Laton Hebert has gone to his great reward, and the world made little of his passing. But that matters not.

What matters is the celebration that is happening beyond the Pearly Gates. Laton Hebert was the maintenance man at The Town Talk for 43 years, and I’ve got to believe that Saint Peter has documentation to show that not a day passed when he went to work that he didn’t bring a smile to at least one face. Countless times to a whole lot of faces.

In my 39 years at the local newspaper, I don’t think anyone was able to lift people’s spirits daily as much as Laton. Some people take a vitamin each day; I settled for a daily dose of Laton Hebert. He was the picture of joy – friendly, engaging, smiling, singing. Never complaining. Seriously. He never complained.

I never heard him complain about anyone and anything. Well, maybe he complained about the heat once or twice. When it was 100-plus degrees.

He made anyone he met feel special – not with superficial compliments but simply by taking an interest in you. A warm hello. A smile. Maybe a little rhyming ditty he’d ad-lib about you that was spot on and disarming.

“And, oh, he could sing!” said his Town Talk boss Joe Blackwell as we traded stories about him during the visitation at Annadale Baptist Church.

That’s where Laton and I really connected. He liked the old ballads from the Fifties and Sixties and sometimes, late at night when not many employees were around to be disturbed, we’d croon together a verse or two from, say, “Moon River” or “Only You” or “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”

I know it doesn’t fit the stereotypes. A white guy and a black man singing together. At work. In a newspaper office. The hot breath of a deadline inhaled while he exhaled.

Laton treated his job, regardless how menial others might regard it, as a gift. He didn’t preach, but he evangelized, mostly by his actions and reactions. The biblical admonition “Do unto others …” evidently was written on his heart and he took it seriously.

As a result, you’d get the feeling he cared about you and so you naturally cared about him. You’d appreciate his joy and find that, regardless of how down in the dumps you might’ve been five minutes ago, you felt better after a visit with him.

And it had a ripple effect. He’d throw a pebble in the pond with a smile or a song, and instead of whining about an assignment with a co-worker, you were sharing a joke or a story about your son’s rare base hit on his birthday.

And so, for a while, the world became a better place because of the maintenance man.

When I viewed him in his open casket, I hardly recognized him. The affable bear I’d known looked old and thin and the curves had become angles. He was 88, after all. I turned away and took a seat in a pew in the back and tried to forget the image I’d just seen.

I brought back to mind the man I’d known and, yes, loved.

And I thanked God for Laton Hebert and his legacy of living the Golden Rule. Not just now and then. But day by day. Year by year.

I feel certain the welcome he heard on the other side was “Well done, good and faithful servant.”                    

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By LENNY VANGILDER, Written for the LSWA

Joe Scheuermann was a 27-year-old assistant baseball coach at Tulane when he came to Natchitoches in June 1990 to present his father, “Rags,” for induction in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.

Curveballs are a part of baseball, and “Rags” delivered a dandy one that night. During his acceptance speech, he announced his retirement as Delgado Community College’s baseball coach.

Thirty-five years after following in his dad’s footsteps on City Park Avenue and with 1,207 victories on his record, Joe Scheuermann will join his dad to become the fourth father-son combination to be inducted into the LSHOF.

That culminates the Class of 2025 Induction Celebration in Natchitoches beginning Thursday and wrapping up with Saturday night’s induction ceremony televised live on Louisiana Public Broadcasting. Information about the Hall’s seven events over three days is available at LaSportsHall.com.

While most assume it was a done deal that Joe would replace “Rags” at Delgado, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

The younger Scheuermann came back to New Orleans and soon met with then-Delgado president Dr. James Caillier. “I don’t want to have this job because I’m Rags Scheuermann’s son,” Joe Scheuermann told his future boss.

Later that summer, he became the second head coach of what is now the oldest junior college program in any sport in Louisiana.

Though the reins had been handed down, it was still hard for the new head coach not to look over his shoulder and in the grandstand. “The first 4-5 years I was more worried about making my dad happy than I was about being a coach,” he said. “I coached too much with exterior emotion. The last two years of his life I started to relax a little bit.”

“Rags” passed away in April 1997, a week shy of his 74th birthday.

Joe Scheuermann was preparing for his 16th season at Delgado when his program – and the entire city of New Orleans – was dealt a body blow named Hurricane Katrina.

The Scheuermanns, with their house and campus under water, evacuated to New Roads. A few days later, in Baton Rouge, he met with Delgado’s chancellor, Alex Johnson.

With the college in financial straits after a lost semester and significant rebuilding costs, the message about the spring 2006 season was simple – “We can’t fund it.” The only way to have a season, and save the program started three decades earlier by his father, was to raise the money himself.

Scheuermann got that program-saving donation from a longtime supporter and friend, and the task of resuscitating a season – and a ballpark, since Kirsch-Rooney Stadium had also been inundated with several feet of flood waters – began.

Said Scheuermann: “The fact we played the year after Katrina is probably my proudest moment. It would have been easy for Delgado not to have athletics, but it made them realize how important athletics is for the college.”

One year later, the Katrina freshman class would lead Scheuermann to his first-ever Junior College World Series, 22 years after “Rags” made his only trip.

Omaha, Nebraska, is the goal each year for LSU and other NCAA Division I programs. On the NJCAA Division I level, it is Grand Junction, Colorado.

“Once we got to the World Series, people bought into our program,” Scheuermann said. “Your kids remember the experience and they pass it down the line … Our expectations became Grand Junction.”

Delgado rattled off three straight trips to Grand Junction from 2014-16 and then returned for a fifth time under Scheuermann in 2023, finishing fifth.

In May 2024, Scheuermann won his 1,178th game to pass the late Tony Robichaux, a 2022 LSHOF inductee, and become the winningest college coach in Louisiana history. But that’s not how he sees it.

“I broke the junior college record for wins in Louisiana,” said Scheuermann, who played at Tulane the same time as Robichaux played at then-USL. “Every game I’ve won was at the junior college level. Tony Robichaux did it at the Division I level. That’s not the same.”

But, he added, “It’s something I will always share with him.”

On April 13 of this year – coincidentally, what would have been “Rags” Scheuermann’s 102nd birthday – Scheuermann registered his latest milestone, career win No. 1,200.

How has he gotten to this point? By being himself and convincing other families to do exactly what he did – starting your path on the two-year college level.

“Nobody understands how beneficial it is to go to junior college as an athlete,” Scheuermann said. “We’ve been able to convince Mom and Dad that Delgado isn’t a trade school.

“I’ve placed over 400 kids in four-year programs and continue to get their baseball skills developed and get their education.”

One of them was Sean McMullen, who played at Delgado in 2011 and 2012 before becoming a two-year starter at LSU.

“You never looked there,” McMullen said of Delgado. “(Scheuermann) sat me down and said, ‘How about you give us a shot … If you come here and perform, I will put you in touch with where you want to go.’ I trusted him.”

McMullen became a Pied Piper of sorts for the Dolphins, helping to recruit many of the key local pieces in the program’s three consecutive trips to Grand Junction.

“I told them, if you want to play (Division I) baseball, come here,” McMullen said. “If you hate it, you can leave and just go to college. But nobody does that. This is family. This is different.”

Not one of Scheuermann’s former players has played a day in the major leagues, which may be even a bigger credit to the coaching job he has done in 35 years.

“We’ve been able to do this with blue collar guys,” he said. “We don’t … recruit nationally.”

Scheuermann already is a member of the NJCAA Baseball Coaches and the All American Amateur Baseball Association halls of fame. Tulane’s athletic hall of fame will honor him in September with its career achievement award.

Joe and “Rags” join the trio of Archie, Peyton and Eli Manning; “Dub” and Bert Jones, and Glenn and Billy Hardin as the only fathers and sons enshrined in Natchitoches.

“Archie texted me and said ‘welcome to the fraternity,’ ” Joe Scheuermann said. “When Archie Manning sends you that, it kind of hits home.”

As much as Joe Scheuermann has followed in his father’s footsteps, there’s one thing he won’t do – go on stage at the Natchitoches Events Center and announce his retirement.

“I get asked all the time, when are you going to get out?” Scheuermann said. “I’m 62, I feel great, I enjoy coaching.

“I remember my dad saying, ‘You’ll know when it’s time.’ I really don’t feel it’s time yet. It’s an occupation but I do it more for the kids and the school.”

Contact Lenny at lenny@crescentcitysports.com

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The next step in GAEDA’s not paying two invoices from the city seems up to Mayor Jacques Roy’s administration.

A motion to pay a total of about $113,000 for work at the Weiss & Golding building failed to get a second from Greater Alexandria Economic Development Authority members at their June meeting.

Absent that second there was no discussion that might indicate how wide the schism between the Authority and the city is.

GAEDA’s attorney in early May recommended it move to nullify a cooperative endeavor agreement for refurbishing the long-vacant building for development purposes as well as future plans for the Bolton Avenue Community Center.

Whether that ever got formal consideration is not clear. Roy took conciliatory steps in the interim. What the current rub is is uncertain.

In matters that did get a second, the board approved paying attorney costs incurred by it and its executive director over litigation by then-member John Callis.

