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Nicholls State's ArtWorks event will be Tuesday

Fri, 03/24/2023 - 7:57am

Nicholls State University is set to host ArtWorks, an art auction and interactive event, 6-9 p.m. Tuesday in Talbot Hall.

All proceeds are used to benefit students in the form of scholarships and grants, sending Nicholls students to regional and national exhibitions, to conferences and to study abroad.

The event will include tours of the fine art studios, art demonstrations such as a forging, raku ceramic firing and other studio workshops inside and outside Talbot Hall. In addition to these interactive learning experiences, attendees can view work by numerous artists and take part in an online silent auction featuring fine art on display in the
Dane Ledet Gallery and other installation sites.

Michael Williams, chair of the ArtWorks committee, said,, “The students in the Art program greatly benefit from the community’s support for this event. It is a unique fundraiser that allows students to express their appreciation for funding and to show their enthusiasm by participating in activities that help promote public interest in art.”

A printmaking demo from artist and Nicholls alumna, Masy Chighizola, owner of Press Relief Prints in Baton Rouge, will be conducted in the gallery. In the lobby of the Danos Theater, guests can view the display “In the Kitchen,” featuring unique hand-painted cast iron, glassware, utensils, and other items, such as a Louisiana-themed picnic table. Each work was created or decorated by alumni, faculty, students and regional or nationally recognized artists and will be auctioned off during the event.

Among the artists featured in the auction is Carl Danos, a local artist acclaimed for his carved wood decoys.

A print by abstract artist Dorothy Fratt (1923-2017), whose work will soon be featured in a retrospective at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in Arizona, is also available.

For those with an interest in creating art, Nicholls art students and faculty will be available to discuss different media and assist in developing skills. Hands-on activities, such as using a potter’s wheel, fabricating a flipbook for animation, printing silk screens and wood type revival letters, participating in the photo darkroom experience, and designing “wipe-out” paintings involving the erasure of pigments, will take place throughout the night. A studio workshop on hand-coloring photographs and an outdoor printing demonstration using a steamroller in the parking area will both be back by popular demand.

Tickets are $50 per person and can be purchased at www.nicholls.edu/artworks.

Live music by Buddy Benoit as well as Billy Stark and Bobby Pitre, complimentary hors-d’oeuvres and a cash bar will be available. Guests will be provided with art supplies
in the studio demonstrations and can bring home the original art they created during the evening.

Artwork will be available for direct purchase or bidding online. Supporters unable to attend the event can still purchase and bid on many of the items for auction by signing up through https://www.nicholls.edu/artworks.

The Nicholls Department of Art aims to provide quality studies in all visual media and the skills needed for employment or continued studies. The Bachelor of Fine Arts program is accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design. To learn more about Nicholls Department of Art, visit https://www.nicholls.edu/art/.

PAR: Crawfish is Louisiana's to seafood product

Fri, 03/24/2023 - 7:52am

Public Affairs Research Council

With the weather getting warmer and the days growing longer, Louisiana’s favorite season is kicking into full gear: seafood season.

Despite being a freshwater product, crawfish leads in the harvest.

As the nation’s second-largest seafood supplier, Louisiana is known for its plentiful harvests of seafood products such as crawfish, shrimp, crabs, oysters and alligators.

Louisiana’s seafood industry is not only important for the acclaim it brings the Bayou State but also for the revenue it generates and the jobs it provides. One out of every 70 jobs in Louisiana is related to the seafood industry, which has an economic impact of more than $2.4 billion annually for the state, according to the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board.

Some of the data presented here predates the impact of four major hurricanes that ravaged coastal Louisiana, a region comprising the bulk of the state’s commercial fishing industry.

Sources are Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, Louisiana Fisheries Forward, Office of the Lieutenant Governor, Louisiana Crawfish Promotion and Research Board

Crawfish

As the official state crustacean, crawfish remain a touchstone of Louisiana culture. Louisiana leads the nation in freshwater crawfish aquaculture, producing more than 90% of the domestic crop, according to the Louisiana Crawfish Promotion and Research Board. The combined harvest by more than 1,600 farmers and 800 commercial fishermen yields about 130 million pounds of crawfish annually, as reported by the Office of the Lieutenant Governor.

