My Fair Lady, Spring Awakening and others.
Admission is $5 for students and faculty and $8 for other guests.
The theme for April’s First Thursday April 6 is “Spring into Shopping in Historic Franklin.”
Participating merchants are: The Lamp Lighter, The Lamp Station, Chic & Shabby Collections, Texada’s Jewelry, Meyer’s Shoe Store, Fad’s News Stand, Argus Spa, Four Seasons, Nelvin’s Creations, The French Door and Joe’s on the Bayou. The merchants will be open until at least 6 p.m., and there will be specials and refreshments.
For more information about First Thursdays and how to become a participating business, contact the Office of Community Development at 337-828-6345 or ashields@franklin-la.com.
Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser will attend the Franklin Art Walk in August.
“I am excited for him to come to Franklin, again,” Mayor Raymond Harris Jr. said. “Lt. Gov. Nungesser has visited Franklin as a candidate for office, and he participated in our series of election forums. Also, he was here for Fit, Fun and Fabulous in Franklin and attended the Chez Hope luncheon. This time he will get to meet the talented people who have entered our Art Walk, tour our downtown and see what makes Franklin the gem that it is.”
The Franklin Art Walk will be held from 3-6 p.m. Saturday, August 12 in historic downtown Franklin. Entry brochures will be available Monday, April 3 at The French Door, Chic & Shabby, Meyer’s Shoe Store and Fad’s News Stand. The deadline for entries is Friday, July 14 at 12 p.m.
For more information about the Franklin Art Walk, contact the Community Development Department (ashields@franklin-la.com or 337-828-6345) and follow the City of Franklin on Facebook: City of Franklin, Louisiana-Mayor’s Office and City of Franklin, Louisiana-Economic Development.
Two businesses were honored during the St. Mary Chamber of Commerce legislative luncheon Wednesday morning. JoAnne Bergeron presented the honors to Glenn Vice on behalf of the J.M. Burguieres Co., in business for 140 years. Below, with 30 years in business, Craig Thomson of Thomson, Smith & Leach Insurance Group was also recognized by the chamber. Both are Franklin businesses.
Strong winds flipped a mobile home off its foundation Sunday in Louisiana, killing a mother and her 3-year-old daughter as a storm system with hurricane-force winds crawled across the Deep South, damaging homes and businesses.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards put the entire state on "high alert" and warned residents to stay off the roads. He urged people to keep their cellphones charged and close by so that they could get severe weather alerts throughout Sunday night and Monday morning.
"It is an extremely dangerous weather event," he said.
Parts of Arkansas and Mississippi were also under a threat of tornadoes, but the bullseye was on Louisiana. The system brought unconfirmed tornadoes to the state as well as heavy thunderstorms, large hail and flash flooding.
In the rural community of Breaux Bridge, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of Baton Rouge, St. Martin Parish Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Maj. Ginny Higgins told The Associated Press that a suspected tornado touched down soon after a warning was issued.
"Seconds later it hit," Higgins said. "It hit the trailer, flipped it and tore its side off. There was a mother and daughter inside and both were killed."
Higgins said 38-year-old Francine Gotch and 3-year-old Neville Alexander were pronounced dead at the scene. Witnesses told KLFY-TV that the father was out at the time and returned home to find the bodies amid the splintered debris.
The governor said powerful straight-line winds destroyed the mobile home. Typically after such damage, the National Weather Service will investigate and determine if the damage was caused by a tornado or straight-line winds.
National Weather Service warned that it was a "particularly dangerous situation." The governor noted that the high-level warning was extremely rare. Straight line winds could reach upward of 80 mph (130 kph) winds. Hurricanes have at least 74 mph (120 kph) winds.
"This is a statewide weather event," the governor said. "It's likely to be an all-night event. We don't expect the weather system to leave the state of Louisiana until sometime tomorrow morning."
National Weather Service meteorologist John Hart in Oklahoma said there was a significant risk of weather for Mississippi and Alabama as the system keeps moving east.
Fire officials in the Texas village of Point Venture said several people witnessed an apparent funnel cloud there Sunday morning. Travis County Emergency Services District 1 Fire Chief Donnie Norman said there were several structures with severe damage.
"There was one home with pretty heavy damage. The roof was completely removed. There was one resident there at the time, but she received no major injuries," Norman said.
A Texas state trooper reported seeing a suspected tornado touch down early Sunday morning near Center Point, Texas, about 55 miles (90 kilometers) northwest of San Antonio, Texas. National Weather Service meteorologist Yvette Benavides said there were no reports of major or structural damage.
The Chez Hope Trivia Night fundraiser was Saturday night.
Poet T.S. Eliot wrote that April is the cruelest month. Then again, he didn’t hang out in St. Mary Parish this March.
It must be said that March 2017 will not be remembered as a happy chapter in St. Mary’s economic history.
But it must also be said that while the parish may be down — and any community in the oil patch knows what that’s like — it’s not out.
At the start of the month, there seemed to be signs of a break in the two-year slump in oil prices for which the loss of a fifth of St. Mary’s jobs is generally blamed. The price of west Texas intermediate crude started the month on an upswing, reaching $54 a barrel and spawning hopes that the long dip was over.
The price then slipped back to $47 by mid-month, although it was back near $50 by Friday.
The U.S. Census Bureau released its annual population estimates for 2016 earlier this month, and the news there was bleak, too. St. Mary is believed to have lost more population last year and has now shed about 4 percent of its residents since the 2010 Census. The component bearing most of the blame there is domestic out-migration: Far more people are moving out than are moving in.
This week, PHI Inc. confirmed that it will close its Amelia-Morgan City facility and move those operations to Houma. Aside from the loss of something like 40 jobs here, local hotels could lose up to 40 percent of their early-week business, which comes from the oilfield people before or after they’re ferried to work sites by PHI helicopters.
