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40 years ago
...Members of the Iota High School FFA Chapter that placed in the top 20 during the State Soil Judging Contest held in Ruston included Geoffrey Prudhomme, Steve LeJeune and Matthew Reagan.
...Members of the Midland High School Beta Club that attended the State Beta Club Convention in Baton Rouge included Alice Higginbotham, Rachelle Primeaux, Damon Smith, Angela Hoffpauir, Beth Benoit, Rachel Mayer and Mena Cormier.
...Junior Benoit scored 25 points to lead the Iota Bulldogs to a 61-55 basketball victory over Notre Dame. Joe Faulk led the Pios with 15 points and Eric Hetzel had 15.
...Billie Regan, a member of the St. Francis Elementary 4-H Club, received two first-place awards and one champion award in the arts and crafts contest held at the Swine Festival in Basile.
...Jerome Batiste scored 29 points and Greg Lazard pitched in 20 to help lead the Crowley Gents to a 69-33 basketball victory over Lake Charles High School.
...Notre Dame junior varsity basketball cheerleaders for the 1981-82 school term were Michelle Thibodeaux, Jody Comeaux, Lynette Simar, Gretchen Leonards, Jackie Habetz and Catherine Arceneaux.
25 years ago
... Cheerleaders at St. Francis School of Iota were Adria Webb, Angelle Joubert, Ashely Frederick, Michaela LeJeune, Amber Lanthier, Lauren Lantz and Annie Frey.
...Vanessa Clement had a game-high 20 points and Carlotta Caffey scored 15 to help lead the Notre Dame Lady Pios to a 55-35 basketball victory over Teurlings Catholic.
...Joseph Cormier poured in 25 points for Northside Christian to help lead the Warriors to an 85-63 victory over Reserve Christian. Justin Mier also scored in double figures with 10 points.
...Crowley High coach Lewis Cook was named the District 4-4A Coach of the Year and CHS receiver Marcus Wilridge was named the team’s Offensive MVP after the Gents claimed the league title with a perfect 5-0 record.
...Notre Dame’s Donnie Gaspard was named the 6-2A All-District Coach of the Year after guiding the Pios to their second straight league title. Brent LeJeune was named the Offensive MVP after he rushed for 2,468 yards and 43 touchdowns.
10 years ago
... Mire Elementary selected Taylor Meche as the fifth grade Student of the Year. Selected as the eighth grade Student of the year was Jacob Wade.
...Dylan Montgomery scored 16 points and pulled down 13 rebounds to help lead Crowley High to a 73-64 victory over district rival Northwest. Montgomery also had seven blocks, three assists and two steals.
...Tori James Premo was crowned the 2011 Midland High School Homecoming Queen at halftime of the Rebels’ 79-31 victor over Pitkin High School.
...McNeese’s Ashlyn Baggett scored 24 points and scored her 1,000th career point in a 64-43 home loss to LSU.
5 years ago
... Chris Osten hit a shot in the lane with 12 seconds remaining to give Crowley High a 59-58 victory over David Thibodeaux Academy in the Gents’ opening game of the Midland Holiday Spectacular. Osten led all scorers with 24 points and Josh Burnett had 15.
...Iota’s Avery Wriborg was named Division III-3 volleyball MVP.

Americans are packing up and heading out this holiday season.
AAA is expecting more than 109 million Americans to travel at least 50 miles in the immediate days surrounding Christmas and New Year, which is up almost 34% from last year.
“Americans who canceled their vacations in 2020 want to gather with family and friends for the holidays this year, although they will still be mindful of the pandemic and the new omicron variant,” said Paula Twidale, senior vice president of AAA Travel in a news release. “With vaccines widely available, conditions are much different and many people feel a greater level of comfort with travel.”
The group says the increase will bring travel back to nearly 2019 levels.
More than 100 million Americans will hit the road for holiday getaways and gatherings.
More than six million people are expected to travel by air, while three million people are booking buses, trains, and cruises.