He won in district court, over a disputed meeting last February, then lost when the board appealed to the circuit court.

Callis is seeking review of the case by the state Supreme Court. The Authority has until mid-July to respond to that petition.

Callis has since resigned. Whether members John Carroll and Chris Patel did likewise is indeterminate but they apparently are no longer members under attendance requirements of the Authority Rules of Procedure.

Three absences in a calendar year sans acceptable reason is the limit. Neither has attended meetings in the wake of the new board majority formed following city elections.

The three vacancies leave the board at its quorum number – 4. An absence by any one of them results in no official business conducted, as occurred at May’s meeting.

Each City Council member has an appointment, routinely approved by the panel. There is as yet no indication of nominations for the empty Authority seats.

The Authority was created as an independent agency funded by a hotel-motel occupancy tax.

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By RAYMOND PARTSCH III, Written for the LSWA

George “Bobby” Soileau taught his son how to throw a punch.

Every day after coaching and teaching students at Sacred Heart High School, Soileau would come home to his wife and three sons and put on his worn-out gloves and show his youngest son, Robert, how to throw a jab.

“He always loved to put the gloves on and box with me when I was little,” Robert recalled. “Every day, it is what we did together. We would box in the backyard or even in the living room. I was six or seven years old, and he would get on his knees and box me. He would let me swing, and then he would swing, and then teach me how to block. That’s what my dad and I did nearly every day.”

The older Soileau does not always remember those days of bonding with his son.

There are more days than not when he does not recall being one of Louisiana’s elite boxers with a fierce left jab that helped him claim four state championships and an individual national championship in college.

He sometimes forgets returning to his alma mater and turning the high school football program into a perennial and respected playoff team, with immense toughness and discipline. Even the faces of his former players or his assistant coaches seem like strangers to him now, and there are even days when he doesn’t recognize his son.

Dementia has taken that away from the 89-year-old Soileau. The accomplishments in the boxing ring and gridiron are only slight flickers of light now as Soileau is unable to relive those moments that will see him be inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame as a member of the Class of 2025, Saturday night to culminate the three-day Induction Celebration in Natchitoches. Visit LaSportsHall.com for event information.

“He just doesn’t understand,” Robert said. “I ask him the same questions every single day because the doctors told us that it helps. To his credit, he can still tell me his momma’s name, his brothers’ names, and their nicknames. He even remembers being a boxer. He will sometimes say, ‘Yeah, I was a national champion at LSU.'”

A few moments later, though, Soileau will not be able to remember his time as the Trojans’ head coach or his time serving the public as a member of the Evangeline Parish School Board or Police Jury.

“I tell him all of the stuff he did in his life,” Robert said. “How he coached at Sacred Heart for 30 years and served on all those boards, or the players that coached underneath him for years. He won’t remember it. He will ask me, ‘I don’t know where you learned all of that.’ I just smile and tell him, ‘I learned it from you. I was living with you’.”

Dementia may prevent Soileau from reliving those cherished memories and accomplishments, but so many others that he coached are honored to share those stories on his behalf.

“We took on his character,” said Gary Inhern, quarterback on the 1967 state title team. “He was tough, but he was also a daddy to us. There is not one of us who played for him that would not have run through a brick wall. We would have it done then, and we still would.”

In the 1950s, boxing was one of the more popular high school sports in Louisiana. From October through March, high school gyms and auditoriums would be transformed into makeshift boxing arenas for three-round matches drawing thousands of spectators.

For kids in that era, the passion for the squared circle began at an early age.

“The kids at Sacred Heart started young like I did,” Soileau told The Ville Platte Gazette in December of 2015. “When I was boxing at Sacred Heart, we had fifth- and sixth-graders who were training. That is just what we did.”

His prep career began in the eighth grade at Sacred Heart under famed coach Jack Reed, and he won the 90-pound state championship in 1950. He would proceed to take the 100-pound crown in 1951, the 110-pound title in 1952, and the 125-pound championship in 1954, the same year he was awarded the prestigious Francis G. Brink Trophy for being the state’s best boxer.

In his five-year career, Soileau went 96-2-1, won four state championships, and finished as state runner-up in 1953 when he lost to Plaquemine’s Bruce Boudreaux in the 115-pound title bout, a fight considered to be one of the greatest in state history. 

“He was just such a good fighter,” Ville Platte High fighter Glenn Fontenot told the Gazette in 2015. “I think my record in high school was like 60-5. The only year I reached the state tournament, I fought Bobby in the opening match. He beat me by TKO. He took care of me. He beat everybody to the punch.”

Soileau received a boxing scholarship from LSU, which was established as one of the best boxing programs in the country. The Tigers had won the NCAA team national championship in 1949, and also had claimed several individual national championships before Soileau arrived.

“We had a good boxing team,” Soileau said in 2017. “We couldn’t box against people around Louisiana. We had to go thousands of miles away to find people who were still boxing in college. We won most of our boxing matches that we went to out of state.”

As a sophomore with the Tigers, he helped the team to a 7-1-1 dual-meet record and won the 1956 NCAA national title in the 125-pound (featherweight) division.

“Bobby was a fantastic boxer,” LSU football legend and Louisiana Sports Hall of Famer Billy Cannon said in 2017. “I followed Bobby’s whole career. I went out every time LSU had a sporting event.”

Soileau’s time at LSU was cut short.

The LHSAA decided to drop boxing as an officially sanctioned sport in 1958. At the same time, universities were eliminating their boxing programs. LSU did it in 1956, and the NCAA in 1961.

“I had just won the national championship in college, and my coach called me in one day and he said I got some bad news, we are losing boxing,” Soileau said in 2017.

Soileau considered turning professional, but breaking his shoulder during a practice at the Olympic Trials in Wisconsin for the 1956 Summer Olympics derailed that, as did a pinched nerve that bothered him for the rest of his life.

Soileau’s boxing career may have ended, but the lessons he learned inside the ring would last for decades.

“Boxing made me a better person and it made me a better coach,” Soileau said.

Discipline, accountability, and hard work were the pillars of Soileau’s three decades at Sacred Heart.

Soileau would lead the Trojans for 30 seasons, compiling a record of 159-100-9 and winning at least a share of nine district titles, the 1967 Class B state championship and finishing runner-up in Class 1A in 1971. He was twice selected as the LSWA Coach of the Year and inducted into the Louisiana High School Sports Hall of Fame in 1988.

Soileau will now receive the state’s most prestigious honor — membership in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame. Although he won’t be there to enjoy it in person due to his health, those young boys who he molded into young men will be there. Even after the weekend ends, they will still remember the impact he made on their lives.

“He touched so many lives,” David said. “Yeah, he coached football, but he coached you about life. The only thing that is keeping him alive is his will to live. It is the same will that he had when he was boxing and when he was coaching. That only comes from the soul. He was and still is a part of the soul of Ville Platte.”

As the years go by, the memories of a Hall of Fame career fade more and more, but they still flicker inside Soileau, even if it is only for a few moments. Every day when Robert leaves the nursing home where his father resides, he goes through a familiar routine, which he learned from sparring with his dad six decades ago. Now he gives that precious gift back to his father.

“Before I walk out, I put my hands up and ask if he can still move,” Robert said. “Without hesitation, he throws me a few of those left jabs. His hands are still really fast. He is still in there.”

Contact Raymond at sportswithRP3@gmail.com

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Arrests are accusations, not convictions.

 

June 22

Willie James Augustine, 39, Alexandria – bicycle reflectors required, five counts contempt of court, $83,100 bail;

Michael Francis Bayonne Sr, 46, Alexandria – simple burglary, criminal trespass, criminal damage to property, criminal conspiracy, no bail data;

Diane Marie Evans, 27, Pineville – three counts of possession of CDS, paraphernalia, contempt of court, $5,500 bail;

Bridget Renee Gagnard, 41, Pineville – possession of CDS, paraphernalia, use of CDS in presence of person under 17, safety belt violation, $3,600 bail;

Alexis Noel Smith, 28, Pineville – OWI first offense, improper lane usage, $600 bail;

 

June 21

Logan Bordelon, 23, Colfax – OWI second offense, three counts open container, speeding, failure to change address on driver’s license, $2,000 bail;

Eric Dixon, 25, Alexandria – Louisiana fugitive, two counts legend drug possession, expired MVI sticker, $3,100 bail;

Brandi French, 47, Pineville – OWI first offense, careless operation, open container, $1,200 bail;

Jake General III, 53, Alexandria —  OWI third offense, improper lane usage, restricted driver license violation, probation violation, ignition interlock devices required, $100,300 bail;

Tyler Matthews, 26, Alexandria – second degree battery, $1,000 bail;

Terricke Jermome Payne, 46, Alexandria – theft, improper display of license plate, obstruction of justice, $100 bail;

Thadeus Sampson, 35, Mansura – OWI first offense, open container, improper lane usage, $1,200 bail;

Cory Stroud, 37, Montgomery – OWI first offense, improper lane usage, limitations passing on left, $1,200 bail;

Rodney Gregory White Jr, 37, Deville – three counts contempt of court, $13,500 bail;

 