Not a good month, was it?
March was also the occasion for your writer to take a week of vacation in my hometown in east central Missouri. That trip was a reminder of what St. Mary sometimes takes for granted.
When I was a kid 40-50 years ago, it seemed that everybody in my hometown had a dad who drove to McDonnell Douglas or the auto plants in St. Louis. Moms worked in shoe factories. Many dads ran a few head of cattle or raised a few hogs on a few acres outside after coming home from a two-hour commute on weekends.
The shoe factories are just empty brick shells now — at least the ones still standing. They were victims of the move of U.S. manufacturing offshore, a trend that started years before NAFTA or the WTO.
McDonnell Douglas, which played a big role in America’s victory in the space race, is gone now, swallowed up in a merger with Boeing. The Chrysler plant that once covered acres in southwest St. Louis County has been razed.
Farming is still big around my hometown, but a lot of the land is now occupied by homes for people who have moved out of the city.
Compare all that to what you see on a drive down U.S. 90 and La. 182 in the east end. You begin to see how much St. Mary has going for it.
Cranes stretch upward from everywhere. If there’s an oil slump, there are also places like Cameron where plenty is still going on. And the parish remains a player in shipbuilding, with Conrad, Swiftships and more.
The industrial infrastructure here is eye-popping for a parish of only 52,000 people. Some of it has moved away, but much remains. The same goes for the talents of its people.
Better days are ahead for St. Mary.
Bill Decker is the editor of The Daily Review. Reach him at bdecker@daily-review.com.
May 14, 1959-March 28, 2017
Kenneth Roland Dykes, 57, a resident of Berwick, passed away Tuesday, March 28, 2017, in his home surrounded by loved ones.
He was born May 14, 1959, in Kilgore, Texas, the son of Carl Wayne Dykes and Joyce Faye Lampris.
Kenneth lived on his motorcycle and served as vice president of the Bandidos. He enjoyed the outdoors and hunting. He deeply loved his family and friends and will be missed dearly by all who knew him.
He will be sadly missed and lovingly remembered by his spouse, Libertie Lirette Dykes of Berwick; mother and stepfather, Joyce Silvertooth and Bill Silvertooth of Longview, Texas; daughters, Mandy Gilbert and Morgan Gilbert, both of Berwick; brother, Dennis Dykes and wife Sherry; sister, Sharon Westerholm of Seguin, Texas; brother-in-law, Mark Westerholm of Seguin, Texas; grandchild, Justice Aloisio; and many aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, friends and loved ones.
Kenneth was preceded in death by his father, Carl Wayne Dykes.
Visitation will be held Saturday, April 1, 2017, at Twin City Funeral Home from 11 a.m. until service time. Memorial services will begin at noon.
Recent intelligence reports show Russia is interested in influencing more than just America’s elections. Russian President Vladimir Putin and his cronies have taken aim at undermining the U.S. energy industry.
Buried within the U.S. intelligence community’s report on Russian activities in the presidential election is evidence the Kremlin is financing and choreographing anti-fracking propaganda in the United States.
By targeting fracking, Putin hopes to increase oil and gas prices, destabilize the U.S. economy and threaten America’s energy independence.
Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is a drilling technique in which water and sand are pumped through rock at high pressure to release deposits of oil and natural gas.
Thanks to new technologies which make the process more efficient and environmentally friendly, fracking supports 4.3 million jobs and generates half a trillion dollars in economic benefit to the United States annually. Natural gas prices have dropped in half, saving American families $200 a year on average.
Fracking is the major reason why the country is on pace to become completely energy independent by 2020.
America relies on fracking to produce more than 1.5 billion barrels of oil yearly — over half of total U.S. oil output.
Russia sees all this as a threat.
The Russian government, relying heavily on energy exports for revenues, is concerned “about the impact of fracking and U.S. gas production on the global energy market. “Increased U.S. gas exports create “potential challenges” for the profitability of Russia’s state-owned oil and gas monopoly.
In response to America’s growing fracking industry, RT, Russia’s government-funded international media outlet, aired air a slew of dubious attacks against fracking — ramming 62 anti-fracking television stories down viewers’ throats in seven months.
This isn’t the first time Russia has been accused of anti-fracking activism.
In 2014, intelligence information led then-NATO secretary general to conclude Moscow conspired with environmental groups to block fracking activities in Romania, Lithuania and Bulgaria.
A U.S. Senate report found the Sea Change Foundation funneled over $43 million to environmental causes, financing anti-fracking organizations like the League of Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club. The foundation is heavily funded by a Bermuda-based shell corporation with direct ties to Putin and Russian oil interests.
Russia’s propaganda and money funneled to America’s most extreme environmental outfits explains why anti-fracking attacks continue even though science confirmed fracking poses no public health threat.
The EPA could “not find evidence that [fracking] led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources.”
The U.S. Geological Survey and the Groundwater Protection Council found fracking caused no groundwater contamination. A three-year study at the University of Cincinnati found fracking had no impact on local water supplies.
Fracking created millions of jobs, spurred the economy and created a path to energy independence — without posing a risk to people or the environment.
It seems the only folks left attacking fracking are puppets of the anti-science, anti-American Russian propaganda machine.
They hope lies about fracking can weaken the United States, dry up the supply of oil and gas, drive up energy costs and force European countries to pour money into Putin’s coffers.
As the U.S. intelligence report proves, Russia is willing to go to great lengths to destroy America’s fracking industry. But the United States should stand firm against this threat. The battle over fracking is one fight America can’t afford to lose.
Drew Johnson is a senior fellow at the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA), a nonpartisan, nonprofit educational organization dedicated to a smaller, more responsible government.
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