Gov. John Bel Edwards’ administration and Louisiana’s legislative leaders appear to have struck a deal to use $27 million in federal pandemic aid to help pay for a portion of the renovations to the New Orleans Superdome, two months after lawmakers stalled a prior financing proposal.
The Edwards administration describes a state contribution to the Superdome upgrades as critical to reaching an agreement with the Saints that keeps the NFL team in the state for decades.
After behind-the-scenes negotiations, the federal funding plan — along with a companion plan to let the Superdome manager pay off a debt to the state years early — goes before two panels for approval Thursday.
The Bond Commission and the joint House and Senate budget committee have to back the arrangement for the proposal to work.
That appears likely to happen after Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne, Senate President Page Cortez and House Speaker Clay Schexnayder said they have agreed on the outlines of the financing plan.
“I am comfortable with it. I think members will be comfortable with at as well. I think we’re in good shape,” said Schexnayder, a Gonzales Republican.
Details of the arrangement were outlined to The Associated Press and described in a memo from the Superdome oversight board, the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District, provided by Dardenne’s office.
The new arrangement would have the state putting up $54 million of the $450 million in stadium improvements: $27 million already authorized through the state construction budget and $27 million from the federal coronavirus relief aid.
That’s down from previous proposals that would have the state contributing $90 million to the Superdome renovations.
“We have what I believe is going to be an acceptable agreement to everybody,” said Dardenne, the Democratic governor’s chief budget adviser.
The reworked Superdome improvement plan would keep the Saints at the original plan of putting up $150 million while the share from the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District would increase to $246 million.
And the state’s share could drop even lower than the $54 million. Cortez said the $27 million in federal pandemic assistance would be returned to the state if hotel/motel tax dollars allocated to the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District rebound to certain levels by 2023.
“We want to be frugal in how much we put into this, and we want the stadium agreement to be a fairer deal for the state,” said Cortez, a Lafayette Republican. “It’s gotten to be a better partnership.”
The state’s current lease with the NFL team expires in 2025, though Saints owner Gayle Benson has pledged she intends to keep the club in New Orleans long-term.
The $450 million in upgrades to the nearly 50-year-old iconic stadium in downtown New Orleans — with expanded club and suite levels, new concession stands, viewing decks and other improvements — was part of a plan announced by Edwards more than two years ago aimed at keeping the Saints in New Orleans through 2055.
The stadium renovations began in 2020 and are expected to wrap up before the Super Bowl scheduled to be held in the Superdome in February 2025.
Dardenne said it’s critical to reach a deal on the state’s share of the financing by the end of the year so the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District can sign a contract for the next phases of the construction work.

After more than five years, the case of a Church Point woman’s death has been closed.
In 2016, Bethany Walters died from a gunshot wound to the head. At the time, St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s deputies conducted a suspicious circumstances death investigation, saying that it could be a homicide or a suicide.
The man she was living with, Michael Guillory, eventually was indicted on a charge of second-degree murder in the case, and his trial was set several times in 2020. The indictment happened under a previous District Attorney.
On Wednesday, the current District Attorney, Chad Pitre, announced that he had taken a guilty plea from Guillory on a charge of negligent homicide in Walters’ death, citing a “lack of direct evidence of guilt.”
Walters’ family hired their own experts to examine the evidence, and brought the reports of those experts to the DA’s office.
After looking at that evidence, “our prosecution team determined that while this new evidence supported the conclusion that Bethany did not die of suicide, the evidence also left questions as to the manner of death,” wrote Assistant District Attorney Alisa Gothreaux.
The prosecution team determined that it would be difficult to convince a jury that Guillory had the specific intent to kill Walters, which is one of the elements of the crime that the prosecution must prove at trial for a conviction.
“The victim’s family urged the District Attorney to allow the jury to decide the defendant’s fate,” the release states. “Pitre said he understood the family’s disappointment but cautioned that the law requires the state to prove specific intent which was missing in this case.”
The maximum sentence for negligent homicide in Louisiana is five years in prison.