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Staff Report
Stormy weather shut down Berwick and Central Catholic on Thursday night, but lightning didn’t strike twice for Morgan City on Friday.
Jeanerette scored on a Morgan City fumble in its own zone and ran an interception back 100 yards in the fourth quarter to claim a 24-7 win Friday.
Also Friday, Bunkie blanked Patterson 27-0.
On Thursday, Kaplan outran Berwick 38-19 and Abbeville downed Central Catholic 20-7 in games halted in the third quarter as a precaution against lightning.
Teams west of the Calumet Cut generally fared better. On Friday, Centerville went to 2-0 by defeating Haynes Academy 20-0, and Franklin, 1-1, beat Haynes Charter 24-6. On Saturday, Hanson Memorial put 40 points on the board for the second time, downing Delcambre 49-14.
This week, Morgan City’s homecoming game will be against Covenant Christian. The Tigers are 1-1.
Berwick, 1-1, will be at home against Franklin, and Patterson, 1-1, will be at home against Ascension Episcopal.
Also Friday, Central Catholic, 1-1, will be on the road to Riverside.
Jeanerette 24,
Morgan City 7
In this game and the last-second win over Berwick on Sept. 1, Morgan City’s offense has taken shape: speed and misdirection in the backfield with a quartet of receivers for quarterback Thomas Mancuso to employ.
Those elements worked at times Friday, but not enough to overcome self-inflicted wounds.
After Mancuso scored on a 7-yard run with 5:47 left in the first half, bringing Morgan City to within 8-7, the Tigers ran seven series and reached Jeanerette territory on five of them.
But Morgan City fumbled away the ball on one possession and sent a shotgun snap over Mancuso’s head into the end zone on another. Jeanerette’s Javonte Williams recovered that miscue for a TD and, with Desean Tolbert’s 2-point run, a 16-7 lead.
Two series later, Jeanerette’s Zyre Colar intercepted a Morgan City pass in the end zone and returned it 100 yards for a touchdown. The 2-point pass rounded out the 24-7 final.
Antonio Cojoe led Morgan City rushers with a 13-for-59 night, followed by Leonard Torres with 12 carries for 54 yards. Anthony Bourgeois rushed eight times for 45 yards.
Mancuso was 8-for-28 passing for 51 yards and two interceptions. Kyron Dugas caught three for 29 yards, and Bourgeois brought down three for 17. Jamyre Bias caught two passes for 5 yards.
Morgan City’s defense held Jeanerette’s offense to one score, the Tolbert TD. He was Jeanerette’s strength on the ground, rushing 16 times for 77 yards. Zyon Colar was 7-for-18 passing with a Robert Blanchard interception.
Kaplan 38,
Berwick 19
When Evan Crappell hit Carter Whipple with a 45-yard touchdown pass with 9:19 left in the first half, Berwick trailed only 14-13.
But Kaplan’s wing-T offense struck back quickly. Two plays after the Berwick score, Kaplan running back Daylon Landry broke a 65-yard touchdown run that, with the 2-point run by Carter Petry, put the home team on top 22-13.
Landry would ramble for 202 yards on 12 carries. Fullback Jed Devotz rushed eight times for 64 yards before leaving with an injury.
After Landry’s TD, Kaplan’s Bradyn Bearb scored on a 1-yard plunge, followed by a Petry 2-pointer. Then Kaplan recovered its own onside kick and, five plays later, Petry ran 1 yard into the end zone. Landry did the 2-point duties, and Kaplan was up 38-13.
Berwick back Cole Morris led the way on the ensuing drive, which covered 56 yards on seven plays. The last was a 3-yard TD run by Morris, but that was it. The officials suspended the game because of nearby lightning.
Morris finished with 48 yards on 12 carries. Namon Bennett ran 10 times for 57 yards and Berwick’s first touchdown, a 3-yarder on Berwick’s first series.
Crappell was 3-for-10 passing for 69 yards. Whipple had the 45-yard reception, and Gage Toups caught a pass for 19 yards.
Abbeville 20,
Central Catholic 7
In Thursday’s other weather-shortened game, Central Catholic’s Tate Fontenot rushed for the Eagles’ lone touchdown, and Benjamin Case hit on 8 of 16 passes. Landon Ramagos caught three passes for 47 yards and Fontenot grabbed two for 23.
