Rapides felony arrests, which are accusations not convictions. 

September 26
Ricky Brence, 42, Lecompte — criminal conspiracy 2 counts, monetary instrument abuse, use/possession of counterfeit or forged monetary instrument, burglary, contempt of court 5 counts, $32,000 bond;

Keyon Williams, 28, Alexandria — illegal use of weapon/dangerous instrumentality, possession marijuana, contempt of court 2 counts, $28,000 bond. 

Rapides felony drug arrests, which are accusations not convictions. 

September 26
Audrey Freitas, 37, Leesville — possession fentanyl, carfentanyl < 2 grams, possession paraphernalia, $500 bond;

William Jones, 32, no address listed — possession, manufacture, distribution, dispense possession with intent CDS II 28 grams or more or analogues, possession drugs in presence of person under 17, obstruction of justice evidence tampering, speeding, $100 bond;

Demichael Liggins, 30, Alexandria — parole violation, violation protective order non-violent, possession/possession with intent CDS 3 and 4, possession fentanyl, carfentanyl < 2 grams, possession paraphernalia, contempt of court, $10,500 bond;

James Mims, 33, Alexandria — possession/possession with intent CDS II 28 grams or more, drugs in presence of person under 17, obstruction of justice evidence tampering, contempt 2 counts, $120,000 bond;

Heather Mirza, 40, Alexandria — possession CDS III, $2.500 bond;

Charles Smith Jr., 41, Alexandria — possession CDS II < 2 grams 3 counts, contempt of court, $6,000.

The easiest to throw together and even served on hot dog buns. These are GOOD and even heat up well in the air fryer for leftovers. Mozzarella pearls and sliced pepperoncini peppers set the bar high with this yummy sandwich!

Ingredients:
– 1 package Italian sausage
– 1 1/2 cups marinara sauce
– 1 tablespoon pesto
– 2 garlic cloves, minced
– S&P to taste
– 1 teaspoon sugar
– 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
– 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
– 2 tablespoons melted butter
– 1 1/2 cup shredded Italian cheese
– Mozzarella pearls
– Sliced pepperoncini peppers
– Hot dog buns

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook sausage in a large skillet, crumbling as you cook. Drain. Add back to skillet and add marinara, pesto, garlic, S&P, sugar, onion powder, and red pepper flakes. Let simmer while you prepare the buns. Brush melted butter on inside of buns. Toast in oven for a few minutes. Remove from oven and add shredded cheese to buns. Fill with sausage mixture. Add mozzarella pearls and peppers on top. Sprinkle with more shredded cheese. Bake 10-15 minutes.

Ashley Madden is a wife, mother and published cookbook author from Minden, La.

By JIM BUTLER

Early voting for the Oct. 14 primary opens Saturday and runs through Oct. 7.

According to Registrar Sandra Bonnette’s office, voters can cast ballots at the courthouse office on Murray Street or at Kees Park Community Center, Hey 28, Pineville.

Voting hours will be 8:30 a.m. until 6 p.m except Sunday, Oct. 1, when both balloting sites will be closed.

The days of finding any acceptable excuse to cite for early voting are long over. One doesn’t have to have any reason other than he/she wants to.

But you do need to go prepared. You’ll need a photo ID or signature on a voter affidavit.

Acceptable identification generally includes a valid Louisiana driver’s license, La. special ID card, military ID with name and photo, or other recognized picture ID with signature.

The ballot is long for this statewide election – from governor down – and early voters are encouraged to allow time for the pace and the anticipated volume.

Weekday parking, particularly at the courthouse, can be problematic. Allow for it.

By JIM BUTLER

If any bids are received Thursday for purchase of closed North Bayou Rapides Elementary the School Board can only hope they are at or above appraised value.

That has been a prerequisite for sale of public property since the days of some dirty deeds done dirt cheap came to an end with state law.

Chief Finance Officer Elizabeth Dolemite held out hope at the recent Finance Committee meeting that one or more bids would be offered.

That optimism was in the wake of no expressions of interest at a facility view and walkthrough. No potential bidders surfaced.

The facility has been closed two years, taken offline with a change in the District 62 feeder schools system.

One drawback for bidders could be the plant’s age as it dates to the period of asbestos-containing building materials, a high-cost remediation project.

Regardless the bid outcome, Dolemite told the committee the next steps are to remove and take care of reusable equipment and materials stored there. Where to move them is the question.

