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Francis Nicklas Boersma, affectionately known as Nick, passed away at the age of 69 on Sunday, March 29, 2026, at Ochsner St. Mary Hospital, just four days prior to his 70th birthday.
Born on April 2, 1956 in Durand, Wisconsin, Nick was the son of Erna and Joseph Boersma. Nick truly enjoyed his work life as a boat captain for Galaxie Marine and Seacor. It is said that if you love what you do for a living, you never work a day in your life. That statement couldn’t be any truer for Nick. He absolutely loved being on the water. Nick was a man of warmth and wit, known for his charming personality and great sense of humor. He was an avid coin collector and deeply cherished the time he spent with his family. He will be deeply missed by all who were fortunate to have known him.
Those he leaves to cherish his memory include his son, Nekeya James Boersma; his father, Joseph M. Boersma; his sisters, Thelma Hanna, Marty Laura Abress, and Rhonda Mae Savoie and her husband Kerry; his brothers, Kenneth Paul Boersma and Jos Michael Boersma and his wife Mandy; his uncles, Keith Newcomb, John Newcomb, Bob Newcomb, Terry Newcomb, Allert Boersma, Frans Boersma, Otto Boersma, and Andre Boersma; his aunts, Marianne Moulton, Marta Ostrom, Annemaria Foley, Elfie Boersma, and Ingrid Boersma; as well as numerous nieces and nephews.
He was preceded in death by his mother, Erna Newcomb Boersma; his sister, Mary Jo Alander Korby; an infant sister, Doris Ann Ilgen; an infant brother, Hans Otto Boersma; uncles, Elmer, Jim, and Bill; and aunts, Bernice, Janet, and Maria.
A private graveside service will be held at a later date.
Nick’s family would like to express their sincerest thanks to his caregiver Caroline for her faithful service.
We invite you to share your condolences, cherished memories, photos, and messages of love and support with the Boersma family on Nick’s memorial page at www.iberts.com.
Arrangements have been entrusted to Ibert’s Mortuary, Inc., 1111 Lia Street, Patterson, LA 70392, (985) 395-7873.

Bayou Horseshoe Pitchers Association
Spring League - 2026
Week 2
W L
Chunk Squad 14.5 3.5
75/25 11 7
Shoes & Boos 10.5 7.5
Milkmen 9 9
Two 30’s and a 40’ 8.5 9.5
Pitchin & Twichin 8 10
Starting Over 7.5 10.5
High scratch point average: (30’) Tim Gilmore 83.8, Clay Canty 70.7 and Dale Pearce 63.2; and (40’) Randy Giroir 49.8, Dwain Arceneaux 49.5 and Mark Jones 35.2. High individual ringer percentage: (30’) Gilmore 61.3, Canty 47.5 and Pearce 44.6; and (40’) Giroir 22.8, Arceneaux 30.0, Lance Freeman 17.5 and Jones 17.5.
High scratch game: (30’) Gilmore 87, Burnie Williams 76, Pearce 74 and Canty 74; and (40’) Giroir 62, Arceneaux 59 and Freeman 48. Most ringers: (one night) Gilmore 75, Pearce 62 and Canty 57; and (one game) Gilmore 26, Pearce 23, Canty 21, Glenn Caillouet 20, Williams 20 and Giroir 18.
Most points one night: Gilmore 253, Canty 212, Pearce 209, Williams 183 and Caillouet 180. Best won-loss record: Gilmore 6-0, Canty 3-0, Al Graham 5-0, and Pearce, Caillouet, Arceneaux and Donald Plessala 4-2. Most points one night – team: Shoes & Boos 489, Chunk Squad 450. Most ringers one night – team: Shoes & Boos 129, Two 30’s & a 40 110.