Tylon Hollins caught two passes for a -7 yards. Baker had one reception for 7.
Cash Baker led Central Catholic rushers with 46 yards on eight trips. Fontenot rushed for 10 yards on six carries.

BREAST CANCER
Roots & Ribbons Foundation and the Tri City Track Club presenting “Puttin’ on the Pink – 2023,” a 5K race and two-mile walk promoting breast cancer awareness, support and survivorship, is 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 7, Morey Park, Patterson. Individual and team contests: wear pink/team pink/theme pink with prizes for best costume, biggest team and best theme. 5K awards for first-third overall adult male and female, and first-third overall junior (17 and under). Fee: Breast cancer survivors, free, will be recognized and lead the survivor walk that will loop inside Morey Park before moving onto Main Street to complete the 2-mile course. Fee for all others: $30, with T-shirt; $15, no T-shirt. For info and forms contact Race Director Dee Hymel, 985-518-6118, or e-mail dhymel@cox-internet.com. Funds raised are to help local breast cancer survivors. Pre-registration deadline is Oct. 1.

The LSU AgCenter Healthy St. Mary Coalition and town of Baldwin are hosting a community walk-a-long 9:30-11:30 a.m. Sept. 22
The group invites residents to be a part of improving walking conditions in Baldwin.
 The walk will start at Baldwin Town Hall. Participants will evaluate whether the current walking conditions are safe, inviting and Americans With Disabilities Act-accessible. 
In August, the Baldwin Town Council passed a resolution to accept a Complete Streets Policy proposed by Jessica Randazzo, LSU AgCenter nutrition agent.  Feedback from the community will strengthen this policy and support future applications for funding to sustainable pedestrian improvements.   
“Community input is important for long-lasting change, so we are inviting all community members in the hopes of getting well-rounded feedback,” Randazzo said. 
For more information about LSU AgCenter Healthy Communities projects in St. Mary or St. Martin parish, contact Randazzo at jrandazzo@agcenter.lsu.edu or 337-828-4100.

By OLIVIA McCLURE
LSU AgCenter
WESTPORT — In west-central Louisiana, where wildfires have ravaged thousands of acres of drought-stricken forests in recent weeks, more has been lost than just trees.
For many people, the towering pines that define the landscape of this rural region represent family inheritances, years of investment and hopes for the future. Growing trees takes a long time, but the cash they bring in when cut is worth the wai.
This summer’s fires have dimmed those prospects for some — adding insult to injury in an area still dealing with storm damage from three years ago.
“Many of these landowners already incurred losses back in 2020 with hurricanes Laura and Delta,” said Robbie Hutchins, an area forester with the LSU AgCenter. “And now, the timber stands they had left, they’re decimated. These folks were counting on this for retirement income, for college funds for kids or grandkids, and now they no longer have this income source — and they now have the burden of the cost of trying to reforest it.”
“It is really tragic for forest landowners,” Hutchins added. “I can’t overstate how devastating this is.”
Pine forests that should be vibrant and green are now a striking image of dead, brown needles and charred, black bark. Crews are still working to get fires under control, and there is some risk of them reigniting and spreading to new places in the coming weeks as Louisiana enters what is typically its driest time of year.
Attention is now turning to what is next for landowners — small ones who may have inherited 10 or 15 acres and large landholding companies alike — as the economic fallout of the wildfires begins to come into focus.
“An average loss on a pre-merchantable plantation — one that is not old enough to harvest for a merchantable product — is about $1,000, $1,500 an acre. If it’s a merchantable stand, especially a mature stand that’s already grown into a sawtimber-size stand, you could be looking at $2,000 to $2,500 an acre worth of loss,” Hutchins said. “When you start thinking about the almost 50,000 acres that have burned, that is a significant economic loss.”
Small producers face challenges
Most mom-and-pop forest landowners do not have much of a safety net.
“One of the things we all need to understand that is so devastating about this financially is, unlike row crops, there are no programs available like crop insurance,” Hutchins said. “Forest landowners don’t even have the option of insuring their timber.”
Some cost-sharing programs, such as the state Forest Productivity Program, are available to help small, private forest landowners with site preparation and replanting expenses.
