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Gospel music takes the Shrimp & Petroleum Festival stage at 11:30 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 31.
The performances will be at the Music Stage in Lawrence Park.
The performers:
—11 a.m. Lee Chapel AME/Union Bethel Choir, Andrew Sims, musician.
—11:30 a.m. J.J. Hawkins Gospel Zydeco and Fire.
—Noon “Taken,” Ray Brady of Raceland.
—12:40 p.m. Judah Dazzling Dancers, Shamika Francois.
—1 p.m. Mt. Zion Community Church, Boutte.
—1:45 p.m. Remnant Church Kingdom Ministries, Samuel Green.
Green is a native New Orleanian who has written, produced, played and sung on five full CDs of his own and has worked on many projects for others.
He started playing drums at age 4, and at 11 at an all-night prayer meet, he began to play organ and keyboard.
Green has opened for Bishop Martin L. Winans, Pastor Donnie McClurkin, the late Bishop Rance Allen, the late Bishop Myles Monroe, BeBe Winans, Daniel Winans, Carolyn Traylor, James Bignon and Bishop Paul S. Morton.
The group Taken was formed by bringing in singers and musicians from different genres of music, different churches and different church ministries.
Based in Raceland, the group’s members are Ray Bradley, Joe Slay, Ronald Robinson, Byron Bradley, Marvin Hampton, Andre Johnson and Connery Charles.
They’ve taken music from the secular field and arranged it to share in churches, concert halls and festival settings.
Taken also performs traditional gospel occasionally with old-time harmony.
The Mount Zion Community Church Choir of Boutte travels near and far on a mission to praise the Lord.

Singer-songwriter Danny Wells honors the storied career of the legendary George Strait, with whom Wells co-wrote the chart-topping hit “Check Yes or No,” in a one-of-a-kind concert at 7 p.m. Sept. 12 at Schreier Theatre at Morgan City Municipal Auditorium.
Single concert tickets are $25 for adults and $5 for students K-12. Season tickets are now on sale for the 2024-2025 concert season. All tickets, subscription or single concert, are available online at www.morgancitylive.com or at the door.
Multi-award-winning songwriter and artist Wells is hitting the stage to perform a special tribute to one of the biggest music stars of all time: George Strait. An in-demand Nashville-based songwriter, Wells has written numerous chart-topping hits, including multiple songs for Strait.
His songs have exceeded 15 million airplays worldwide, with record sales in excess of 30 million. Wells will tell the stories behind some of Strait’s biggest hits, as well as the stories behind songs penned for stars like Rascal Flatts, Collin Raye, JoDee Messina and more.
Morgan City Live Community Concert Association of Morgan City Inc., formed in 1947, continues to bring world-class entertainment to Morgan City, Berwick, Patterson, the rest of St. Mary Parish and surrounding parishes.

With profound sadness we announce the passing of Alice Faye, our loving and devoted mother and friend to all whose lives she touched, on August 21, 2024. She left us while sleeping peacefully at her residence in Patterson, Louisiana. She was in her 81st year.
Born in Dallas, Texas, the youngest of six children to the late Clarence & Nancy Wilson. Alice married her high school sweetheart Merrick “Buddy” Kerry and moved to south Louisiana to start their family. Her husband Buddy worked in the Oilfield industry which led them to live abroad and enjoy other cultures in Abadan, Iran and Salvador, Bahia Brazil. Alice lived a vivid well-rounded life as a wonderful mother, homemaker, community volunteer as beauty pageant director, member of the Franklin Lions Club and she enjoyed working at a Farm Feed Store and as a Beauty Consultant for Mary Kay Cosmetics. Alice also worked in Debt Collections, as well as in the women’s retail industry as a Fashion Consultant at Ouida’s for Women & Co-founder & Buyer for LuLu’s Boutique in Morgan City. She was a master in the kitchen, created beloved holiday dishes that brought joy and warmth to her family year after year. Everyone looked forward to her cornbread dressing, giblet gravy, pecan pie, pumpkin pie, flan and big breakfast that always included Texas white cream gravy.
Those left to cherish Alice’s beautiful memory are her dear sister Nancy Griffith, her loving companion Lennis Callahan and her three devoted daughters Susan Kerry of Lafayette, Sandra Swope (Claude) of Sulphur, Sharon Dohmann (Joey) of Berwick. She was a loving grandmother to Kansas & Dakota Swope, Caroline Ellis (Hunter), Savanna Uze (Zach), Olivia Thibodeaux, Gweneth, Mary-Alice, Vincent and Adeline Dohmann and great-grandmother to Ava & Kellan Swope, Noah, Connor, Hayes & Addison Ellis, Merrick & Lucille Uze.
Alice was Baptist in faith, and in her later years she attended services at Bethel Pentecostal Church in Patterson and also enjoyed watching television evangelists on Sunday mornings. She was a country girl at heart, in her teen years her family moved to a 100 acre farm and that’s when she fell in love with riding her horse “Dixie”. Alice enjoyed working alongside her husband in the yard, and doing projects at their camp. Art was also a passion of hers, she studied under renowned artist Janet Robinson. She enjoyed all types of music and loved to dance. Alice enjoyed going regularly to estate sales, growing her orchids and watching the hummingbirds and doves in her backyard.