The building and contents, like any structure idle for some time, can become tempting targets of would-be thieves or vandals just on a destroying mission.

One such vandalism incident occurred in June of this year. If the miscreants were tracked down their arrests went unnoticed.

As recently as 2019 the school received a gift of 1,000 new Disney books from ABC 31.

(Please not a bonfire, Messers Landry and Desantis). Ok, bad line.

The building is just down the road toward town from Melady House, one of the parish’s most stately manses, scene of any number of special functions each year.

While it didn’t close until 2021, the school’s fate was likely sealed decades earlier.

In 1980 North Bayou, then a semi-rural school with about 800 students, was paired with six schools in Alexandria proper to create a more racially-mixed system, including creation of 6th Grade centers in the inner city. Flight began.

Flight of a different kind ended in the early 1990s when England AFB closed, taking with it those kids whose parents lived near and worked on the base, as well as some military dependents whose children attended.

Contact Jim at jimbutler76@gmail.com

By RON HIGGINS, Journal Sports

BATON ROUGE – – Prior to taking over as LSU’s women’s head basketball coach two seasons ago, Kim Mulkey already had six national championships on her Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame resume.

There were back-to-back titles in 1981 and 1982 as a spunky ponytailed Louisiana Tech point guard, one in 1988 as a Tech assistant coach under Leon Barmore and three as Baylor’s head coach in 2005, 2012 and 2019.

As a player, Mulkey nearly won a third straight title in 1983 but lost to USC 69-67 when she missed a game-tying shot at the buzzer that would have forced overtime. As an assistant coach, Tech returned to the Final Four in 1989 and lost 76-71 in the semifinals.

As Baylor’s head coach, two of her defending national championship teams were eliminated in the Sweet 16 and the third never got a chance to play in the postseason when the COVID outbreak canceled the 2020 NCAA tournament.

The common thread of all those experiences is something her 2023-24 Lady Tigers squad is about to discover after winning the school’s first NCAA basketball title (men’s or women’s) last April.

“If you’re the underdog (as LSU was last season) and you win a national championship, you didn’t probably get everybody’s best shot,” Mulkey said Monday afternoon before her uber-talented team opened practice before an estimated Pete Maravich Assembly crowd of 2,500. “If you’re the favorite, you’re going to get everybody’s best shot.”

It’s what Mulkey expects with a team returning first-team All-America junior forward Angel Reese and sophomore guard Flau’jae Johnson, who was last year’s SEC Freshman of the Year.

There’s also the infusion of Louisville graduate student guard Hailey Van Lith and DePaul junior forward Aneesah Morrow, college basketball two highest-rated transfers. The icing on the recruiting cake is having the nation’s No. 1 ranked signing class led by Bossier City’s Parkway High School guard Mikaylah Williams (the No. 2 nationally ranked recruit) and Nashville (Tn.) Webb School center Aalyah Del Rosario (the No. 7 nationally ranked recruit).

Mulkey often said last season she didn’t mind coaching big personalities such as Reese and Johnson. But in the almost seven months since LSU scored the most points ever in a national title game when the Lady Tigers destroyed Iowa 102-85, Reese has become one of the most recognizable women’s athletes in the world.

Besides winning a silver medal playing for Team USA in the FIBA Women’s AmeriCup, she was photographed for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue as well for a cover story of the magazine’s issue about college athletics legally earning income through name, image and likeness.

Reese also appeared in a Cardi B music video. She made an Amazon commercial with teammate Johnson and also appeared with several NBA stars in a commercial for Starry Soda. She was featured in Time Magazine’s Time100 Next issue.

In the On3 website listing the current top 100 men’s and women’s athletes NIL evaluations, Reese is No. 8 at $1.7 million, Johnson No. 19 at $1.1 million and Van Lith No. 79 at $550,000.

At this time last season, Reese was just a non-descript transfer from Maryland hoping a change of scenery and a new head coach could make her a pro prospect. But her expansive fame seemingly overnight has given Mulkey something to ponder that she never faced before as she starts her 24th season as a college head coach.

How do you motivate a star player who is a millionaire according to her NIL evaluation?

“Is Angel Reese hungry?” Mulkey wondered out loud. “She’s making money like crazy. Is she going to be hungry for another ring?

“You get a feel for that in your first individual meeting (before the start of the fall semester). I sat down with Angel, talked about her summer, and then we talked about her being here.