Shrimp

The second most abundant crustacean in Louisiana is shrimp. In 2018, the state landed 97 million pounds of shrimp with a value of more than $120 million. Louisiana’s harvest also accounts for 33% of all shrimp caught in the United States, according to Louisiana Fisheries Forward, a collaborative education and training program from the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and the Louisiana Sea Grant College Program at LSU.

Crabs
Louisiana’s seafood industry also relies on commercial blue crab fisheries. In 2021, Louisiana fishermen brought in about 47.4 million pounds of blue crabs, which were valued at $90 million. The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries reports that commercial landings of blue crabs have remained above 40 million pounds yearly since 1997.

Oysters
The fourth staple of Louisiana’s seafood industry is oysters. Louisiana brings in an average 11 million pounds of oysters every year, consistently outranking all other Gulf of Mexico states, as reported by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. Louisiana not only leads the Gulf South in oyster landings but accounts for 50% of the nation’s oysters, as well.

Louisiana’s fisheries, already under pressure from imported seafood, rely on favorable temperatures and weather conditions for a sizeable harvest; therefore, the hurricanes of 2020 and 2021 were especially devastating to the seafood industry.

A collaborative report created by the LSU Agricultural Center and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries found that the landfall of Hurricanes Laura, Delta, Zeta and Ida between 2020 and 2021 cost the seafood industry upwards of $570 million in total revenue and resource losses.

Not only did the four hurricanes cause an estimated $304 million in damages to fishing infrastructure, but the hurricanes also severely lessened the industry’s income from different seafood products.

The estimated revenue losses for Louisiana fishing related businesses in 22 coastal parishes totaled $155 million and the remaining $118 million came from natural resource losses such as oysters and finfish.

LSU says carbon project could help energy industry

Fri, 03/24/2023 - 7:48am

A new report from LSU’s Center for Energy Studies estimates that a planned carbon capture and sequestration hub to be located in Calcasieu Parish could abate climate damage, support jobs and workers, and protect the energy industry by capturing industrial carbon emissions and storing carbon dioxide permanently underground.

The report, prepared for Gulf Coast Sequestration, estimates the regional and national economic implications of GCS’s planned carbon capture and sequestration hub.

Produced in partnership with GCS, the report is authored by David Dismukes, professor emeritus, LSU Center for Energy Studies; Greg Upton, interim executive director, LSU Center for Energy Studies; Ron Minsk, an energy and environmental policy consultant who served as a special assistant to President Obama for Energy and Environment and special assistant to President Clinton for Economic Policy; and Brian Snyder, associate professor, LSU Department of Environmental Sciences.

GCS plans to build the first hub in the United States to permanently store carbon dioxide emissions.

Its target market is large industrial facilities looking to reduce their lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions to preserve the economic competitiveness of the region.

The planned GCS hub is located in Calcasieu Parish, near an important industrial corridor that includes some of the largest fuel and petrochemical manufacturers in the U.S.
The report notes that these processes create “hard-to-abate” emissions for which carbon capture and storage “offers a clear pathway to an improved carbon footprint, which can allow such activities to continue and thrive in a low-carbon environment.”

“Under current technologies, this is a realistic pathway for the region to achieve rapid decarbonization over the next decade,” Upton said.

“At GCS, we are committed to thorough research, including conducting hundreds of models and simulation exercises to examine how our project will impact our environment and our community,” said Gray Stream, CEO of GCS. “This report is another aspect of that research, and we are pleased to have worked with LSU to analyze the project from an economic perspective. The GCS hub represents a forward-looking opportunity to help to grow and sustain American industry and jobs, while also ensuring environmental protection now and in the future.”

The study found that the GCS project could have the following economic impacts:

--The potential to abate climate damages by $11.3 billion over the lifetime of the project, utilizing EPA’s social cost of CO2, by sequestering a total of 300 million tons of CO2.

--An estimated contribution of $698 million in earnings for U.S. workers during the anticipated five-year construction period, with approximately $560 million of this occurring in Louisiana and Texas.

--Support for more than 1,149 jobs nationally during construction, with more than 970 of these jobs in Louisiana and Texas.

--Support for approximately 375 jobs nationally once the project is completed, paying $21 million in earnings annually.