BATON ROUGE — A House committee voted 12-0 to repeal a requirement that clerks of court must remove personal information about many current and former public officials from online records if the individuals requested their removal.
The provision involving the clerks’ offices is part of more sweeping and controversial legislation passed over the last two years that allows a wide range of officials and judges to demand that individuals and organizations retract personal data like birthdates and addresses if they are posted online.
People or groups that refuse to retract the information can face up to 90 days in jail or a $1,000 fine.
The only exemption was for the Secretary of State’s Office, which needs to gather personal information to qualify political candidates.
But after complaints from clerks of court around the state, the Committee on House and Governmental Affairs voted Tuesday to advance a bill, House Bill 67, that would exempt the clerks from what they said would be a difficult and time-consuming task of scrubbing the data from court, property, divorce and other records involving the officeholders.
“The acts of 2024 and 2025 – we need to amend them to have clerks mirror the secretary of state as far as the required publication or non-publication,” the author of the new bill, Rep. Tony Bacala, R-Prairieville, said. “So, this is an alignment bill.”
Bacala’s bill still needs to be approved by the full House and Senate and signed by the governor to change the law.
Law professors and civic groups have blasted the earlier legislation for carving out public disclosure exemptions for current and retired judges and current statewide elected officials, legislators and district attorneys that regular citizens do not have.
But other than exempting clerks of court from having to follow the law, the bill passed Tuesday does not change any other aspects of the earlier legislation.
In fact, the committee also voted 11-0 Tuesday to advance House Bill 339, which would add current police officers and current or retired administrative law judges to the list of protected individuals.
The current law states that public offices, except the secretary of state, cannot publish these individuals’ personal information like addresses, phone numbers and financial information. If requested, they must take it down.
Rep. Tehmi Chassion, D-Lafayette, the author of HB 339, presented it in committee.
Chassion said the bill was a response to an incident in his district where someone under police investigation sent text messages to an officer telling him what the color of his curtains were in his home.
“It was to be understood that ‘I know who is investigating me, and I can pull your information up on my tax assessor’s website,’” Chassion said.
If Chassion’s bill is eventually signed into law, officers could send state and parish organizations requests to remove information on their websites.
Both the current law and the new bills affect state and local websites. Google searches may still show personal information.
Steven Procopio, the president of the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana, said that restricting personal information that is publicly available, like home addresses, would likely be ruled unconstitutional given previous Louisiana Supreme Court rulings.
“I don’t think it’s a good look for the Legislature to say, ‘Hey, look, we don’t want to make sure our home addresses are online—which, I get it—but that is, in fact, part of your qualification for running,” Procopio said.
Procopio said that keeping financial information private is already covered under other state and federal laws.
He said the law Bacala and Chassion’s bills edits creates a different standard for protecting financial information for elected officials compared to regular residents.
McHugh David Jr., the executive director of the Louisiana Press Association, opposed Chassion’s bill.
He said that the current law makes it more difficult for journalists to report, and it will likely become more difficult as the law continues to expand.
Rep. Delisha Boyd, D-New Orleans, who sponsored one of the earlier laws to help public officials keep their information private, said journalists would still be able to use public records requests to get some of this information.
Chassion added: “The sheer notion of me wanting to protect a person that spends day and night protecting me as a police officer–to protect them from anyone uncovering their telephone number, home address, social security number, driver’s license number, bank account number, debit number, license plate and the location of my child’s daycare? I’d be willing to fight that constitutionally.”

Alexandre-Balthazar-Laurent Grimod de La Reynière, who died in 1857, was a lawyer by trade but was considered the first true restaurant critic in Paris, and probably anywhere. He wrote and published an annual “Almanach des Gourmands,” which was probably the first restaurant guide ever printed.
In his guide for 1803, he tells us that oysters are “almost indispensable” as the first course of a good hearty breakfast, but only in moderation, because “it is proved by experience that beyond five or six dozen, oysters certainly cease to be enjoyable.”
That’s even if it's five or six dozen Louisiana oysters, which were described as “succulent, delicious, [and] with a world-wide reputation for superiority” by the Louisiana Department of Conservation in the first of a series of bulletins dealing with the state’s many natural resources “in a readable, concise, and practical manner.” (“The Louisiana Oyster, It’s Cultivation and Use,” Bulletin No. 1, December 1916.)
Oyster harvesting is one of the oldest parts of the Louisiana fishing industry and was the largest until the middle 1920s, when shrimping took the lead. The oyster species Crassostrea virginica is found all along the Atlantic coast and in the Gulf of Mexico, but the oysters in the Gulf tend to grow plumper than northern C. virginicas. Connoisseurs also claim the oysters harvested here have a special flavor that just isn’t found in oysters from any other place.
The 1916 bulletin proclaimed it “inviting, easily digested … high in nutrition” and easy on the budget. The bulletin claims that nothing is more delicious than oysters eaten raw, “but neither can it be surpassed as a cooked food.”
According to the bulletin, “A family of four may dine sumptuously off of four dozen Louisiana oysters at a top cost for the choicest variety of one-half a dollar." Bulletin No. 1 promised that “two dozen of these will make a delicious and nourishing gumbo filet ─ a Creole dish of unsurpassed excellence ─ and the remaining two dozen may be served in a variety of appetizing ways constituting an inviting and satisfying meal.”
Furthermore, “just a dozen fine, fat, Louisiana oysters added to some left-over fricasseed chicken, tripe a la Creole, or plain oiled rice with tomatoes will constitute a piquant dish sufficient to do ample service for another meal, and at the same time the addition of the oysters lends to the ‘left-over’ a savory touch of novelty.”
The booklet offers more than twenty oyster recipes, “culled from various authentic sources” that are “only a few of the numerous delectable ways of preparing the oyster for table consumption,”
They include stewed oysters, creamed oysters, Oysters a la Newberg, bacon and oysters, deviled oysters, panned oysters, pan roasted oysters on toast, an oyster salad, oysters with veal, oyster pie, oyster fritters, Oysters Rockefeller, Creole oyster croquettes. oyster boulettes, oyster jambalaya, and a handful more.
If you want to try oysters for breakfast as de La Reynière recommends, you might want to use the bulletin’s Oyster Scramble recipe: Take twenty or thirty oysters, drain them well, chop them fine, season them with salt and pepper, and set them aside. Then beat together six eggs, three tablespoons of cream, and one-half cupful of “forked bread.” I’m not sure just what forked bread is, but I presume it to be bread shredded with a fork.
Next melt a tablespoon of butter in a frying pan and pour in the well-beaten egg-cream-bread mixture. Stir in the chopped oysters just as the eggs are beginning to cook and scramble the whole thing together.
Oysters and eggs will cost a bit more today than the half-dollar advertised in the 1916 bulletin, but if we listen to the connoisseur’s advice, we don’t really need more than three or four dozen for a good meal. 
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.