Plus ça change More than a third of the nation's oysters come from Louisiana waters and I think the oyster promotion people are dead right when they proclaim, "The Louisiana oyster. There's nothing quite like it....
V12 program kept school open During World War II, Joel Fletcher, president of Southwestern Louisiana Institute (UL today), was forced to consider closing the school as more and more young men left the campus to go off to war. ...
Fabacher influential rice farmer Roberts Cove is known as the home of a substantial settlement of German emigres who helped to create the commercial rice industry in southwest Louisiana. But they were not the only Germans to settl...
Duson brothers were pioneer builders C. C. (Curley) Duson and his brother, William W. Duson, would likely be remembered in Acadiana even if they hadn't been colorful characters. They founded four towns--Crowley, Iota, Eunice, and Mamo...
Perry provided river crossing The act that created Vermilion Parish in 1844 said the parish seat should be located on the west side of the Vermilion River, no more than one-half mile from a place called Perry's Bridge, today th...
Louisiana Story a movie classic "Louisiana Story," filmed in south Louisiana in 1946 and 1947 may be the most poetic industrial film ever made. Helen van Dongen, who was film editor for the movie, called it a "ballet of the roug...
Handicapping Field Day
The first athletic contests at Southwest Louisiana Industrial Institute (UL Lafayette today) were annual Field Days begun in 1904, in which SLII and area high schools competed in track and field ...
A birthday in St. Landry
The St. Landry Parish town of Washington was settled in 1720 and claims to be the second oldest settled place in Louisiana, behind Natchitoches, which was established in 1714 and is said to be the ...
Who's offended by 'c' word?
There's a minor flap going on because a local singer uses the "c" word to describe himself and his friends in the lyrics to one of his songs and the former head of CODOFIL doesn't like it.
I'm n...
Charles Martel: a man seldom mentioned but historically important History is a teacher. The distant past can shed light on matters in today’s world. History does repeat itself. Today the air around us is charged with the energy of great forces in motion, decision...
Quixotic is idealistic, impractical and young at heart Just how far a man can go in search of a dream is the theme of a book written in the 1600s. The author, Miguel de Cervantes, wrote about Alonso Quijano, an aging Spaniard from a desolate part of th...
Happy Fats heard nationwide
Louisiana French music began to get a wide national audience in the 1970s after masters of the craft like Bois Sec Ardoin and Canray Fontenot, the Balfa Brothers, Nathan Abshire, and others were in...