Hutchins has been busy lately directing people to information on programs for which they may qualify. The assistance can make a big difference for those who have lost valuable timber and are now staring down the cost of reforesting damaged property.
“That’s a double whammy if you’ve lost your initial investment and you’ve got to turn around and dump that kind of money into the land,” he said.
Economy
depends on timber
Companies that manage large tracts of timberland and mill owners will face repercussions from the fires, too. Questions are swirling about how the timber supply will be impacted, which could have a trickle-down, negative effect on the local economy, Hutchins said.
“Do you need as many logging contractors? Do you need the fuel suppliers, the equipment manufacturers and dealers?” he said. “The whole economy of this area is based on the timber industry.”
Timber is the state’s No. 1 agricultural commodity. Nearly 15 million acres — more than half of the land in Louisiana— is covered in forests.
“Forestry and the forest products industry has a greater than $10 billion per year impact on Louisiana’s economy,” Hutchins said. “Forestry and logging are the backbone of rural Louisiana, especially western Louisiana and southwest Louisiana. It’s a major employer here.”
Hutchins spent a recent Tuesday with Paul Stone, a conservation forester with Crosby Resource Management, checking out trees that were charred by what has been named the Highway 113 Fire. Also known as the Cooter’s Bog Fire, it is estimated to have burned about 8,000 acres in Rapides and Vernon parishes.
A much larger blaze, the Tiger Island Fire, has destroyed more than 30,000 acres in nearby Beauregard Parish. Several other, smaller fires are burning in west-central parishes.
While devastating, these kinds of large wildfires are not unprecedented in this part of Louisiana. Stone and Hutchins remember a similar situation in 2000, when fires burned about 30,000 acres near Oakdale and 10,000 more near Lacamp. About half of the current fires are believed to be the result of arson, Stone said, with the rest being sparked by lightning strikes from summer storms with lots of energy but little rain.
Some timber salvageable
Stone said his company, like many landowners, is planning to salvage what it can and then replant.
“Some of the large timber we may be able to salvage,” he said. “We’ll have to move it a longer distance to mills that are willing to accept wood that’s been burned.”
Local mills are generally rejecting burned material because of the type products their wood is used for, he said.
“The black bark and black wood interferes with their pulping process,” Stone said. “In all likelihood, we will not be able to salvage any pulpwood, and the sawtimber will be reduced to what is merchantable and what can be hauled at a reasonable rate.”
Pulpwood is primarily used for making paper products while sawtimber refers to logs that can be sawed into lumber.
Fire risk remains
As Stone and Hutchins stood in a fire line where trees had been cut down to stop the spread of flames, they examined a stand of scorched pines near the Rapides Parish community of Westport. Dead, brown needles drifted down from overhead.
“They’re falling like rain,” Hutchins observed.
The piles of pine needles along with downed timber that’s still on the ground from the 2020 hurricanes are causing concern as wildfires continue to burn and as Louisiana’s typical fall fire season approaches. They could provide fuel for old fires to reignite and for new ones to start, especially once drier, windier and cooler weather arrives. “All those conditions are normally what we fear,” Hutchins said. “But now, we fear them even more.”
Stone and Hutchins, both veterans of the forestry industry, know from experience that completely extinguishing big wildfires takes a lot of time and effort.
“We’ve had reburns take off 30 days later from a previous fire when stumps were burning that long underground,” Stone said.
‘It’s important
for all of us’
The foresters are hopeful for rain and are grateful for the outpouring of support from other states.
While the two surveyed damaged forests, firetrucks and pickups hauling equipment passed consistently on country roads that usually see only occasional local traffic. They bore decals from agencies in Texas, Idaho, Georgia, North Carolina and many other states.
Hutchins is optimistic that the tall pine trees that make up the scenery of this area of Louisiana will one day return. Economics aside, he said, forests are valuable to everyone.
“It’s important for all of us, whether we are forest landowners or not, that these lands be reforested,” he said. “Healthy, growing forests produce lots of oxygen and clean water. They store lots of carbon from out of the atmosphere.”
If there is any silver lining to the situation, he added, it is that relatively few homes have been lost to the fires.
“Thankfully, for the most part, it has been primarily forestland that has been affected,” he said.