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While the horrific events in Ukraine seem far away, those events have touched St. Mary in a very real way. And Russia’s invasion may have solved a 7½-year-old St. Mary mystery.
As this is written Monday, oil contracts for West Texas intermediate crude oil are going for $118 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, pushed up first by recovering demand from COVID shutdowns and then by sanctions levied against Russia.
That’s the highest price since May 2014, just before the beginning of a long slide in prices that hammered St. Mary’s economy.
The higher oil price means we’re paying more for gasoline, which will have economic consequences of its own. But we can hope the higher price will reverse some of the damage sustained since 2014.
The slump
Our parish makes ships and grows sugar cane, so we can’t say the local economy is completely dependent on the energy industry. You’re not absolutely dependent on having a left leg, either.
But we developed a noticeable economic limp when St. Mary’s employment fell from more than 27,000 in summer 2014 to 18,500 as of December 2021.
Those are Great Depression, “Grapes of Wrath,” “Brother, can you spare a dime?” numbers. Truth be told, we muddled through. Local governments budgeted conservatively, and services continued at close to pre-plunge levels. Oil prices started heading up for real about the time COVID-19 struck, and worldwide recovery in demand for energy has been pushing the price up more or less steadily since late 2020.
And, although there has been real economic pain for local people, the employment numbers exaggerate the effect on St. Mary.
We can’t assume 27,000 St. Mary people were working in 2014 just because 27,000 people were working in St. Mary. The Census Bureau says that in the five years before COVID-19, an average of about 53% of St. Mary people 16 and over had jobs.
That means the number of people employed in St. Mary exceeded the number of St. Mary people with jobs by something like 8,000. Not all the impact fell on people who live here.
The world energy market has already gotten a shock from the decision not to open the Nordstrom 2 natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. More sanctions targeting Russian oil and gas may be coming.
Russia is the world’s third-largest producer of oil at about 10.5 million barrels a day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That’s just less than Saudi Arabia. The United States is comfortably in first at 11.5 million.
At home, conflicting federal court rulings have delayed federal offshore energy lease sales.
We’ll have to see whether the higher price and whatever lease environment that develops will lure back the kind of Gulf of Mexico exploration and production that led to that pre-drop heyday in 2014.
Meanwhile,
in Ukraine ...
Ukraine was one of the subject “republics” in the Soviet Union. After the Soviet Union fell apart, Ukraine became independent and was rather proud of it.
Sometime around 1991, I covered a Lafayette gathering of state government officials and representatives of the pre-born Ukrainian nation. I weaseled my way into an interview with one of the visitors and asked what hopes he had for the Ukraine.
No, no, no, he answered. Not “the” Ukraine. Just Ukraine — an independent country.
He was serious about it, and so were his fellow countrymen, who began almost immediately to create trade and political ties with Europe.
Sadly, the new nation was dogged by corruption. Russia meddled at every chance. The Ukranians had to invent their own economy from scratch with no scratch. Their elected leaders were a mixture of incompetents, true reformers and Russian lackeys.
Ukranians rose up. They took to the streets in the Orange Revolution of 2004 and succeeded in getting a fraudulent presidential election overturned and rerun.
They were back in the streets again in the winter of 2013-14. The president elected in 2010, Victor Yanukovych, shut down work on a trade and diplomacy deal between Ukraine and the European Union. The blockage was seen as caving in to Russia, and by now, Ukrainians had all the Russia they could stand.
So thousands spent that long, cold winter in a Kyiv square called Maidan. They were bullied, shoved, shot and beaten, but they weren’t defeated. By spring 2014, they succeeded in forcing Yanukovych to flee to Russia. (There’s a great documentary on those events, “Winter on Fire,” on Netflix.)
In Russia, Vladimir Putin, who has tried desperately to keep the break-away republics closer to Russia than to the rest of Europe, was not amused. It was after Yanukovych’s retreat that Russia seized Crimea and intensified fighting in the southeastern Ukrainian region that was the flashpoint for the Russian invasion.
And that’s where St. Mary comes in. Maybe.
Mystery solved?
On Sept. 11, 2014, just months after the end of the Maidan protests, some St. Mary people received emergency text alerts warning of an explosion at a carbon black plant in Centerville.
The text warned of a “toxic fume” release. Social media posts began showing fake screen captures, made to look like CNN and newspaper websites, reporting on the incident.
The company that owns the plant where the explosion supposedly took place quickly stepped up to squelch the report, as did Duval Arthur, who is now the Berwick mayor but was then the parish’s homeland security director.
In 2015, writer Adrian Chen of the New York Times Magazine linked the St. Mary hoax to the Internet Research Agency, a government-linked hacker operation in Russia. Chen called it an organized disinformation campaign, complete with thousands of tweets from fake accounts and a YouTube video showing men in Middle Eastern clothing claiming credit for the terrorist attack that never happened.
Special counsel Robert Mueller obtained a 2018 indictment against the Internet Research Agency, accusing the group of trying to tamper with the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Even so, there was no obvious connection between a bogus St. Mary explosion and the presidential election. So the question remained: What were the Russians doing in this parish?
The answer may be that they were practicing.
Before the Russians began their invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration warned that Moscow would rely on misinformation. And Moscow did, with some of the same tools used in the 2014 hoax.
There was a fake YouTube video showing the allegedly decrepit condition of the Ukrainian military. Fake CNN social media posts “reported” that actor Steven Segal was on the ground in Ukraine, and that an American activist had been killed there.
We’ve grown used to the idea that we live in a world where nations trade with and depend on one another. Sudden shocks in the oil economy are nothing new.
But it is strange to think that our largely rural parish might have been the testing ground for a new weapon in a war thousands of miles away.
Bill Decker is managing editor of the Morgan City Review.

