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Warm weather brought out a crowd Saturday to the Spirit of Morgan City Christmas Festival under the bridge, near City Hall and at Lawrence Park. Youngsters, even the gray-haired ones, had the chance to play games, ride a merry-go-round, toast marshmallows and try out some inline skating.

The event was set to continued until 7 p.m. Saturday.

The Review/Bill Decker

Louisiana Gov. Jimmie Davis died 25 years ago this month. He was my friend and a great supporter for many years.
Besides serving two terms as Louisiana governor, he wrote the song that could be the most recognized American song worldwide.
Go to a small Asian community where little or no English is spoken. Start humming “You Are My Sunshine.” More likely than not, the locals will join in singing the song in English.
Everybody knows the words to a down-home tune written by a Louisiana country singer and movie star. And he was sworn in as Louisiana governor 75 years ago
Davis was a popular country singer in the 1930s and made a number of western movies including the likes of “Cyclone Prairie Rangers,” “Mississippi Rhythm” and “Square Dance Katy.” But throughout the world, he made his mark with “Sunshine.”
A few years back, I was in Cambodia at the Golden Triangle, where Burma and Thailand converge. I was having breakfast in a rural village at an outdoor cafe, and the young waitress who knew a few words in English said, “You American. I love America. I sing about America.”
Then, with a big grin on her face, she broke out in song and danced around the dirt floor singing “You Are My Sunshine.”
After serving two terms as Louisiana governor, Davis spent a lot of time at his farm in northeast Louisiana, traveling back and forth from the state capitol in Baton Rouge.
The governor was friends with my senior law partner in Ferriday and made it a habit to stop at our office for a coffee break.
I was a wet-behind-the-ears 26-year-old attorney and often the only one in the office. So Jimmie Davis would talk at length about his life and gave me my first political education.
He would often ask me to notarize some document, which I was glad to do. “So what do I owe you, Brother Brown?” he would say.
I always settled for a few verses of “Sunshine.”
He regularly inquired if I could find him a raccoon. Up in redneck country, we just call it a coon. His favorite meal was coon stew. Knowing the coon request would always come with his visit, I asked some local hunters I represented to drop off a raccoon. So I would keep one of those critters in the office freezer ready for the governor’s visit.
Now I know I have whetted your appetite for a delicious plate of raccoon.
When I was elected secretary of state some years later, I wrote a cookbook, and the governor graciously gave me one of his favorite coon recipes to include in my gourmet collection of sumptuous dishes.
Davis made one last futile effort to be elected for a third term in 1971, while I made my foray in politics running for state senator. He often campaigned with his band in the district where I was running, and I would put up signs that read: “Come to the Jim Brown for Senator campaign rally. Special guest: Governor Jimmie Davis.”
Davis laughed when he caught on to what I was doing and always called me up on the platform to introduce me as the district’s next state senator. He supported me every time I ran for public office after that.
Throughout my 28-year political career, Jimmie Davis would often come by my Baton Rouge office or call me to come visit him at his home, which was right by the state capitol.
I always knew he needed a notary.
My last call was a few weeks before he died in 2000. He was donating a piece of property, but he insisted he pay me something.
“OK, Governor,” I told him. “When you pass on, I want you to give me your driver’s license number.” You see, Davis instituted the license requirement during his first term as governor in 1944. And the number on his license? No. 1.
“A done deal,” he told me.
Of course, I never actually got it. But it was a good way to end our 35-year relationship with a smile. And “Sunshine”? Who was she? A past lover? A devoted family member?
No. Sunshine was Jimmie Davis’s horse.
The palomino mare is buried up on the northeast Louisiana farm.
I pass that way occasionally and remember back on my conversations with the Governor. And yes, I do hum a few bars of “You Are My Sunshine.”
Peace and Justice
Jim Brown
Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownla.com.