June 20

Joshua Blaine Burnette, 37, Glenmora – first degree rape, sexual battery, indecent behavior with juveniles, taking contraband to and from penal institutions, battery of a correctional employee, aggravated resisting a police officer with force or violence, $500,000 bail;

Keith Dauzat, 56, Marksville – simple battery, $1,000 bail;

Jarius Daymon Johnson, 18, Alexandria – domestic abuse battery, $1,500 bail;

Lonnie Ray Joseph, 37, Alexandria – second degree battery, simple burglary, $505,000 bail;

Shawna C. Thompson, 40, Pineville – contempt of court, $10,000 bail;

Erin F. Tracy, 33, Pineville – OWI first offense, improper turn, improper lane usage, improper window tint, resisting an officer, open container, $1,900 bail;

Antoine K. Williams, 35, Pineville – fire raising on land of another with malice, simple arson, criminal trespass, contempt of court, $31,000 bail;

 

June 19

Erika Eskeve Pantallion, 30, Alexandria – contempt of court, $5,000 bail;

Steven Jo Ray, 48, Alexandria – simple strangulation, domestic abuse battery, $75,000 bail;

Jeronda Reed, 24, Pineville – obstruction of justice, three counts contempt of court, $8,500 bail;

Ruth Ann Strother, 67, Plainview – OWI first offense, improper lane usage, failure to yield to emergency vehicle, open container, $1,300 bail;

Kaleb John Zimmerman, 23, Alexandria – OWI first offense, off road vehicle on public road, $1,100 bail;

 

June 18

Dejuan Carmouche, 19, Simmesport – producing manufacturing distributing marijuana, illegal carry firearm with drugs, possession paraphernalia, $10,500 bail;

Keldrick Deion Gaines, 37, Alexandria – contempt of court, $3,500 bail;

Otha Lee Tatum Sr, 41, Alexandria – aggravated battery, aggravated assault, resisting an officer, contempt of court, $32,500 bail;

Gage Anthony Webb, 31, Pineville – OWI second offense, improper lane usage, expired MVI sticker, $2,200 bail;

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By WESLEY MULLER, Louisiana Illuminator

A new spate of undercover seafood testing at restaurants in the Alexandria area found more than half of the sampled eateries serving imported shrimp. 

SeaD Consulting, a food testing company that has been making headlines for uncovering foreign-sourced shrimp sold as local catch at restaurants and festivals across the Gulf Coast, announced that 54 percent of the local restaurants it sampled were serving imported shrimp – and several were lying to their customers about it.  

The company’s use of genetic testing found that 11 of the 24 restaurants sampled offered authentic Gulf of Mexico-caught shrimp, while the remaining 13 sold farm-raised shrimp to dinters. Six of those 13 restaurants, roughly 25 percent of the total, were serving imported fare in an “explicitly fraudulent” manner, meaning they claimed the shrimp was domestic when it wasn’t. 

The company does not publicly disclose the names of the restaurants that fraudulently serve imported shrimp, opting instead to highlight businesses that are following the law and serve domestic shrimp.

Doing it right: the local restaurants tested that offer locally caught seafood were:

• Brocato’s Breakfast, Alexandria
• Bucket’s Crawfish & Seafood, Pineville
• Crawfish Port Inc., Alexandria
• Crazy Cajun, Pineville
• Deborge’s Crawfish, Alexandria
• Koal’s Bar-B-Que, Alexandria
• Pit Grill Diner, Alexandria
• Red River Seafood & Sushi, Alexandria
• Rosie Jo’s, Alexandria
• Rotolo’s Craft & Crust, Alexandria
• Swamp Daddy’s Crawfish, Alexandria

“These restaurants are doing it right,” Williams said. “They’re supporting the local economy and giving customers what they’re paying for — the flavor of Louisiana, from the docks to the table.”

SeaD collected the samples June 3-4 from restaurants across Alexandria and nearby Pineville. The findings are relatively on par with testing the company has conducted in other Louisiana cities. Its testing  in the Shreveport area from March uncovered a 58 percent fraud rate. 

“This is about trust,” said Rodney Olander, chairman of the Louisiana Shrimp Task Force. “Alexandria is a proud river city with deep Louisiana roots, and its people deserve to know when they’re getting wild-caught Gulf shrimp — or when they’re being served imported farm-raised substitutes passed off as local. Having one in four restaurants being explicitly fraudulent is not right.”

In December, the Louisiana Shrimp Task Force, an advisory panel for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, asked SeaD Consulting to analyze shrimp from restaurants across the state in an effort to eliminate consumer seafood fraud. Its analysis includes sampling batches of 24 randomly selected restaurants in different cities across the state.

It is illegal under federal and state law to mislabel imported seafood as local and can result in fines or other penalties.

Local seafood was once easy to find in Louisiana, but an influx of cheap foreign catch – particularly shrimp and crawfish – has flooded the market over the past two decades. 

For more than a decade, Louisiana law has specifically required restaurants and other food establishments to state on their menus the country of origin of any shrimp and crawfish being served. The same requirement applies to food vendors at fairs and festivals. 

A 2023 review of state enforcement records revealed many restaurants had not complied with the law. State health inspectors issued thousands of citations to restaurants but levied no fines against them, drawing criticism from state lawmakers and local fishermen.

SeaD Consulting launched its testing efforts last year using undercover inspectors to purchase shrimp dishes from restaurants and festival vendors. The inspectors run the shrimp through a rapid field testing kit that examines seafood tissue genetics. 

SeaD’s investigation of the Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Festival in Morgan City led to public outrage when four out of five vendors there were found to have fraudulently served foreign shrimp. 

Dave Williams, a commercial fisheries scientist and founder of SeaD Consulting, said consumers can play an important role in combating seafood fraud. They should always ask restaurant staff where their seafood comes from, look for clear menu labeling indicating the country of origin and report suspicions of seafood fraud to local or state health officials, Williams said.

Original Article: CLICK HERE

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• Keep fireworks at least 200 feet from buildings, vehicles, and flammable debris
• Never let children handle fireworks; offer safe alternatives like glow sticks
• Avoid using fireworks if impaired by alcohol or drugs
• Light one firework at a time and monitor with a hose or bucket of water nearby
• Soak used fireworks before disposal—never toss them dry into the trash

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By TEDDY ALLEN, Written for the LSWA

She picked up a basketball as a challenge when she was 9 and used it to prove a point, first in the back yard against her brother and two cousins in Coushatta, then on her way to becoming a two-time Kodak All-American at Louisiana Tech, then through 13 seasons in the WNBA and a concurrent 15 overseas, and now through another 15 seasons as a WNBA coach.

All the while, that crimson dirt of Louisiana’s rural Red River Parish on her hands proving she’d worked for it, that she’d earned it, Vickie Johnson has remained about the most genuine and gentle, polished, unassuming off-the-court ballplayer you could ever meet, even if, like her, you’d traveled from the banks of Loggy Bottom and Grand Bayou to the Thomas Assembly Center in Ruston to Madison Square Garden to the gymnasiums of France and Hungary to Israel and Turkey.

“Polite, well-mannered, very bashful and shy,” said her long-ago summer ball AAU teammate Sarah Harrison Zeagler of Natchitoches.

“And,” Zeagler laughs at the memory, “insanely talented.”

It’s that delightful mix of sweet, super, and stubborn that vaulted Johnson, a 5-9 guard with a pure all-around game highlighted by a sweet baseline jumper, above the field at every level of basketball and has ultimately landed her a well-deserved, “it’s-about-time” spot in Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, Class of 2025.

Family and friends from her Coushatta hometown will make the 30-minute trip south to Natchitoches for the Induction Celebration June 26-28. Event information is available at LaSportsHall.com.

It was back home in Coushatta that she wanted to prove a point to her big brother.

“I didn’t start playing because, ‘Oh, I love basketball,’” Johnson said. “I started because my oldest brother said it was for guys, for the boys. ‘Girls don’t play basketball.’ So I picked up a ball and went to the back yard. I was 9. From that day on, I loved it.”

A year later, 1982, she saw Louisiana Tech and USC, titans of the women’s college game at the time, playing on television.

“I watched with my mom and it … I was thrilled, you know?” Johnson said. “I told her, ‘One day, I’m playing college basketball. I’m gonna play for the team in the blue, the team with the stars going down their jerseys.”

The ‘team in blue’ was the Lady Techsters, only about 70 miles away through the pine trees and winding state highways from her back yard court.

“Well,” said the lady everyone in Coushatta called ‘Mrs. Susie,’ the single mom with three jobs, “if you’re gonna play for them, you’d better get back outside.”

She dribbled her way out the back door and kept shooting.

Often joining her was her father’s youngest brother from Shreveport, her Uncle John, a veteran of semi-pro hoops and a serious student of the game.

“He taught me how to play basketball,” Johnson said. “He just … how to dribble, to move, to guard, understanding the game. ‘What did you see? How could you have done better?’ He took care of me.”

Uncle John was a good teacher. By the time Johnson was a sophomore at Coushatta High (now Red River), she’d verbally committed to play for “the team in blue.”

But it wasn’t the same program she’d watched on TV in 1982. Tech fell out of the Top 25 in 1990-91 for the first time in 13 years, then lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The next season was equally mediocre.