October 30, 1927 – March 7, 2022

A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated on March 10, 2022, at 11:00 am at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Patterson for Jackie Como, age 94, who died March 7, 2022.

Father Michael Russo will be the Celebrant, with Father Herb Bennerfield, Father Angelo Cremaldi, and Father Louis Richard concelebrating. Burial will follow the service in St. Joseph Parish Cemetery. The family requests that visiting hours be observed on March 10, 2022, from 8:30 am until dismissal time at 10:00 am at Ibert’s Mortuary, 1111 Lia St., Patterson, with a rosary recited at 10:30 am prior to the service at St. Joseph Catholic Church.

Jackie, a life-long resident of Patterson, was born in New Orleans on October 30, 1927. She was a devoted, life-long music lover, and she used her passion and talents to enrich the lives of those around her. She graduated from Patterson High School in 1944 and from SLI (ULL Lafayette) in 1948, where she was a member of the SLI band and chorus. She taught music in the public school system and as a private piano tutor for 20 years, and she was the director of the St. Joseph Church Choir for over 30 years. She was a long-term member of the Tune Weavers, and even late in her life, she directed numerous musical programs at Maison Jardin as a resident.

Jackie had a diverse array of interests outside of music, and she perpetually fostered strong roots in her community. After retiring from teaching in the public school system, she was an active Real Estate Agent and Broker in the Tri City area. She was a long-term member of Come, Lord Jesus! Bible Study group and was a parishioner at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church for nearly her entire life. Jackie was a talented gardener. She loved her plants and flower beds, and her yard was always garnished with seasonal colors. She also enjoyed tennis, and often found herself playing alongside her late husband of 67 years, B.L., in a mixed-doubles match.

Survivors include one daughter, Adrienne Como Smith and her husband Randy of Donaldsonville; three sons, Brady Lawrence Como and his wife Patricia of Broussard, Barry Joseph Como of Donaldsonville and Byron George Como of Baton Rouge; five grandchildren, Greta Schexnayder Mays and her husband Richie of Gonzales, G.J. Schexnayder and his wife Elaina of Covington, Lindsey Schexnayder Kelley of Gonzales, Benjamin Como of Broussard and Katie Como of Baton Rouge; four great-grandchildren, Ian LeBlanc, Jaxon Schexnayder, Briggs Schexnayder, and Gia Kelley; one sister-in-law, Merlyn Como Hering, of Lafayette; one brother-in-law, Bob Waguespack of Plaquemine; a very devoted and loving niece, Sara Manfre Kidd, of Morgan City; and numerous nieces and nephews.