Assistance in the decarbonization of -- and thus protection of -- an industry that employs approximately 150,000 workers directly in Texas and Louisiana alone.

The report explains that the benefits of decarbonization are at least two-fold: First, decarbonizing makes current jobs in these sectors potentially more resilient in a lower carbon future; and second, a reduced carbon intensity is increasingly becoming an important factor as companies are considering siting in the Gulf Coast or other regions.

The report states that successful decarbonization can “create a competitive advantage for the region, which can continue to export products such as liquid fuels, chemicals, fertilizers and plastics globally. These products do not currently have viable substitutes.”

GCS has submitted two applications for Class VI Underground Control permits Injection from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and is prepared to move forward to construction once permits are received.

Jeremy Alford: Candidates jockey for position in governor's race

Fri, 03/24/2023 - 7:40am

There are three important areas of inquiry worth exploring at this hour in Louisiana’s developing race for governor:

1.) How strong will former Transportation Secretary Shawn Wilson run in the primary? Will he weigh in at 30%? How about 40%? Either way, Wilson — the leading Democrat in a field with no other notable Democrats — will likely finish in first place.

2.) Can Republicans unite behind a single candidate when there are (so far) five recognizable names? I think we all know the answer to that question, which brings us to our final and possibly most important area of inquiry…

3.) If Republicans are unable to unite, just how bloody will the resulting civil war be in the coming months?

A division inside Louisiana’s congressional delegation is possible. Stephen Waguespack, the former president of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, has close relationships with both Congressman Garret Graves and Congresswoman Julia Letlow. Attorney General Jeff Landry, meanwhile, certainly has the ears of Congressmen Clay Higgins and Mike Johnson.

This latest contest for governor is also dividing the donor class, which is nothing new. But it is unique to see donors suddenly abandoning their behind-the-scenes roles for press releases and prepared statements to reporters.

Donors are so engaged this go around that they’re willingly part of the public narrative.

These elevated profiles can best be viewed in Camp Landry, where Boysie Bollinger and Joe Canizaro have made full-throated endorsements.

Fellow mega-donors Lane Grigsby and Eddie Rispone, who have been with Landry since day one but are friendly with Waguespack, have also appeared regularly in The Advocate’s coverage.

Then there’s the Louisiana Republican Party, which has taken fire for allowing an early and uncontested endorsement of Landry.

At a time when all political parties are losing relevance due to the outsized spending of super PACs and other organizations, the state GOP leadership is being questioned at the highest levels.

Three high-ranking Republicans in the race — Sen. Sharon Hewitt, Rep. Richard Nelson and Treasurer John Schroder — have complained about how the endorsement process was handled. A long line of others have used stronger language.

You may not be able to clearly see it now, but in the coming months the state party’s role in electioneering and issues management will become a red-hot issue. A lot of the action will happen outside the orbit of the governor’s race, but the resulting controversies could further fan the flames of division on the right.

Among Louisiana’s religious leaders, there are some of the same lingering questions about picking sides in this race. While many pastors are familiar and friendly with Landry, Pentecostals in particular have an option with trial attorney Hunter Lundy, an independent. He’s visiting churches, raising money and carrying a message those voters like.

Whether Lundy is able to carve support off of Landry remains to be seen, but Lundy is proof that faith-based voters have options this year.

For his part, Waguespack is unlikely to ignore this sector of the electorate, and many pastors are expecting an appeal from the business leader.

In anticipation of Waguespack’s faith-based push, operatives are already meeting with church leaders to share a political message: “We don’t want a big industry stamp on state government at the cost of the family.”

Some of these divides may feel familiar and do shape up along old schisms that were created by the folks who worked for former Gov. Bobby Jindal (Waguespack’s old boss) and those who were in the trenches with former U.S. Sen. David Vitter (some of which who are with Landry).

While the Jindal-Vitter battles of yesteryear were part of a political cold war that rarely made headlines, this latest incarnation is anything but quiet.

There may be an argument to make about the divisions being similar to the Republican challenges of 2019, when Rispone and former Congressman Ralph Abraham ran for governor.

That argument, however, feels a little loose.

Rispone was one of the most prolific self-funders in modern politics, so there wasn’t all of the donor intrigue that we’re seeing now.