“No question that Vickie coming to Louisiana Tech really helped put the program back on the national map,” Tech’s head coach Leon Barmore, a Louisiana Sports and Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer, said. “If we hadn’t signed that class — Vickie, Racquel Spurlock, Amy Brown — we would have disappeared from the national spotlight. Vickie wasn’t a savior by herself, but she sure was instrumental.”

As a rookie Lady Techster in 1992-93, Johnson helped take the team to the NCAA Regional Finals, a snapshot of things to come. During her four seasons with Tech, the Lady Techsters were 116-17 and finished as national runner-up in 1994 when Johnson, a sophomore, was chosen to the All-Final Four team.

“Vickie was the ultimate teammate,” Barmore said. “She did whatever it took to win, whether that meant playing defense or scoring or just being a leader.”

“She’s a winner,” said Brown, a former Parade All-American, Johnson’s Tech teammate, and now director of teacher education at Tennessee Tech after a successful, championship-filled coaching career there. “She was the type of player who wasn’t going to allow her team to lose. She practiced every day like she played every night. It was contagious with her teammates.”

Whether it was a trait developed in the back yard or through emulating Mrs. Susie, Johnson’s selflessness came early, as sweet and as necessary as her baseline jumpers.

“Vickie could have played all five positions by herself,” her AAU teammate Zeagler said. “She could see the floor, everything, everywhere, like she had eyes in the back of her head.

“But the thing that always stood out about her was I felt like I belonged on the court with her, and that was because she made us feel that way,” Zeagler said. “She made us feel like we belonged on the court as much as she did.” 

Although as a freshman and sophomore she helped Tech claw back onto the national stage, turns out Johnson was just getting started when it came to giving the folks around Cut-Off Road and Lone Star Feed down in Coushatta plenty to talk about. She earned spots on both the Kodak and Street & Smith All-America teams the next two seasons, Sun Belt Conference MVP in 1995 and 1996, and 1996 Louisiana Player of the Year.

She did it with a silky grace and salty presence.

“She was as smooth a basketball player as I can remember coaching,” Barmore said. “The baseline was her home. She would roam the baseline and make that little jump shot all night. It was a beautiful thing to watch. She was one of the players that our fans enjoyed watching the most.”

Thomas Assembly Center proved to be only a launching pad. There was more where that came from.

In the 1997 WNBA Elite Draft, Johnson was the 12^th player chosen. A quick look at only a few high points from her pro stat sheet, which is almost 30 years old — and counting…

• Nine seasons with the New York Liberty and four with the San Antonio Silver Stars;
• Twice an All-Star;
• First person in the league to collect 4,000 points, 1,000 rebounds, and 1,000 assists in a career;
• Dependable-plus, a starter in 408 of 410 games played and the first person in WNBA history to play 11,000 minutes;
• Won the league’s Sportsmanship Award in 2008, her last as a player, and has been a coach in the league since.

“As good a player as she was on the court, she’s a better person,” Brown said. “She deserves every honor she’s received for what she did as a player, but it’s even sweeter because of who she is off the court.”

“Quiet off the court, but once it was time to play, all that went away,” Zeagler said. “Never mean, but always purposeful. She was very sportsmanlike-minded: you got knocked down, she’d help you back up. Just an incredible all-around person.”

All that, the total package, game after game and year after year, in a sport that “girls don’t play.”

“A lot of people told me I wasn’t good enough,” Johnson said. “That was my fire. And that’s how I played. I wanted to guard the best players. When I chose to play overseas, I chose countries with the best players. That’s where I got my joy, from playing against the best.

“I played because I enjoyed it,” she said. “The accolades that come with it? They come with it. But my goal was to be the best I could be and get in Louisiana Tech, and I did that.”

Contact Teddy at teddy@latech.edu

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NATCHITOCHES – As a track and field coach, Leon Johnson left an indelible imprint upon Northwestern State, the region it serves, and the entire state..

The impact he made upon those who competed for him – regardless of when or where – is of matching depth and importance.

Johnson, a legendary figure in Northwestern and the Southland Conference’s track and field history, died Tuesday at the age of 86. There will be a celebration of life for Johnson held at Magale Recital Hall on the NSU campus at 3 p.m. Sunday. Visitation will be held from 5- 8 p.m. Saturday at Blanchard St. Denis Funeral Home, located at 848 Keyser Avenue in Natchitoches.

“I am saddened to learn of the passing of my dear friend, coach and mentor, Leon Johnson,” said former Northwestern State President Dr. Chris Maggio, who ran for and coached under Johnson before ascending the ranks of university administration. “My life has been greatly blessed and enriched because this gentleman reached out to me 43 years ago and said, ‘My name is Leon Johnson, and I am the new track and field coach at Northwestern State University, and I want you to become my first recruit at NSU.’ Thankfully, I said yes to his invitation and words cannot adequately express the magnitude of life lessons that I learned from him.  

“He will be remembered as a Hall of Fame coach who mentored 50-plus All-Americans and won several conference championships. I, too, will remember him for his coaching accolades, but I will also remember him as a Christian man, a great role model and for the hours and hours he spent working with young men and women on the track no matter their athletic abilities. It didn’t matter if you were an All-American or a beginner, Coach would be there for you teaching and coaching you to be better in your event and better in your life. Thank you, Coach Johnson changing the lives of thousands of young people.”

The individual and team accolades Northwestern compiled under Johnson were many. Three Southland Conference team championships and top-20 finishes in the NCAA Indoor and Outdoor Championships. Fifty-seven All-Americans among nearly 100 NCAA championship qualifiers. Two Olympic triple jumpers.

There was the 1986 birth of the Lady Demon track and field program that also occurred on Johnson’s watch.

In other words, Northwestern could build a trophy case simply for Leon Johnson and his student-athletes’ accomplishments. What transpired in the past 48 hours could fill a virtual one as well.

“I first stepped foot on the Northwestern State campus 40 years ago this August,” former Director of Athletics Greg Burke said. “Even then, as an intern, I recognized what kind of man, what kind of mentor and what kind of coach Leon Johnson was. I had the good fortune to come back as athletic director and have him sitting at our head coaches’ table. The perspective he offered, the respect he had among coaches and staff within the department was really remarkable.

“One needs to look no further than social media in the past 48 hours and read the number of posts – and not just the number – but the heartfelt messages from so many track alumni,” Burke said. “Oftentimes, the true measure of a coach’s impact — and how lasting that impact is — will be reflected in the sentiments expressed by the student-athletes who practiced and competed under that coach.”

Johnson began his career as a high school basketball coach in Colorado before coaching state champion high school track and field track and field teams in Louisiana at Opelousas and DeRidder, ultimately taking over at Northwestern where his name became synonymous with the school.

Northwestern track and field athletes compete in the Leon Johnson Invitational each spring after entering the Walter P. Ledet Track and Field Complex via Leon Johnson Lane.

The Louisiana High School Athletic Association’s state cross country championships also conclude in that area, thanks largely to Johnson’s push to bring the event to Natchitoches where it has become a staple of the city’s athletic calendar, with Johnson and staff doing yeoman’s work each November to make it happen. They did the same each spring when NSU hosted high school district and regional track meets, and when Special Olympics or the American Heart Association came calling.

What Johnson built at Northwestern was done so on the foundation of a family feel – one that serves as a living testament to Johnson’s approach.

“He helped shape so many men’s and women’s lives,” said current Northwestern track and field coach Mike Heimerman, who competed under Johnson before coaching with him and, ultimately, succeeding him as the program’s leader. “Hundreds of athletes – probably closer to thousands – came through Northwestern under coach Johnson, and he helped shape and mold them into young men and women, good mothers and fathers, good husbands and wives.

“He made Natchitoches and Northwestern State a home for so many young men and women, including myself. That was an attraction to NSU and to Natchitoches. That’s something we’ve tried to instill in the program now. It’s something I learned from him, and we tried to take it up a notch. The other thing I learned most from him is making sure the student-athletes get a degree and that you care for them. When you care for them, they do more for you. That’s been very evident in the past here with the men’s and women’s programs and the success we’ve had.”

Johnson’s legacy was made working with Northwestern’s track and field athletes, but his influence permeated the athletic department as a whole.

Late in his career, former Demon men’s basketball coach Mike McConathy utilized Johnson’s ability to provide insight on flexibility and conditioning for McConathy’s team. It proved to be a learning experience for both the Demon players and their longtime coach.

“His impact was invaluable in the fact he taught me as well as the kids so much,” McConathy said. “It was the respect my players had for him. The way he taught and instructed them was amazing. He used the technique of lower volume. He had something they were interested in. They all locked in with no distractions. That taught me something, taught my staff something.

“The attention he gave them showed me they had a tremendous amount of respect for his ability. It was just incredible to witness. I don’t know that you can paint a word picture to describe what we actually saw.”

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By JIM BUTLER

The parish has set the rules for any future solar farm development.

Acting on recommendations from the Area Planning Commission police jurors this month unanimously adopted guidelines for such a renewable energy project. Juror Randy Wiggins was absent.

Louisiana is currently experiencing a surge of investment in such construction.

The ordinance sets minimum standards for solar projects that are neither residential nor single business-driven.