Mrs. Como was preceded in death by her husband of 67 years, B.L. Como; her parents, Russell Joseph Breaux, Sr. and Ethel Chiasson Breaux; one sister, Jean Breaux Manfre Waguespack; one brother, Russell Breaux, Jr.; sisters-in-law, Wanda Como and Pat Williams Breaux; and brother-in-law, Paul Manfre.

Pallbearers will be G. J. Schexnayder, Benjamin Como, Ian LeBlanc, Jaxon Schexnayder, Luke Manfre, Jody Felterman, and Rodney Grogan.

The family wishes to thank her long-time caregivers: Tammy Williams and Charlotte Naverre for their excellent care and compassion.

Being a devoted Catholic, the family requests Masses to be said in her memory at your local Catholic church or to St. Joseph Catholic Church, 1011 First St., Patterson, LA 70392.

Arrangements have been entrusted to Ibert’s Mortuary, Inc., 1111 Lia St., Patterson, LA 70392, (985) 395-7873.

The garden can rouse each of the senses. We can enjoy the beautiful colors, the sounds of wildlife, the texture of the plants, the taste of fruits, herbs and vegetables, and of course, the delightful fragrance of many flowers and plants’ foliage. Retail garden centers are beginning to fill with beautiful, fragrant spring bedding plants.
Stock flowers (Matt-hiola incana) are some of the most fragrant spring-blooming flowers grown as a bedding plant. Stock has long been used in cottage gardens and by florists for both color and their clove-like fragrance. Recorded history shows these plants were referred to as gilly flowers in England and were popular during the Victorian era. Thomas Jefferson grew them at his gardens at Monticello in the 1700s.
Stock is grown as an annual in Louisiana and performs best in full to partial sun in a rich, well-drained soil. Plants grow 12 to 36 inches in height and have an upright growth habit. Flowers are tightly clustered on tall stems and come in colors of white, purple and pink. It pairs well with other flowers with similar needs such as alyssum, dianthus, nemesia, petunias, snapdragons and violas.
Because stock prefers cooler temperatures, flower production will last longer if planted in areas that receive morning sun to reduce exposure to the hot, bright sunlight of the afternoon. Remove faded flowers to promote new growth. Flowers are edible and have a delicate taste. They are a beautiful addition to salads and great as cake and dessert decorations.
Nemesia (Nemesia spp.) is another excellent spring bedding plant to bring fragrance to the garden, and it pairs well with stock. With more of a spreading, mounding habit, it grows well in both containers and in landscape beds with taller, upright plants, including snapdragons and dianthus. Nemesia offers almost every color imaginable and many bicolor blooms as well.
Nemesia prefers well-drained soil and can be susceptible to root rot. For the best flower production, grow nemesias in full sun. Plants will last longer into the summer in an area that gets morning sun and is shaded in the afternoon. Giving them a little afternoon shade can also help extend their blooms a little longer, as they do tend to go out of flower once night temperatures are consistently above 70 degrees, causing them to become leggy. You can trim and shape plants to encourage new growth and flowers and fertilize with a liquid feeding after trimming.
Another excellent, fragrant flower is alyssum, also known as sweet alyssum. This plant, like nemesia, has a trailing growth habit with a shorter height of 3 to 6 inches, making it a great selection to use as a border plant, in containers as a “spiller” and in hanging baskets. In addition to having a great fragrance and prolific blooms, alyssum is a drought-tolerant option for the landscape. Flowers are produced in tiny clusters in a mounding habit coming in colors of pink, purple and white. Plants bloom more in full sun but also perform well in partial shade.
All three selections are highly fragrant with delicate color and have few pests or disease problems. All three prefer well-drained, rich soils. Deadhead flowers to encourage new flower growth, and be sure to supplement rainwater with irrigation in extended periods of drought and as temperatures heat up.
I will end this column with a quote from film director Louis Schw-artzberg: “Always take time to smell the flowers, and let it fill you with beauty and rediscover that sense of wonder.”