More importantly, donors and associations had the luxury of sitting on the sidelines until the runoff in 2019.

Even Graves waited to engage with that race four years ago.

Another difference over four years ago was the number of strong candidates. Aside from Rispone and Abraham, there were no other contenders to speak of, not counting also-rans.

This year you have five marketable Republicans and an Independent who could potentially be a spoiler candidate.

This race for governor will be unique, and it has all of the makings for a civil war on the Republican side.

Four years ago, when Gov. John Bel Edwards was seeking a second term, Republicans were hungry to return to the Governor’s Mansion.

Now they’re starving and ready to fight — even if it means fighting themselves.

For more Louisiana political news, visit www. LaPolitics.com or follow Alford on Twitter @ LaPoliticsNow

Six people apply for St. Mary superintendent post

Wed, 03/22/2023 - 8:46pm

Staff Report

Six people, including a St. Mary Parish councilman and a longtime Berwick High principal, have applied to become the new superintendent of the parish's public schools.

The St. Mary School Board has closed the application period and called a special meeting for 5 p.m. Monday at the Central Office Complex in Centerville to talk about how to proceed with interviews.

The new superintendent will succeed Dr. Teresa Bagwell, who announced late last year that she would not seek extension of her contract. Dr. Rachael Sanders has since served as interim superintendent.

The job offers a salary of $120,000 to $140,000 per year.

The six candidates are:

--Buffy Fegenbush of Berwick. The district director of academic intervention for Lafayette Parish since 2001, Fegenbush was the Berwick High principal from 2002-2017.

Fegenbush has served four administrative posts in St. Mary Parish schools.

--J Ina of Franklin. Ina, a St. Mary Parish Council member, is also principal at Franklin Junior High.

Except for a brief stint in banking, Ina has served as a teacher, coach, athletic director or administrator since 1998.

--Hamilton Brock of Baker. He has served since 2011 as the principal at Baker's K-12 Alternative Learning Center.

He was principal at Delhi High School in Richland Parish 2007-09.

--Margaret Cage of Houma. Cage has served as supervisor of special education for Assumption Parish schools since 2021.

In 2020 and 2021, she was director of portfolio support for New Orleans schools.

--Curt Green of Gonzales. Green has been director of human resources for St. John the Baptist Parish schools since 2021. He has served as a principal at schools in East Feliciana, East Baton Rouge, St. Louis and Atlanta.

--C. Michael Robinson of Thibodaux. Robinson is currently the chief academic officer for East Baton Rouge schools, a post he's held since 2021.

He served as superintended of schools in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, 2016-2018.

Also on the agenda for Monday’s special meeting is a discussion of budgeting and a public forum on a possible return to block scheduling.

That issue came up at the regular meeting March 9. Block scheduling divides the high school day into four 93-minute periods, and new classes begin each semester. The school system did away with block scheduling in favor of a traditional seven-period day before the 2017-18 school year as a cost-cutting measure.

Around Town for March 22

Wed, 03/22/2023 - 12:06pm

Happy birthday Thursday to Jewel Howard, Charlette Valentine and Anita Dardar, and belated happy birthday Minister Stanley Rankins Jr. from family, friends and Ira … Congratulations Emily Price for being inducted into Alabama State University’s Chi Alpha Sigma National Collegiate Honor Society from all your family and friends.

Wheel House for March 22

Wed, 03/22/2023 - 12:05pm

JOB FAIR
State of Louisiana, Acadiana Workforce Solutions and Louisiana Workforce Commission hosting a 2nd Chance Job Fair 10 a.m. to noon Wednesday, April 19, at Morgan City Municipal Auditorium, 728 Myrtle St. Area employers and residents needing more information call Kendra Neal, 337-692-3259; Jeri Mestayer, 337-256-2027 or Rachelle Duhon, 337-499-1758. Public invited.

Presentation will focus on La. man's role in MacArthur's landing

Wed, 03/22/2023 - 12:03pm

Andrew Capone will be the guest speaker for the Young-Sanders Center at 1:30 p.m. Saturday.

Capone will present a PowerPoint presentation on his research on "T-Man and General McArthur Fact or Fiction?"