“She said something I won’t ever forget,” Mulkey said. She said `Coach, I’m tired. I’m so glad to be back. I’m ready to play basketball.’ I was looking to hear that and not have to pull it out of her.

“She understands she doesn’t have all of the things she has if she doesn’t have success on the court. She understands that she just had the most unbelievable year of her college career and it was fun. And you’re not entitled to that again unless you work.

“She gets motivated by things that most athletes do. Last week, they put a projection out that she’d be the eighth pick in the (2024 WNBA) draft. Well, that was an insult to her. She wanted to know what she had to work on. We told her and it motivates her to get in the gym. She gets motivated by somebody in practice going head-to-head with her and blocking her shot or talking trash back at her. She’s a competitor.”

So are transfers Van Lith and Morrow. After averaging 19.7 points and 25.7 points respectively last season, that duo provides the Lady Tigers with proven, experienced scorers.

“Morrow and Van Lith bring experience and it matters,” said Mulkey, who’s 60-8 overall and 28-4 in the SEC after her two LSU seasons. “When you take a freshman and then you take a transfer that’s got three years of college experience and you just put them out there, you just obviously can see the difference. And it has nothing to do with talent.”

Yet the freshman that could crash the playing rotation is Williams, the 2023 Morgan Wooten National Player of the Year and two-time reigning Louisiana Gatorade Player of the Year who led Parkway to a 2023 state title.

“Mikaylah brings a physical body that’s ready for college,” Mulkey said. “The first thing you’ll notice is she’s pretty physical and can play any position on the perimeter. That may not be fair to her. Because one day I may have her playing point guard and the next day off-guard. That’s tough, particularly if you’re having to learn the point guard position.”

LSU plays home exhibition games vs. East Texas Baptist on Oct. 26 and Loyola of New Orleans on Nov. 1. The Lady Tigers face Colorado on Nov. 6 in Las Vegas to open the regular season.

The NCAA national championship banner will be raised to the PMAC rafters in pregame of the Nov. 9 home opener vs. Queens.

“This season is going to be different in a lot of ways,” said the 61-year-old Mulkey, who had two stents surgically inserted into a blocked heart artery in June. “We’re just about to sell out the P-Mac (in home season tickets). The (LSU) brand is bigger, the NIL stuff is bigger, our schedule is a little harder, and our depth and our talent are much more.

“All of that is a good thing. And we’ll just have to stay away from injuries and see what happens.”              

Contact Ron at ronhigginsmedia@gmail.com

Thursday’s game
Bolton at Block 

Friday’s games
Green Oaks at ASH
Jonesboro-Hodge at Pineville
Peabody at Washington-Marion
Jena at Tioga
Buckeye at Grant
Northwood-Lena at North Central
Opelousas Catholic at Menard 

Photo by BRET H. MCCORMICK, Journal Sports

Rapides felony arrests are accusations not convictions.

September 25
Joshua Allen, 34, Boyce — domestic abuse battery intention serious injury;

Christopher Carpenter, 33, Alexandria — felony flight, improper left turn, no signals, speeding, running stop sign;

D’Adreian Cleveland, 45, Boyce — aggravated resisting officer with force or violence;

D’Adrien Cleveland, 40, Alexandria — aggravated resisting officer with force or violence. 

Felony drug arrests are accusations not convictions.

September 25
Natalie Stovall, 38, Alexandria — possession CDS II < 2 grams, driving under suspension/revocation, expired plate/registration, contempt of court;

Arielle Washington, 24, Pineville — possession CDS II < 2 grams, unauthorized use of moveable, contempt 9 counts.

By JIM BUTLER

 Blaze Clark, accused of sexual crimes while a substitute teacher, remained in jail Monday. His bail is set at $46,000.

Clark, 24, of Pineville was arrested by the Louisiana State Police Special Victims Unit on Sept. 21.

Prepared news releases did not indicate at which school Clark was employed. School system officials would only say Clark was no longer employed, citing the cloak known as “personnel matter.”

He is accused of three counts of molestation of a victim older than 13 but younger than 17, two counts of 3rd-degree rape, contributing to delinquency two counts, and felony carnal knowledge.

Warrants for the arrest specify that the alleged offenses occurred off campus.

Sexual conduct between teacher and student at the elementary or secondary level is strictly prohibited by Louisiana law.

Consent of the victim is not considered a defense.