PATTERSON — Many warm feelings were expressed at Tuesday’s City Council meeting: prayers for Councilman John Rentrop, who is hospitalized; a moment of silence to remember the late Jackie Como, a longtime Patterson music teacher; thanks for the ARC of St. Mary/Center of Hope for training disabled people for jobs; a welcome to new Councilman Ray Dewey Sr.; and gratitude to Tina Johnson, whom Dewey replaces.
When the topic turned to Shady Grove Drive, the temperature rose higher.
Dewey took office at Tuesday’s regular monthly meeting. He was the only candidate who qualified for the March 26 special election to pick a council member to complete the term of Sandra K. Turner, who resigned in July. John-son, Turner’s daughter, served on the council in her mother’s place until Dewey took office. Johnson received a plaque in recognition of her service.
“To be a voice for my city,” Johnson said in a letter to the council, “if even for a few months, was an absolute joy.”
Dewey took his council seat in time for Tuesday’s most contentious issue: street projects to be funded with proceeds from a recent $570,000 bond issue.
The city government has been working on a list of projects for that money, focusing on smaller, low-traffic streets, some of them surfaced with gravel, that hadn’t been ad-dressed in two earlier street improvement programs.
The most expensive item on the list is the reconstruction of Shady Grove Drive at more than $200,000.
Mayor Rodney Grogan and consulting engineer Melanie Caillouet said the wetland soil in that area requires a different approach. The plan is to use a 6-inch mixture of soil and cement as a base topped with asphalt.
Tall Timber and Fern would get a similar treatment. Another set of streets — Eighth, Ninth, 10th, 11th, Jake and Bridge — would be resurfaced. St. Mary and St. Lucy would get covered with gravel.
The Shadow Lane proposal drew the attention of audience member Lea Oubre, a Shady Grove resident. Oubre, along with neighbor Grant Dohmann, told the council that they’ve been waiting for Shady Grove’s broken surface and potholes to be re-paired. They’ve been put off with promises by the city, only to see little or nothing done, Oubre said.
After the meeting, Oubre showed cellphone pictures of portions of Shady Grove with large potholes and broken pavement.
In a sometimes heated exchange, Grogan objected to Facebook posts by Oubre about the condi-tion of the street and said her previous com-plaints had cost her support among council members.
“I am pushing Shady Grove,” Grogan said.
Then the talk turned to when the work might be done. Grogan said he hoped the work could be done in July, but Caillouet said the testing needed before the soil-concrete base can be constructed will require more time. But she said residents should see construction on the street this year.
The council voted 3-0 to move ahead with the street plan, including Shady Grove. The $92,000 that had been set aside for Bridge may have to come from a different source in order to make up for the higher than anticipated cost of the Shady Grove work.
Councilmen Dewey, Lee Condolle and Travis Darnell voted for the plan. Absent were Ren-trop and Joe Russo, who missed the meeting due to illness.
Also Tuesday:
—The council set property tax rates for the year. The tax for general government purposes will remain at 8.3 mills. The tax for the waterworks bond issue will be 12.3 mills, down from the original 16 mills when the bond issue was passed to build the city’s new water plant.
—The council heard a presentation by Kristal Hebert, director of the ARC of St. Mary/Center of Hope. The Medicaid-funded center provides training and paid work for people with physical and developmental disabilities.
Accompanied by cli-ents and Patterson residents Sarah Charlot and Heather Guillot, Hebert said the center shut down for 16 months because of COVID-19. But she received a grant that provided iPads to clients so they could remain in contact and keep them from feeling isolated.
Now the center is open again and provid-ing transportation to and from the center and to janitorial jobs that pay at least minimum wage.
“We know gas prices are going up, so things are going to be tough,” Hebert said.
—The council ap-proved a can shake for the Patterson Volunteer Fire Department. The fundraiser will be 9 a.m.-1 p.m. March 19 on Catherine Street.