A new statewide survey led by Tulane University’s Newcomb Institute shows that while rates of sexual and physical violence in Louisiana have declined since 2023, violence remains widespread, affecting more than half of adults at some point in their lives and nearly one in 10 within the past year.
The Louisiana Study on Violence Experiences Across the Lifespan (LaVEX 2025) was conducted by researchers at Tulane in collaboration with the University of California San Diego and administered by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. The survey captures how residents experience and are affected by different forms of violence, from harassment to weapon-related assault.
LaVEX is the only comprehensive, population-level survey on violence in Louisiana and one of the few such studies in the United States. The full 2025 report is available at https://www.vexdata.org/lavex-report-2025/.
The findings show that an estimated 1.9 million adults in Louisiana have experienced physical violence, 1.5 million have experienced sexual violence, including harassment, coercion and assault, and 1.8 million have experienced intimate partner violence in their lifetime.
In the past year alone, roughly 250,000 Louisianans experienced physical assault, and about 250,000 experienced sexual harassment or assault.
The 2025 results indicate modest declines in overall violence since the first LaVEX report in 2023. Physical violence has decreased slightly among men, and sexual violence has declined for both men and women, including reductions in sexual harassment, coercion and forced sex among women. However, rates of intimate partner violence are unchanged.
“Violence is both a health and an economic crisis for Louisiana,” said Anita Raj, executive director of the Newcomb Institute and lead researcher on the study. “These data show that progress is possible. We are seeing reductions in sexual and physical violence since 2023, but the scale of harm remains staggering. Violence is not only a personal tragedy; it’s a public problem that affects our families, workforce and communities. We cannot improve health and safety in our state without addressing the ubiquity of violence.”
Women continue to face higher risks of sexual and intimate partner violence, with nearly one in four women reporting forced sex in their lifetime and more than one in four saying a partner had burned, choked, or used a weapon against them. Men are more likely to experience physical violence and gun violence, with one in four men in Louisiana having experienced threats or gun violence.
Economic hardship sharply increases vulnerability. Adults who lacked money for food or basic needs in the past year were two to six times more likely to experience violence. Those who were evicted or had a history of homelessness faced similar or greater risks. Survivors also showed two to eight times higher likelihood of depression, anxiety or suicidal thoughts, underscoring the connection between violence and mental health.
“This data gives us what we’ve been missing in Louisiana: a real picture of how sexual violence shows up in people’s lives,” said Morgan Lamandre, president and CEO of Sexual Trauma Awareness and Response (STAR), a Louisiana nonprofit that supports survivors of sexual trauma and works to improve community response and prevention of sexual violence.
“It confirms what survivors and advocates have been saying for years: The problem is everywhere, but it’s not the same everywhere. The risks and realities look different depending on who you are and where you live. Now we have data that proves what experience has already taught us – that prevention, policy and services must be tailored to the realities of each community.”
The LaVEX 2025 survey was conducted in May and June among more than 1,000 Louisiana residents aged 18 and older. It was administered online in English and Spanish and reviewed by the Institutional Review Boards at the University of Chicago and UC San Diego.
The 2025 survey added new questions about gun and domestic violence restraining orders, juvenile incarceration and civic engagement, while continuing to assess physical, sexual and intimate partner violence.
Raj will share the results of the survey at the meeting of the state Domestic Violence Prevention Commission at the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge on Nov. 20.