One of the world’s most iconic photographs ever taken is Gen. Douglas MacArthur, supreme commander of allied forces in the Pacific during World War II, returning to the Philippines in 1944. Almost every person in these photographs has been identified by The MacArthur Memorial Archives and so it would seem that the name of Pvt. Ervin “T-Man” Bailey would be easy to find in any historic archives.

A local legend, T-Man Bailey from Four Mile Bayou, claimed to be there with MacArthur. Join us as we search and prove that he was there and how he survived the most intense battles in the history of mankind in the Solomon Islands on New Georgia Island.

“…On New Georgia where the 43rd Infantry Division experienced the highest number of neuropsychiatric cases, also called combat fatigue, shell shock or post-traumatic stress disorder, and the most casualties in any division during one operation in the entire war.”

Capone was born and raised in Donaldsonville and he resides in his 200- year -old home on the Capone Plantation between Napoleonville and Thibodaux.

He is president of the Fort Butler Foundation, which has a team of researchers skilled on many topics. \“Our group has contributed information used in 50 plus published books on Louisiana history and the Civil War,” he said.

The Young-Sanders Center is located at 701 Teche Drive in Franklin, one block from the St. Mary Parish Courthouse.

The presentation is open to the general public. Refreshments will be served.

Pandemic, hurricanes continue to affect seafood industry

Wed, 03/22/2023 - 12:00pm

VICTOR SKINNER, The Center Square

During the pandemic, the state’s seafood industry shut down.

Once business resumed, a series of storms and hurricanes wiped out areas where those who rely on the state’s plentiful harvests of crawfish, shrimp, crabs, oysters and alligators make a living.

The double-whammy took a devastating toll on Louisiana, the nation’s second-largest seafood supplier, and when it fully recovers remains to be seen.

“There’s still boats stranded in certain areas,” said Samantha Carroll, executive director for Louisiana Seafood.

While the 2022 season offered a reprieve with no hurricanes, “people were still trying to pick up the pieces,” struggling to find fuel, bait, and other essentials, she said.

“It was waiting on everything to ramp back up so these fishermen could get back on the water and it took a while,” Carroll said. “It’s going to be a long recovery for our coast, the fishing industry.”

The impact is undoubtedly reverberating throughout the state, where one in every 70 jobs is tied to the industry. Louisiana Seafood estimates the industry’s economic impact at $2.4 billion.

A report from the LSU Agricultural Center and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries found that hurricanes in 2020 and 2021 cost the industry about $570 million in total revenue and resource losses.

“Not only did the four hurricanes cause an estimated $304 million in damages to fishing infrastructure, but the hurricanes also severely lessened the industry’s income from different seafood products,” the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana wrote in a recent industry snapshot. “The estimated revenue losses for Louisiana fishing related businesses in 22 coastal parishes totaled $155 million and the remaining $118 million came from natural resource losses such as oysters and finfish.”

Jack Isaacs, economist with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, said efforts are underway to gauge the recovery for Louisiana’s various seafood species, with finalized data available likely in the coming months.

“There was a drop in several parameters during the period, but it’s hard to isolate out effect of COVID from other factors affecting the seafood industry, both positively and negatively,” he said. “The industry is going through a lot of difficulties right now, it’s always facing some type of challenge.

“For shrimp, imports are pushing the prices down, for other species, there’s habitat issues,” he said.

For shrimpers, the government-imposed shutdown during the pandemic “really hurt us, but the biggest problem is shrimp coming into the country,” Acy Cooper, president of the Louisiana Shrimp Association, told The Center Square.

America consumes about 1.5 billion pounds of shrimp per year, while imported shrimp have hit 2.2 billion pounds annually, he said.

The situation started well before COVID, but the pandemic and hurricanes “made it 10 times worse,” driving the annual haul down from about 100 million pounds per year to about 74 million pounds last year, Cooper said.

“It just compounded the problem,” he said. “Once they take over market share, it’s hard to come back.”

The flood of foreign shrimp, which Cooper contends often come with antibiotics and other undesirables, has also conspired with higher gas prices and inflation to further squeeze shrimp fishermen, who are now getting a fraction of the prices they did a decade ago.

“We’re going to get back to it, the only problem is the prices are so low, and the fuel is so high,” he said, adding that the number of Louisiana shrimpers has dropped from 20,000 in 2002 to about 6,000 now. “We’re resilient, but we’re not going to be alright with the way we’re going.”