Alice will be remembered for her tenacity, whit, charm and brutal honesty and undying love and care for her family and friends. She always told the truth, even if it wasn’t what you wanted to hear. Everyone always knew where they stood with her, she liked you or she didn’t!
Affectionately known by family and friends as Mom, Mama, Mother, MeMaw, Aunt Poodie, Aliwicious, Alice Faye, Vern, My Girl and Beautiful. Although she lived in Louisiana, Alice was a proud Texan; she always said, everything is Bigger and Better in Texas! She had a flawless complexion, a captivating smile and stunning baby blue eyes.
She is reunited in heaven with her husband of 47 years, Merrick Oliver “Buddy” Kerry; her parents, Clarence & Nancy Wilson; three brothers, Elmo, Paul & Charles Lee Wilson and her sister, Biddie Ann Arnold.
A time of visitation and remembrance will be held for Alice on Thursday, August 29, 2024 from 9:00 am until 11:00 am with a celebration of Alice’s life beginning at 11:00 am at Hargrave Funeral Home in Morgan City, LA. Alice will be laid to rest alongside her husband, Merrick, in the Emmanuel Family Cemetery in Chopin, LA following a 5:00 pm graveside service on Thursday, August 29, 2024.
Honorary pallbearers for Alice will be Joey Dohmann, Vincent Dohmann, Claude Swope and Dakota Swope.
The family wishes to acknowledge deep appreciation to her care givers Raychel Gray, Alma Arguijo, Ann Luke, Deborah Lodrigue, Dannette Bowers, Cheryl Benedietto, Takesha Brown, Vickie Daigle and dear friend & hairstylist Zoie Mahaffey
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that contributions be made to your local Animal shelters, ASPCA, Retired & Disabled American Veterans, Children’s Hospital New Orleans LCMC Health and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Solar power in Louisiana has become a subject of controversy, and lawmakers took a look at both sides of the argument in a hearing last week.
The House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee met Thursday to hear testimony from both sides of the argument on solar power. Legislators got what they were looking for, with over eight hours of industry and public testimony.
The primary issue at hand was land. Where should land be devoted to solar power, and more specifically, what type of land. 
Only a certain type of ground is good for solar farms. Farm soil is best because it’s flat, easily accessed and not over any pipelines or channels.  
Although it would be more convenient in theory to have them in a place such as bayous and marshes because it wouldn’t hurt any other industry, environmentalists strongly opposed that because it would hurt species’ habitats. That’s not even considering how much harder it would be to manage a plant of any kind on such shaky infrastructure. 
The problem is giving up prime land to futuristic energy production.  If large land owners sell their land to solar companies, tenant farmers who operate on leases won’t be able to afford to keep up.
Mike Strain, the commissioner of the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry, says giving that land away also means you can’t use it for its original intent, which the country desperately needs. 
“We are consuming more food than we’re producing,” Strain said of the U.S. agriculture complex. 
In addition, the land owners can’t make money off the crops that were supposed to grow. 
So why even build them? According to Strain, the federal government doesn’t leave a financially sharp land owner much room for choice. 
“The fundamental issue is that large federal subsidies and board room politics have resulted in market disruption dealing with the value and utilization of land,” Strain said regarding federal loans and tax breaks. 
Higher powers than Louisiana’s Legislature believe solar is the future, as evident by its $51 billion industry in the U.S. Of new energy, solar makes up over 50% of that tally. 
Many corporations are under pressure from signing environmental agreements that say if they don’t go green, they won’t receive those vital government incentives.  
In addition, Louisiana has some of the strongest property rights in the nation. Lawmakers have no intention on requiring land owners to leave a certain amount of farmland if the land owner chooses to build solar farms instead. 
Strain offered several solutions. The Legislature could ask the federal government to reevaluate the subsidies, but he says that’s highly unlikely.
They could develop uniform guidelines for local planning and zoning, which solves a lot of placement issues. Within that suggestion was the idea of purchasing developmental rights to agriculture land so the state and local governments can more easily control what happens on that soil.
Lastly, they could offer their own subsidies to incentivize land owners. 
Regardless of which solution they choose, environmentalists, forestry representatives, farmers, and locals all agreed that the solution needs to be conscious of several things.
One is maintaining a natural aesthetic, as opposed to the “ugly” solar farms, as some locals call them. Two is the way of life that provides many locals with stability. Three is the habitats and vegetation of certain areas.
If you ask Terry Chambers, director of the Louisiana Solar Energy Lab, no solution is needed. The state is already on the right track. 
Besides the obvious benefits of cleaner energy, Chambers answered a lot of other concerns. For starters, it’s actually not more expensive to make and store than traditional oil and gas. According to Chambers, it is cheaper to make a new solar farm than to keep running a traditional power plant. 
Chambers also said he only suggests and expects a max of 1.6% of farmland be used. It is never going to be technically feasible to run the state purely on solar power. If the zoning guidelines are implemented, they can ensure that 1.6% only goes on areas everyone can agree on. 
Money talks more than anything, and Chambers says the solar industry could also provide financial benefits to the state. A $1.1 billion investment from First Solar has already been directed to Iberia Parish for solar power construction, maintenance, and use. Chambers estimates the infrastructure will produce about 700 permanent jobs on a $40 million annual payroll. 
Lastly, he cited multiple studies done by realtors saying despite the “ugly” and futuristic look that may put off generational residents, there hasn’t been a dip in property values near the plants.