Not less than 20 acres are required for a proposed site. Rotating panels are limited to height of 16 feet; non-rotating to 18 feet.

Setback of at least 100 feet from any public roads or neighboring property will be required, with minimum fencing of 8 feet in height.

Provisions are also made for required signage, noise abatement and visual concealment barriers.

The permitting process requires estimates of economic, wildlife and environmental impacts, as well as drainage, public safety, sound and aviation analysis.

A non-refundable review fee of $10,000 is due on application. The permit fee is set at 1% of total construction cost, payable prior to the permit issuance.

That cost depends on size of the farm. Industry publications estimate cost at $500,000 to $1,000,000 per megawatt of generation capability.

The Planning Commission is charged with recommending approval or rejection of a permit request.

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By JAKE MARTIN, Written for the LSWA

Don’t ask Andrew Whitworth to catalogue binge-worthy Netflix series.

Chances are he hasn’t seen it. In order to contribute to the conversation, one would have to actually sit down to, you know, watch. And if you know anything about this year’s Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame inductee, well, that ain’t happening.

“No, I don’t binge shows,” Whitworth said. “I love to be active. Right now, I just walked seven or eight miles hitting golf balls. I’m always outside. That’s my version of a great day. I wake up, get my coffee, hike a mountain, hit 6,000 golf balls and then go hang out at the beach with my kids. I don’t like to sit down.”

Makes sense when you think about it. Longevity in the NFL doesn’t accompany an All-Pro career by happenstance. Laziness isn’t exactly a common trait for 16-year NFL veterans either. 

The former West Monroe High School and LSU standout, who helped teams at all three levels win championships, headlines the LSHOF’s Class of 2025 being enshrined June 26-28 in Natchitoches. Event information is at LaSportsHall.com.

The never-idle Whitworth actively participated in sports growing up, like tennis, basketball, baseball, golf and powerlifting. Heck, he even threw the shot put in track and field. But each had its importance. Every sport taught the future Los Angeles Ram something that indirectly contributed to retiring as the oldest offensive lineman to win a Super Bowl. In some ways, Whitworth’s activity was his greatest gift.

“Play multiple sports,” said Whitworth with passion. “I grew to be 6’7” 330 pounds. I was going to be able to push people around with my God-given ability. But playing tennis and baseball and track and all those other things taught me a skill.

“Basketball, for example, helped me with my pass protection. What does playing defense look like in basketball? It’s like trying to slide protect. If you want to be a great blocker, you have to keep the defender between yourself and the quarterback. That’s just like in basketball, using your body to stay between them and the goal. A lot of things carry over.”

For a man who prides himself on being mobile, the irony isn’t lost on Whitworth that his most viral moment involved him sitting on the floor of SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif. His career peaked with the Rams’ Super Bowl LVI victory against (of all teams, the one he spent his first 11 NFL seasons with) the Cincinnati Bengals just days removed from Whitworth being named the 2021 Walter Payton Man of the Year. Talk about a whirlwind. Amongst all the confetti on the turf, the West Monroe native sat with his family and told his children that it was “Daddy’s last ballgame.”

“It will forever be special,” Whitworth said. “You’ll meet somebody, and you can tell they’re trying to explain to their wife who you are. Then they’ll say you probably saw him on the ground with his family at the Super Bowl. And that’s immediately when they recognize me. I don’t ever sit down and take a breath, and that was the moment for me to do it with my kids. It was one of the calmest moments of my career. I knew it was over.”

Perhaps the saddest person to see Whitworth go was his head coach Sean McVay, who didn’t mince words when it came to Whitworth’s importance to the franchise.

It was a master stroke to acquire a left tackle who finished his career with 250 NFL starts, meaning McVay was protecting quarterback Matthew Stafford’s blindside with an experienced All-Pro, sure. But it also provided leadership for a first-year head coach on the job.

“When we lost him, I thought I appreciated how valuable he was in terms of his leadership and giving me the ability to hear what I needed to hear and not what I wanted to,” McVay said. “I thought I valued it a whole lot, but since he retired, I realized what a unique human being he is. You can’t say enough good things about him. I can’t describe what he means to me. I think he has to go down as one of the greatest free agent signings of all time.”

A storybook ending for a career that featured multiple first-team All-Pro accolades (2015, 2017) and four Pro Bowl selections is quite the contrast to Whitworth’s rocky start. Put it this way — no confetti fell during Whitworth’s first live rep of middle school football at Ouachita Christian School. Not when he stood opposite of the coach’s daughter, Molly Harper, during his first practice. What happened next would be told time and again over the next three decades.

“I get in line and realize I’m going against a person with really long hair, and I’m like, ‘This is the ‘90s… There aren’t too many boys with long hair.’ Other players are like, ‘Hey dude, you better lock in,’” Whitworth remembered. “I’m thinking I don’t know how hard I want to hit her because she’s a girl, and she pancaked me and knocked me down.

“I remember thinking, ‘Maybe football isn’t for me,’ because I was a basketball kid at the time. I love to tell that story because if you have a totem pole of where you career is, near the bottom has to be what people think of when the coach’s daughter trucks you. But it’s not about that. I didn’t quit. I made a commitment to finish something, and I ended up falling in love with it.”

Redemption followed. Whitworth quickly ascended to one of the top prep players in Louisiana with the West Monroe Rebels and played a part in two national championship teams in 1998 and 2000, arguably the peak of that prestigious football program.

Before Whitworth completed the trifecta of winning a ring at every level, he was a valued member of an LSU football team that broke through and won the 2003 national championship.

“We were freaking rock stars,” Whitworth said. “Every single day, going back-and-forth to practice, we felt like we were a part of Guns N’ Roses or Aerosmith. Fans were outside our hotel. They were shaking and hitting the busses. Playing in New Orleans for the national championship when it’s been almost 50 years since you won it, that’s hard to replicate. Yeah, they’ve had talented teams since, but what that one meant, it was really special.”

Football remains a focal point of Whitworth’s life, even though it’s in a different capacity. His work now consists of breaking down the game in front of a camera, rather than taking on many hall of fame pass rushers he’s faced through the decades.

Evolution was a big part of Whitworth’s game, as he slimmed down and embraced flexibility exercises to counter the speedy pass rushers that flooded the league in the latter stages of his career. And here he is parlaying retirement to evolve once more.

Surprisingly, Whitworth admitted this new venture is a little more nerve-wracking too. Some might think he’s making a fashion statement with the hoodie under his suit on Amazon Prime’s Thursday Night Football telecast, but it actually has little to do with that. 

“When you get feedback from people who say they love seeing you on T.V., it makes you feel good because you just don’t know,” Whitworth said. “I’m not super confident in it. That’s why I wear my hoodie. It makes me feel comfortable to be myself. I’m just trying to be me.”

Traveling from one NFL city to the next as part of a broadcast crew is a fitting “retirement” for the Louisiana legend. Nope, you won’t catch Whitworth slowing down any time soon. For a man who is seemingly always on the move, it’s a lifestyle well earned.

Contact Jake at jakemartinsec@gmail.com

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NATCHITOCHES — Longtime, legendary Northwestern State track and field coach Leon Johnson, who led the Demons and Lady Demons to national prominence and tutored a pair of USA Olympians before retiring in 2013, died Tuesday in Natchitoches after a brief illness.

Funeral arrangements will be announced soon for Johnson, 86, whose decades-long career at Northwestern made him a nationally recognized name in track and field. He is survived by his wife, Elaine, and his son, Dean, a former NSU assistant, another son, Kendon, and daughters Darla and Molly, and many grandchildren and great grandchildren.

“I’ve known Leon Johnson for many years, since he was coaching and teaching at Opelousas High School, and he has always been an exceptional person, mentor, educator, coach, neighbor, and family man,” Northwestern State President James T. Genovese said. “He brought out the best in people, not just his athletes. What he did in his coaching career in high school and then for 33 years at Northwestern is remarkable not only for the championships won, the records broken, but for the tremendously positive, nurturing influence he had on the young people around him along with his coaches and colleagues.

“As a coach and as a man, he made impact in the communities where he lived for generations of people whose lives are better because of him.”

The second-longest serving head coach in Northwestern State athletics history, Johnson’s impact on both the Demons program and the Southland Conference is indelible.

Johnson’s 31-year head coaching career at Northwestern ranks second in school history only to H. Lee Prather’s 36-year run as the Demons basketball coach. Like Prather, Johnson’s name resonates across campus.

Track and field fans enter the Walter Ledet Track Complex by walking or driving down Leon Johnson Lane. Northwestern’s annual track and field meet was renamed the Leon Johnson Invitational in 2011, making Johnson the exceedingly rare coach who led a team in a competition that bears his or her name.

A high school basketball coach in Colorado before moving to Louisiana and becoming a state champion high school track and field coach at Opelousas and DeRidder, Johnson took the reins of the Northwestern track and field program in 1982.

For the next 31 years, he presided over 57 All-Americans, nearly 100 NCAA championship qualifiers, including national champions and a pair of Olympian triple jumpers – LaMark Carter (2000 Sydney Games) and Kenta Bell (2004 Athens Games and 2008 Beijing Games).