Jim Bradshaw: Who, or what, is buried in Winberly's grave?

Wed, 03/22/2023 - 11:49am

Jim Bradshaw

According to official records, Abraham O. Wimberly, one-time town marshal, died in a jail cell on March 1, 1899, and was buried in Church Point. According to family legend, he was long gone from the cell on March 1 and they buried a casket filled with bricks.

I started rooting out old newspaper accounts after Gene Thibodeaux chronicled much of this as part of a larger story on Wimberly lawmen in the journal of the Pointe de l’Eglise-Acadia Genealogical and Historical Society.

Wimberly was in jail because he shot and killed Sosthene (Coon) Daigle in a Church Point saloon on April 23, 1898. According to the first report in the Crowley Signal, the shooting came as a result of a simmering feud between the men.

“About a month ago … Daigle got on a spree in Church Point and resisted arrest by the marshal for disturbing the peace, and Marshal Wimberly in effecting the arrest had to use his club on Daigle” according to the Signal report on April 30. “Since that time, it is alleged that Daigle has made frequent threats that if Wimberly did not resign … he would kill him.”

According to that report, Daigle came to Church Point looking for trouble and was drinking heavily when Wimberly confronted him.

The marshal “tried to get Daigle to go home,” the Signal said, but shot him when Daigle started to draw a pistol. “Everyone seems to think that Wimberly acted in self-defense and in the discharge of his duty as an officer,” according to the news account.

That was quickly challenged by Sosthene’s brother, Theogene Daigle, who wrote a letter to the newspaper calling the account “garbled, incorrect and untrue.”

First, Theogene said, “While Wimberly had a short time previously dealt my brother a murderous blow … [that] almost crushed his skull, still Sosthene acted with commendable patience in not having sought Wimberly to avenge the wrong.”

He said that on the fatal day Wimberly, hearing that Daigle was in town, “sought an opportunity to finish the job he had left incomplete.”

When Wimberly, “bent on his murderous mission,” went into the saloon, “he immediately accosted my brother in a manner which, taken in connection with the rough treatment he had previously used, caused my brother to tell him to go away, that he did not want anything to do with him,” according to Theogene’s account.

Theogene said that’s when the marshal shot Sosthene. He said it was “a matter of doubt” whether Sosthene had made a motion to draw his own pistol, and that “even if he had … under such circumstances no one could blame him.”

Wimberly was charged with murder, but pleaded self-defense at his trial in June 1898.

Some witnesses said Wimberly had “a deliberate intention of killing Daigle,” according to the newspaper account of the trial. The jury apparently agreed, but said there were mitigating circumstances. The jurors convicted him of the lesser crime of manslaughter. He was sentenced to seven years in prison.

“To put the mildest construction upon the unfortunate affair, Wimberly managed things with poor judgement to arrest a man under the influence of liquor whom he expected to have trouble with … at least that was the light in which the jury viewed it,” the Signal said.

Wimberly waited in the Acadia Parish jail while his attorneys appealed the verdict to the Louisiana Supreme Court and also petitioned the governor for a pardon.

Both were denied, but the convicted marshal would not go to the state penitentiary.

The Signal told the story in a brief notice on March 4, 1899.

A. O. Wimberly, “who was tried and convicted of manslaughter … some months ago, and who appealed to the pardon board [while] remaining in the parish jail … died of dropsy [congestive heart failure] at 7:15 o’clock Saturday morning. By a strange coincidence the papers affirming the decision of the district court and ordering his removal to the penitentiary came by this morning’s mail. But death relieved the prisoner of any further punishment by the law.”

But there is also the possibility that the Signal’s editors got fooled by a hoax pulled by the family, and that Wimberly escaped further punishment by another route. Thibodeaux told that story this way.

“There is a family tale that has worked its way down through the Wimberly family … that Abraham O. Wimberly did not die in a jail cell, but was secretly set free to leave the state forever. The coffin that was lowered into the grave contained bricks instead of the ex-town marshal. Whether true or not, it is an interesting tale.”

A Wimberly acquaintance of mine couldn’t say whether the tale was true, but said “that sounds like something that might have happened.”

You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.