When the 2025 U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Waterfowl Population Status Report came out in early September, things weren’t looking good for duck hunters.
The 33.98 million breeding ducks estimated during the survey was unchanged from 2024’s report and remained a minus 4% below the long-term average. Essentially, the last two years of surveys have been some of the lowest estimates on record.
However, there’s one thing for certain: The estimated breeding population doesn’t necessarily reflect what the actual fall flight of ducks will be.
Moreover, waterfowl hunters are a dedicated lot. Come opening day, they usually show up to the party despite what the weather conditions are and the duck numbers are predicted to be.
For whatever reason in the days leading up to the youth hunting weekend on Nov. 8, Mother Nature took a shine to these young waterfowl hunters.
A frigid cold front blew in that set a few record lows for this time of year across the state. What’s more, with the cold temperatures and windy days, the ducks came too.
On the eve of the West Zone Waterfowl Season opener the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries released the Waterfowl Population Estimates from aerial survey. The 2025 November survey estimated 1.238 million ducks in Louisiana’s coastal region and Little River basin. The estimate was 143% higher than last November’s record low estimate of 510,000. It was also 40% higher than the most recent 5-year average of 885,000 and 2% higher than the most recent 10-year average of 1.2 million.
Yet, Mother Nature can be finicky. The cold weather didn’t last long and the week leading up to last weekend’s opener was warm, foggy, and without wind, conditions duck hunters pretty much loathe.
So how did West Zone waterfowl hunters do opening weekend? Thomas Landers, from Lake Charles, and his 10-year-old son Rayburn hunted with an old friend of Landers in the Sweet Lake/Holmwood area in Southwest Louisiana.
With the forecasted ground fog and no wind, Landers says they had lower than normal expectations for opening day. By the time they got into the blind and set up they had about 10-minutes of waiting to do before legal shooting light. In the quiet they could hear different species of ducks working and making the familiar sounds only waterfowl hunters know.
Once legal shooting light came around, they had a group of white-fronted (speckle bellies) geese work their spread. The three hunters were able to scratch one of them to which Landers says was a good way to start off a hunt.
Landers said, “Shortly after we began to have several bunches of ducks working during periods of time when the fog would clear for a few minutes. We were able to shoot our three-person limit of 18 ducks and a speckle belly.”
Landers’ group shot wood ducks, green-winged teal, pintails, a northern shoveler, gadwall, and one mallard, but the highlight of his hunt, he says, was his son Rayburn shooting his first duck on the fly.
Landers said, “We had three gray ducks work in perfectly and he made a great shot with his 20-gauge folding it in the decoys. We celebrated that like most dads do in that moment. It was a special way to begin the year and hopefully it’s a sign of great things to come.”
Steve Stroderd hunted with his family and friends opening weekend in the Johnson Bayou area of Southwest Louisiana. Like Landers, they were met with similar weather.
Stroderd said, “You couldn’t have ordered any worse conditions than we had, but that’s mother nature. Flat calm, very warm, and ground fog are not very conducive for high success.”
Stroderd said his party of hunters managed half their limits both Saturday and Sunday. What’s more, reports he heard from around Johnson Bayou ran the full spectrum from hunters who had ducks prior to the opener only to lose them before, to few limits.
One of the things the Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fishers November aerial survey showed was 301,000 ring-necked ducks in the southeastern part of the state.
Chauvin resident Britt Cavalier hunts the Bayou Black region just south of Gibson in the southeast. Cavalier mentioned that the youth only weekend and the regular West Zone opening weekend were different from one another.
Cavalier said, “It was definitely a different opening weekend hunt than in the past. Last weekend for the youth weekend, we had a ton of teal and gray ducks behind my house in Chauvin. My son Rowan and his buddy did well both days, while on our lease in Bayou Black was empty. After the front came through, literally overnight, we didn’t have a bird behind my house, and Bayou Black had tons of ringnecks and teal.”
Cavalier attributed the high numbers of ringed-necked ducks and teal to the feed. The region he hunts is known for subaquatic vegetation that these particular species prefer.
Cavalier said, “We did well on Saturday, while some of our neighbors didn’t fire a shot. We have decent grass, and our neighbors don’t have very much. That’s the only difference I’ve noticed for who was successful this past opening weekend and who didn’t fare as well.”
Mike Arcement, is someone who also hunts the Bayou Black area. Arcement says that he and his partner limited out on opening day shooting 10 ring-necked ducks, 1 teal, and 1 canvasback. When reporting on the opener Arcement said, “It certainly was much better than anticipated. We saw thousands of ringneck ducks even though the conditions weren’t favorable. Submerged aquatics are the variable. We lost 50% in the last two months. I assume saltwater played a factor.”
The duck season runs for 60 days in both the West and East zones. The East Zone duck season began Nov. 22, leaving plenty of time in both zones to bag a few birds.
John Flores is the Morgan City Review’s outdoor writer. He can be contacted at gowiththeflo@cox.net.