He helped Brian Brown develop into one of the world’s best high jumpers in the early 1990s after he won the 1989 USA Outdoors and the 1990 NCAA Indoors, setting a meet record with a 7-8 clearance. Brown went on to earn his doctorate and is the deputy director of athletics for student-athlete development, integrated healthcare and inclusion at Missouri.

“All of us at Northwestern are saddened by the loss of Leon Johnson,” Director of Athletics Kevin Bostian said. “Coach Johnson’s impact on our track and field program is both tangible and intangible. His standout career helped cement the foundation for a tremendous stretch of competitive success that is reflected in the current state of our program – especially our women’s program that has captured five of the past six Southland championships. Coach Johnson earned the respect of so many of his contemporaries as evidenced by the Southland Conference’s Leon Johnson Coach of the Year Award. He was in a class by himself and we are grateful for all he poured into Northwestern State track and field, the university and our community.”

In 1986, Johnson was tasked with starting the Lady Demons track and field program. Under Johnson’s direction, and with his protégé and former competitor Mike Heimerman coaching her, Trecey Rew became Northwestern’s first female track and field national champion, capturing the 2011 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Discus championship.

Student-athletes like Carter, Bell and Rew – and a slew of other All-Americans — flourished under the tutelage of Johnson, a 1999 N-Club Hall of Fame inductee.

His Northwestern teams were fixtures near the top of the Southland Conference, capturing conference titles in 1993, 1999 and 2002 while finishing in the upper half of the conference standings each year from 1989-2005.

Johnson’s Northwestern squads collected top-20 team finishes in both the NCAA Division I Indoor and Outdoor Track and Field Championships.

That extended run of success landed Johnson in the Southland Conference Hall of Honor in April 2017. Since 2014, the Southland presents the Leon Johnson Coach of the Year award to the top men’s track and field coach in the conference each season.

“Coach Johnson was one of the nation’s best mentors in his sport, and made a meaningful impact on his university, the league, and certainly the championship student-athletes he led in his program,” Southland Conference Commissioner Tom Burnett said upon Johnson’s receipt of the Southland’s top individual honor.

Johnson’s impact stretched far beyond the track, throwing areas, and jump pits where he spent most of his career – especially as it pertained to the student-athletes he coached.

He was the driving force behind bringing the Louisiana High School Athletic Association’s Cross Country State Championships to Natchitoches and keeping it here for more than 30 years, making it a staple of the city’s athletic calendar.

An active volunteer, Johnson gave his time to the Louisiana chapter of the Special Olympics, the American Heart Association, and the American Cancer Society.

Following his retirement from coaching track and field, Johnson became a volunteer assistant and advisor to former Mike McConathy’s Northwestern State men’s basketball team, providing insight on flexibility and conditioning for student-athletes while also imparting his vision to McConathy and his staff.

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Arrests are accusations, not convictions.

 

June 18

Damion Dale Brooks, 47, Alexandria – six counts simple assault, aggravated assault with a firearm, theft of a motor vehicle, stalking, contempt of court, $53,000 bail;

Sean Christopher Duffy, 51, Boyce – two counts simple assault, stalking, $50,500 bail;

Diamante Featherstone, 32, Alexandria – Louisiana fugitive, possession of marijuana, resisting an officer, misrepresentation at booking, 11 counts contempt of court, probation violation, $219,000 bail;

Gage Anthony Webb, 31, Pineville – OWI second offense, improper lane usage, expired MVI sticker, $2,200 bail.

 

June 17

Jayrius Edward Atkins, 21, Carrollton, Texas – Louisiana fugitive, no bail data;

Donovan Brice Bordelon, 26, Deville – two counts aggravated assault with a firearm, $10,000 bail;

Willie Brown, 47, Pineville – possession of CDS, illegal carry firearm with drugs, $2,500 bail;

Kendrick Duane Davis, 46, Cheneyville – possession of marijuana, contempt of court, $5,500 bail;

Payton Guidry, 25, Lake Charles – simple burglary, criminal damage to property, obstruction of justice, possession of drug paraphernalia, $200,000 bail;

Mohnterrius Jefferson, 27, Ferriday – two counts possession of CDS, obstruction of highway, illegal carry firearm with drugs, possession of stolen vehicle, $8,600 bail;

Robert Allen Lacroix, 39, Zwolle – contempt of court, $50,000 bail;

Johnathon Richard McClung, 47, Boyce – theft, possession of CDS, no evidence of insurance, expired MVI sticker, $1,200 bail;

Andrew Christopher Mitchum, 20, Pineville – domestic abuse battery with child present, domestic abuse battery, contempt of court, $1,000 bail;

Abbygale R. Perkins, 26, Boyce – possession of CDS, probation violation, $2,500 bail;

John Joseph Pugh, 25, Alexandria – two counts contempt of court, $12,500 bail;

Bernice Powell, 54, Deville – exploitation of the infirmed, no bail data;

Amanda Reed, 28, Pollock – possession of marijuana, paraphernalia, two counts contempt of court, $6,000 bail;

Ronald Dewayne Shaw Jr, 35, Pineville – possession of firearm by convicted felon, speeding, parole violations, $1,100 bail;

Antonio D’Wight Simon, 47, Alexandria – possession of CDS, paraphernalia, $3,000 bail;

Robert Kip Williams, 44, Colespring, Texas – two counts criminal damage to property, flight from an officer, simple littering, simple battery of police officer, resisting officer with force or violence, three counts reckless operation of a vehicle, no eye protection on motorcycle, no safety helmet, operating without insurance, switched license plate, no license plate light, expired driver license, $31,100 bail.

 

June 16

Kierra Alexander, 29, Alexandria – aggravated battery of ER, EMS or healthcare professional, Louisiana fugitive, $1,000 bail;

Rhonda Carla Davenport, 61, Alexandria – remaining on premises, two counts contempt of court, $40,250 bail;

Trevyon Armund Davis, 28, Cheneyville – OWI first offense, hit and run, two counts resisting arrest, three counts contempt of court, $5,690 bail;

Jeffery Lawrence Gagnard, 25, Marksville – three counts contempt of court, $15,000 bail;

Sonny Joseph Gagnard, 33, Woodworth – Louisiana fugitive, no bail data;

Evan Michael Guillory, 29, Echo – domestic abuse battery with child present, home invasion, interfering with emergency communication, $75,000 bail;

Jesse Lynn Halford, 42, Boyce – possession of fentanyl, resisting an officer simple assault, flight from an officer, running a red light, paraphernalia, three counts contempt of court, $10,600 bail;

Roger Ronald Hall II, 41, Pineville – possession of CDS, possession of marijuana, $2,000 bail;

Monica Marie Morgan, 34, Alexandria – two counts forgery, producing manufacturing distributing with intent CDS, contempt of court, $16,500 bail;

Bryan Layne Stokes, 29, Deville – four counts contempt of court, $56,000 bail;

Sean Tyler White, 29, Pineville – aggravated assault domestic abuse, two counts possession of CDS, $500 bail;

Jamarrius Deshad Willingham, 29, Alexandria – domestic abuse aggravated assault child endangerment, theft, domestic abuse strangulation, criminal damage intent to defraud, two counts contempt of court, $42,000 bail.

 

June 15

Christopher Harbor, 32, Ferriday – Louisiana fugitive, no bail data;

Marvin Eugene McGlothlin Sr, 45, Pineville – sex offender failure to renew, $5,000 bail;

Landon Blake Meshell, 30, Ball – theft, failure to appear, probation violation, $1,000 bail;

Jamie Lynne Rachal, 45, Alexandria – aggravated battery, disturbing the peace simple assault, domestic abuse battery, contempt of court, $6,000 bail;

Shenice Sherrell Williams, 45, Pineville – possession of marijuana, paraphernalia, four counts contempt of court, $5,000 bail.

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By JIM BUTLER

The state is shifting $57 million in federal funds to provide additional financing for drainage and flood control.

About $1.2 billion in mitigation money was received by Louisiana Watershed Initiative following devastating flooding in 2020.

Several years later some projects are completed or underway, others remain on drawing boards.

About $23 million will be added to local/regional funding and another $34 million transferred to address matching funds requests, according to posted notice.

Losing funds will be monitoring, mapping and modeling services and policy/planning.

Most of Rapides is in Region 5 for the funding use, along with a number of other south-central parishes.

Projects approved in the parish include the Chatlain Lake Canal Backwater Overflow Relief Structure, currently estimated at almost $20 million, up from around $13 million when first approved.

That Alexandria package includes routing backwater across LA Hwy. 1 to Red River via a new control system.

In Pineville about $7 million is allocated for the Huffman Creek Pump Station and improvements. Bids were received last fall.

Also in the parish:

• LSUA drainage improvements;
• Horseshoe Canal hardening;
• Lee Street drainage/pump station improvements.

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By RON HIGGINS, Written for the LSWA

When Nick Saban arrived by private plane in Tuscaloosa in early January 2007 after agreeing to become Alabama’s head football coach, he was mobbed by adoring fans.

But when he appeared in Baton Rouge in late November 1999 at his introductory press conference announcing him as LSU’s coach, the reception was “Who’s Nick Saban and why is LSU paying him $1.2 million a year?”