Third-degree rape conviction, regardless of victim’s age, is punishable by up to 25 years in prison without parole, probation or suspension of sentence

Louisiana State Police Troop E responded to a one-vehicle crash on Sept. 21 around 12:15 a.m. on Louisiana Highway 1207 near Louisiana Highway 115.  The crash claimed the life of 32-year-old Tyler Thiels (T&T).

The initial investigation revealed that a 1997 Nissan Pickup, driven by Thiels, was traveling south of Louisiana Highway 1207. For reasons still under investigation, the Nissan traveled off the roadway, impacted a culvert and several small trees before overturning. This action ejected Thiels from the vehicle. 

Thiels, who was not restrained, sustained fatal injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene. Routine toxicology samples were obtained and submitted for analysis. This crash remains under investigation.

While not all crashes are survivable, proper use of seat belts can greatly decrease an occupant’s chance of death and may greatly reduce the extent of injury. Always ensuring every occupant is properly restrained can often mean the difference between life and death.

In 2023, Troop E has investigated 42 fatal crashes, resulting in 46 deaths.

By JIM BUTLER

The obligatory public hearing will be Wednesday in Baton Rouge for the proposed issuing of non-public bonds for developing specific health facilities in Pineville.

Bonds capped at $15 million would finance CDF Health Care – Cenla’s acquiring ownership and development of facilities and equipment.

Property involved is on the Shreveport highway on the access road and adjacent to the Gateway facility and on Laurel Street.

CDF intends to provide residential and outpatient programs for low-income persons suffering from mental health and substance abuse/addictive disorders.

The bonds involve no local or state obligations. They are secured and payable solely out of income, revenue and accounts held under trust indenture.

LLEGF was created in the early 1990s to provide a financing vehicle for what has been a large number of projects over the decades.

It has a seven-member executive committee elected from among its membership board. Woodworth Mayor David C. Butler II is among those seven.

Pineville officials recently voted to participate in the organization and Mayor Rich Dupree became a member of the membership board.

The organization’s offices are at 5641 Bankers Ave, Building B. Tye Carlos is executive director. Primary phone number is 225-924-6150.

Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry’s (LDAF) Enforcement Division investigators arrested Laura Mclaughlin of Pitkin on Sept. 22 for setting wildfires in Rapides Parish.

In the early morning hours of August 24, LDAF fire crews and the Plainview Fire Department responded to multiple wildfires set in the Union Hill area in Rapides Parish. LDAF enforcement investigators, Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office detectives, and Office of State Fire Marshal deputies immediately began investigating the wildfires as arson was suspected to be the cause.

Originating in Rapides Parish and burning into Vernon Parish, the fires consumed over 7,000 acres of timber and one residence. These fires raged for several days and continue to be monitored. The total value of the timber burned is estimated to be over 2 million dollars. The suppression cost associated with these fires is estimated at 2.7 million dollars.

Mclaughlin was booked in the Rapides Parish Jail on four counts of simple arson and one count of obstruction of justice. The bond was set at $25,000.

The crime of simple arson, where the damage amounts to five hundred dollars or more, carries a fine of not more than $15,000 and imprisonment at hard labor for not more than 15 years. Where the damage is less than $500, the offender shall be fined no more than $2,500 or imprisoned with or without hard labor for no more than five years or both.

All persons accused of crimes are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

The public is urged to report any and all forestry-related crimes to the LDAF 24-hour hotline at 1-855-452-5323.

Hearing shots by teal hunters on the back pond Friday, I recalled the duck season I grew a beard to cut down glare on my face in the blind.

It really did no good. The ducks seemed to flare as much as always when I looked up.

Looking back, I guess the beard did nothing to cut light reflection off my glasses. Duh!

Duck hunting indeed is a widespread disease in our part of the world.

Though it’s been years since I did it, I still have the symptoms every time a fresh flight wings into the area in fall and winter.

When those symptoms get almost insufferable, I set the alarm for 3 a.m., get up, put on socks and stuff ice cubes into them.

That antidote works every time.

Jim Butler, a Bolton High School alumnus, was an acclaimed writer and editor at the Alexandria Town Talk for 36 years, the last 23 (1977-2003) as editor-in-chief. He led Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of Hurricane Katrina for the Gulfport (Miss.) Sun-Herald in 2005. Butler returned home to Cenla a few years ago, and shares his talents and insight with Rapides Parish Journal readers.