“I couldn’t believe the response and the attitude people had toward me,” Saban said.

“I was shocked. I was thinking, ‘Maybe I ought to go back where I came from.’”

Thankfully for LSU, he didn’t, and now he’ll be inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame – at last. The Class of 2025 Induction Celebration in Natchitoches is June 26-28, with information available at LaSportsHall.com.

Saban was initially elected to the LSHOF’s Class of 2020, but that spring’s global pandemic postponed ceremonies. It also altered the NCAA football recruiting calendar, which prevented then-Alabama head coach Saban from being inducted until after his retirement in January 2024.

“It’s an honor I’m really excited about,” Saban said of his upcoming induction. “I never thought I’d be considered. I know there’s a lot of great sports folks in Louisiana.”

All Saban did in five seasons from 2000-04 was save the Tigers’ program with a national championship, two SEC titles, and a 48-16 record (.750) before chasing an NFL dream as the head coach of the Miami Dolphins.

He came to Baton Rouge at a time when LSU was thirsting for success, stability, and a coach with a vision, including the elements required to build and sustain a national power.

After LSU had just two head football coaches (Paul Dietzel and Charles McClendon) in 25 years from 1955-1979, the Tigers had six coaches in 20 seasons from 1980-1999.

In that period, LSU won SEC championships in 1986 and 1988, but after the ’88 title, the Tigers had eight losing seasons in 11 years.

When LSU fired Gerry DiNardo with one game left in 1999, it already had a list of coaching candidates it wanted to pursue.

But Saban wasn’t originally on it. Saban didn’t know about the situation until he did some research.

“One of the things that piqued my interest was that when I was in the NFL, somebody did a study, probably (Bill) Belichick because he was notorious for this kind of detail,” Saban said. “The study revealed per capita which state had the most players from its colleges playing in the NFL. Louisiana was always ranked third or fourth. I always remembered that.”

It wasn’t long in Baton Rouge and especially at LSU that Saban became a force of nature.

For instance, LSU had one of the worst graduation rates in the SEC when he arrived, so his priority was obtaining a new academic center for athletes. He was told it would take two to three years for LSU to procure the money from the state legislature for such a project.”

“I told (then-new LSU athletic director) Skip (Bertman) `Let’s go raise the money,”’ Saban recalled. “Then, we were told `You’ve only got to raise $8 million for the academic center, but we want to redo this other thing here and make a big auditorium because we don’t have a big auditorium at the university, and that’s going to cost another $7 million.’

“I told Skip, `Let’s just raise $15 million and build the damn thing.’ And we raised it about three months. I kind of tricked them, though. I gave about $50,000 to start it off, so everybody I asked almost had to do that.”

Saban also noticed there wasn’t much revenue available for capital improvements. He suggested LSU finally start seat licensing, but met stern resistance.

“I was told we had loyal fans that had the same seats for years and years,” Saban said. I said, `Look, a lot of schools have done this.’  They said, `If you don’t win, we’ll get crucified for doing that.’ I said, `Put it on me then because if we don’t do it, we’re never going to have the kind of program we’re going to need to compete with all these other people.’”

Saban immediately upheld his end of the bargain.

Saban never won fewer than eight games in all of his LSU seasons. He had three bowl wins, including the BCS national title game victory in the Sugar Bowl over Oklahoma. His SEC championship game victories came against Tennessee and Georgia.

After a pair of superb recruiting classes, in 2003 Saban’s 13-1 Tigers delivered the school’s first national championship since 1958 by beating Oklahoma 21-14.

“The 2003 team had so much character that it didn’t need a leader. They thought they would win the championship long before I did.”

At the end of the 2004 season, given a $5 million per year contract and assured he’d have control of player personnel decisions, Saban became head coach of the Miami Dolphins.

But Saban and the NFL was not a good fit. He had a 15-17 record in two seasons with the Dolphins, and began looking at college vacancies.

“The best job that was available was Alabama, which happened to be a rival to the place (LSU) in which I had a tremendous amount of pride in terms of what we were able to accomplish, what we were able to do and a lot of the relationships we made,” Saban said.

Because of that, Saban became public enemy No. 1 to a segment of LSU fans who forgot how he rescued the Tigers’ program from the garbage heap.

It didn’t help Saban’s relationship with the Tigers’ faithful that he won six national titles with the Crimson Tide in 17 seasons and had a 13-5 record vs. LSU.

Upon his retirement, he joined ESPN’s College GameDay before the start of the 2024 season. He’s also had time to reflect on his career move from LSU with a tinge of regret.

“You live and learn, do things, and you find out about yourself,” Saban said. “LSU has a great atmosphere, the people are so supportive, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for that program. It’s one of the greatest places athletically in the country right now. 

“Terry and I still have as many good relationships in Louisiana as any place in the world, great friends and good people. We cherish those relationships.”

It’s why Saban is genuinely touched to become the fourth LSU head football coach in the LSHOF.

“I’m very grateful to many people who contributed to the success we had when we were at LSU,” Saban said. “We had a lot of really good players and people.”

Contact Ron at ronhigginsmedia@gmail.com

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By SCOOTER HOBBS,  Written for the LSWA

You just think college athletes do a lot of bouncing around from school to school these days.

It turns out the transfer portal is not just for athletes.

Take Glenn Guilbeau, for instance.

The New Orleans native, Metairie to be exact, was living the portal life long before it became fashionable — long before he ended up covering the constant hop-skip-and-jumping of college athletes.

It is now officially a Hall of Fame journey, as Guilbeau will be inducted in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame during the annual festivities June 26-28 in Natchitoches. Winner of an array of national awards for his reporting and work as a columnist, Guilbeau will receive the Louisiana Sports Writers Association’s Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism, along with the late New Orleans television sportscaster Ed Daniels.

Few on the journalism side took a longer and more winding road there than Guilbeau, although most of it has at least been based in Baton Rouge, covering LSU’s always-wild sports scene.

He first tested the portal in college, attending LSU as a freshman in 1979-80, UNO for a year, then transferring to Missouri, then back to LSU and finally finishing at Mizzou in the summer of 1983. While at LSU, he interned in sports information office under the legendary Paul Manasseh.

Diploma in hand, the bouncing around began.

It started back in Baton Rouge working for Tiger Rag before moving on to — you’ll need to take a deep breath here — the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser, Slidell Sentry News, Alexandria Town Talk, Mobile (Ala.) Press-Register, back to Baton Rouge at The Advocate, then Gannett Louisiana (based in Baton Rouge) covering LSU for the chain’s numerous state newspapers. Then he became a national columnist at OutKick.com/FOX News, and, finally, now back where it all started at Tiger Rag.

Feel free to exhale.

But that’s a guy who was never afraid to try new jobs, new places, new offices, new bosses.

New challenges.

“It has always been a lot of fun and adventure to leave a job, preferably on your own, and start a new one,” Guilbeau says. “First you get a going-away party, then you’re the new guy. Everything’s fresh.”

There was something to be said for all of them, including his stint in Alexandria at The Town Talk in the early 1990s, working for sports editor Bob Tompkins.

Most of them, you’ll note, were based in Baton Rouge or like the Town Talk gig, involved covering LSU. There is one constant throughout this varied career.

It doesn’t matter where he works or which team or sport he covers, readers are going to get Guilbeau Unfiltered.

It doesn’t always endear him to fans, but he knows no other way.

What he sees, is what he’s going to write. What he truly believes, is the opinion you’re going to read in his columns.

None of this fluff stuff. Don’t expect any sugar-coating.

He just doesn’t play that silly game, doesn’t tip-toe around any subject, can’t worry about how many feathers he might ruffle in the process.

“I always wanted to be a columnist more than a reporter,” he says. “Writing opinions doesn’t lend itself to long relationships with people at the school or on the team.”

Translation: If the home team messes up, he’s going to point it out. If the coach made a bad game-day decision — and they do on occasion — that coach will read about it in the next day’s newspaper.

Fan-boy message boards can (and sometimes do) torch him all they want.

It might surprise some of them to know that Guilbeau is universally well received by his colleagues in a competitive business with no shortage of egos.

He’s the kind of guy who, learning that a fellow LSU beat writer was hospitalized in Houston at the same time LSU baseball was scheduled to play Rice, alerted Jay Johnson and suggested that the LSU coach pay the patient a visit (he did). 

One of these moons Guilbeau might give a big hoot in Havana that he sometimes gets under his readers’ skin. Or that he’s had some minor feuds with famous coaches and school administrators over the years.

Some, probably most, do get it.

“While I have not always agreed with his opinions, he always backs up his thoughts with viable information,” says Herb Vincent, LSU’s long-time SID who is now an associate commissioner of the Southeastern Conference.

Coincidentally, Vincent will be inducted the same night as Guilbeau in Natchitoches as this year’s winner of the Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership Award.

Vincent continues: “Glenn does not cater to the fan message boards and he doesn’t shy away from expressing an unpopular opinion.   He has always been thorough in his reporting and is not afraid to ask the tough question.”

His career path was set during his teenage years after a childhood in New Orleans filled with regular visits, courtesy of his father, to watch the New Orleans Saints practice.

“I thought it would be fun to cover sports for a living. It wouldn’t be like working … or so I thought.”

Yet it all started with a love affair with the Saints and Houston Astros — both awful during his formative years.

“Consistently, yearly, the worst two teams on the planet,” he remembers.

Perhaps that explains why his prose wanders into the negative from time to time.

“I haven’t talked to a psychologist about this,” he laughs. “But maybe I should.”

Contact Scooter at shobbs@americanpress.com

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A Prized Rooster

There was a man that had two sons – I know you are thinking you have heard this story but I promise you haven’t.  They were twins and on their 16th birthday he bought them a car.  The man also had a prize rooster.  Every year this rooster too home blue ribbons in all categories – loudest cock-a-doodle-doo, best plume and proudest strut. 

One day the boys were out joy riding in their new car. They lost track of time and when they realized they would be late for dinner, they sped home.  When they came along side the house faster than normal, unfortunately they hit the prized rooster.  The boys were devastated.  Tried as they did through the night, there was no saving this rooster.  The boys asked their father’s forgiveness, and all the father asked in return was for the boys to bury the rooster under the big oak tree in the back yard.  They did, but that didn’t seem like punishment enough.  

The next day the boys decided to dig up the prized rooster thinking they might be able to bring the rooster back to life.  As you can imagine, this was a bad idea, as there was nothing they could do.  So again they buried the rooster.

Two days later, feeling unforgiven, they thought maybe we could stuff the prized rooster as a gift for their father, so again they dug up what was left of the rooster.  By this time, feathers were falling off and it no longer looked like a prized rooster at all. Again they buried the rooster.

A few days later, the boys headed out to that oak tree to once again dig up the prized rooster.  This time they were greeted by their father who took the shovels away and told the boys there was nothing they could do for that rooster.  They explained to their father they needed to do something in order to be forgiven.  To which the father replied, forgiveness can’t be earned, it can only be received and accepted.

We all have prized roosters buried in our past. Quit digging them up and receive and accept the forgiveness that is yours.

On the journey

Ramonalynn Bethley

 

Ramonalynn Bethley is the Lead Pastor of First United Methodist Church of Alexandria. You can contact her directly at DrRevRL@fumca.org

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By JIM BUTLER

The School Board is expected to approve almost $1 million in change orders for two construction projects at a special meeting today.

Both are the result of costs associated with addition of storm shelters – one at Alexandria Senior High, the other at L.S. Rugg Elementary.

The contracts are part of a bond issue approved several years ago for Wards 1 and 8 schools.

A $205,000 increase in the ASH contract will bring it to $12.58 million. Addition of 137 days takes substantial completion by MD Descant to December 2026.

The change includes that in the price of steel, an increase of $59,000 due to recent tariff increases, according to the supplier.

About 290,000 pounds of steel in 12 different products are called for in the construction specifications.

The Rugg shelter will add $775,000 to the school renovation project, also under contract with Descant.

The change brings the contract total to $4.4 million, extending substantial completion to March 15, 2026.

The board is also expected to award a contract for a Tioga High Fieldhouse. Bids were opened Monday afternoon.

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There’s an aura about the College World Series that makes it more fun to watch than a regular season Major League Baseball game. Why so? There are a few reasons.

The games feature the best teams in the sport. The eight teams that qualify deserve to be there. They all traverse some tough roads to get there, clinching the berth with a best-of-three Super Regional playoff against another high caliber team.

Each game is important. Even though it’s a double-elimination tournament, it’s important to win the first game. When LSU is in the CWS, it’s important to win the first game for the city of Omaha, as the Tigers did in fine fashion Saturday night against Arkansas, to ensure their fans stay there for a decent length of time and spend lots of money.

By winning the first game, you give yourself some breathing room in that you can absorb a loss and still have a path to the finals. And you can better manage the pitching staff and potentially rest key players. Also, although it’s not impossible to win after losing the first game, a team that wins the first game has better odds of winning the championship.

Each CWS game is a pressure cooker. it’s a close game, you may find yourself on the edge of your seat in each inning, especially the late innings. In the final inning, you can live or die with each at-bat, even each pitch.

That college teams are competing stirs the “old school spirit” for the college you attended or the university you liked as a kid. Or you might want to pull for a team simply because it is playing against a team you despise.

The folks behind the cameras at this event are top shelf. The broadcasters are usually good, too.

Someone who doesn’t care to watch the CWS recently told me all that matters is whether the team wins or loses and you can wait until the game is over to find out the answer. So why watch for hours?

That’s like asking, why sit in vigil with a sick patient? All that matters is whether he/she lives or dies. Or why spend days, weeks or longer reading  a book, when you can just get the CliffsNotes?

To appreciate going around the block, you cannot cut corners. Life is a journey. It’s about caring for one another over the long haul. The finish line – in life and in sports — is the reward for the sweat, the struggles, the pains. It is the prize for “keeping your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you,” as Rudyard Kipling wrote in “If.”

There are exceptions for not watching an entire game. During those times when your team is losing and playing poorly, it helps to step out and take a break, take a deep breath, walk off the steam, fire up the weed eater. Do whatever it takes to maintain your sanity and avoid kicking the furniture or the cat.

I unreservedly made an exception last Saturday afternoon for a dear soul I know – a beautiful woman who is confined to her room in an assisted living center. She is confined to her bed, her comfortable chair or, to get around, her wheelchair. She is 100 years old and is scheduled to hit 101 late next month.

Note I wrote “hit 101,” because that’s what she’ll do – with fists clenched — if she makes it to that age. It’s not a goal. She asked me why God doesn’t take her “and let me ascend.” She’s ready. More than ready. And, as she admitted, “I’m tired.”

How do you answer that?

I said, “I understand God’s preparing a mansion for you, and He’s not finished with it yet.”

She smiled weakly, and I said, ”As long as you’re down here …” and gestured as if preparing a bear hug, and she asked, “Hold on?”

I nodded, and, thinking of something she might like to do, I told her she could watch the Tigers play in the College World Series that started that evening at 6 o’clock. She is a big LSU fan.

“I might watch the first part but not the whole game,” she said. “Heck, I’m already ready for bed. But the first thing in the morning, I’ll check to see the score.”       

“Sounds good,” I said, giving her a hug before leaving her room.

When you’re 100 and tired, the game is not the thing. It’s the final score that counts.

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Edi was pregnant with her first child.  Her pregnancy was considered normal until she started experiencing severe pains in her abdomen.  She feared for her unborn child.  Her husband rushed her to the hospital, and doctors diagnosed her with appendicitis.  As part of her treatment, they put ice on her stomach.  The doctors feared the treatment was unsuccessful and advised Edi to abort the child.  They explained that abortion would be the best solution because they knew the child would be born with some kind of disability.  You see, the doctors had misdiagnosed Edi and feared their odd treatment had jeopardized the fetus.  Despite the dangers to herself and her child, and despite the possibility of the child being born with a disability, Edi refused the doctors’ advice.  She was determined to have her baby.

On September 22, 1958, Edi gave birth to a son.  As the doctors predicted, the child was born with a disability, congenital glaucoma.  Edi’s son was born with damaged optic nerves which were responsible for transmitting visual information from the eyes to the brain.  The boy was only partially blind.  The extremely short-sighted boy could see everything but only from up close.  By the time the boy was three-and-a-half years old, he had undergone 13 operations to try to improve his eyesight, but none of them worked.  When he was seven, his parents sent him to a boarding school for visually impaired children because no local school would allow him to enroll.  His family visited him at the boarding school once a month, and the boy returned home for holidays.  Then, an incident happened which Edi’s son said was the worst moment of his life.  The boy was playing the position of goalkeeper in a game of football — you and I would call this soccer — at the school for the visually impaired.  It was Edi’s son’s first time as a goalie, and it would be his last.  One of the players kicked the ball and it struck Edi’s son directly in the face.  The force of the strike caused a hemorrhage and darkness fell over the boy forever.  

Edi’s son may have lacked sight, but his hearing was perfect.  At the young age of six, the boy began taking piano lessons.  His interest in music led him to learn to play the drums, flute, guitar, saxophone, trombone, and trumpet.  Following high school, Edi’s son went to college where he studied law.  He supported himself through college by playing in piano bars.  Once he earned his law degree, he worked as a court-appointed attorney.  Edi’s son could have continued his occupation as an attorney and his story of achievement would certainly have been impressive, but, to our benefit, another career came calling.      

Had Edi taken the advice of her doctors, we would never have heard a voice which has been on 15 solo studio albums, three greatest hits albums, nine complete operas, and has sold more the 75 million records worldwide… so far.  Celine Dion once said, “If God would have a singing voice, he must sound a lot like…Andrea Bocelli.” 

 Sources:

1.      John Hooper, “Tenor’s story acclaimed by anti-abortion campaigners,” The Guardian, June 10, 2010, accessed June 15, 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jun/10/andrea-bocelli-abortion-italy.

2.      Thomas Edward, “Andrea Bocelli recalls the incident that left him blind: ‘That’s when darkness fell,’” Smooth Radio, September 9, 2024, accessed June 15, 2025, https://www.smoothradio.com/news/music/andrea-bocelli-blind-why-how/.