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Med Express Ambulance, which serves South Louisiana areas and is headquartered in Alexandria, is being acquired by Global Medical Response.
The company announced Wednesday that Global Medical Response (GMR) and Med Express Ambulance Service leaders have signed an agreement for GMR to purchase the assets of Med Express. Med Express has 350 team members and a fleet of 70 ambulances, wheelchair vans and support vehicles.
According to a release, employees will continue to serve their local communities under the Med Express brand as the company becomes part of the GMR family.
Mark Majors, CEO of Med Express, said the company has provided outstanding emergency medical service to more than a half-million Louisiana residents for nearly 30 years.
“The Med Express roots run deep, and we have a strong commitment to our mission of caring for our local communities. This is a positive move forward for everyone here in Louisiana, as GMR has the breadth of resources to continue supporting and providing outstanding services for our team members and our Louisiana communities.”
Majors said Med Express has worked with Air Evac Lifeteam, an emergency air ambulance team that is part of the GMR family, for several years.
Randy Owen, CEO for GMR, said the Med Express tradition of care will continue with the acquisition. “GMR is pleased to continue providing ground EMS service in Louisiana with the strong team at Med Express. Together, Med Express and Air Evac Lifeteam will provide clinical excellence and medical transportation to patients in need.”
GMR provides fire service for the oil and gas industry and airport fire rescue services in Louisiana.
“We also offer our Access2Care technology solutions that allow health systems to request an ambulance online, a service we provide in many areas of the country. We are proud to bring these innovations to the Med Express customers in Louisiana.”

40 years ago
..In 1981, beginning teachers with a bachelor’s degree could earn a minimum of $14,428 in Acadia Parish. The salary ranked Acadia Parish 18th in the state, while a teacher with 10 years of experience and a bachelor’s degree can earn $17,143, for a state-wide ranking of 24th.
...Named as library helpers at St. Michael school were, Keith Broussard, James Broussard, Kim Guidry, Elise de la Houssaye, Debbie Trouille, Cathy Cagnina, Julie Morgan, Jennifer Stakes, Jeanine Monteilh, Jeanine Goss, Joan Broussard, Angie Norris, Mollie Cassidy and Elizabeth Maraist.
...Acadia Parish produced three running backs that ran for 1,000 yards or better during the 1981 season. Crowley High’s Steven Jones led the trio with 1,622 yards and 21 touchdowns on 256 carries. Notre Dame’s David Thibodeaux posted 1,338 yards and 15 touchdowns on 207 carries and Rayne’s Dwayne Williams had 1,044 yards on just 156 carries.
...The Redemptorist Raiders’ eighth grade boys basketball team beat St. Edmund, 29-25, in the Acadian Catholic League action. Randall Schexnyder led the Raiders with nine points and Aaron Broussard had seven. Also scoring were Christian Doughty with five points and Kentry Adams had four.
...St. Michael Elementary School Student Council officers were Miyoka Broussard, president; Billy Carney, vice president; Jodie Miller, secretary; Rachael Gielen, treasurer and Bart Habetz, sergeant-at-arms.

25 years ago
... The Midland Lady Rebels won the Lake Arthur Tournament with a 49-37 victory over previously unbeaten Lake Arthur. Franki Spell led the Lady Rebels with 23 points and Cindy Larry had 13.
...Kevin Jones scored 22 points and Corey Poydras added 15 to help lead the Notre Dame Pios to a 71-55 victory over Welsh.
...No. 17 LSU accepted an invitation to play in the 29th annual Peach Bowl against Clemson. The game was the first meeting between the two schools since Jan. 1, 1959 when the Tigers defeated Clemson 7-0 in the Sugar Bowl to secure an 11-0 record and the national championship.
...The Crowley Gents fell to John Curtis, 28-7, in the Class 4A state finials at the Louisiana Superdome. Sophomore quarterback Nick Dugas hit senior tight end Joe Domingeaux on an 11-yard touchdown pass for Crowley’s only score of the game. The Gents finished the year with a record of 12-3.

10 years ago
... Redmptorist Catholic School Beta Club officers were Kaitlyn Killmer, president; Tabitha Leonards, vice president; Ansley Boudreaux, secretary; Victoria Callahan, reporter; Annie Matthews, treasurer; and Bethany Leonards, photographer.
...Notre Dame’s Tara Young was the Coach of the Year on the All-District volleyball team and Alania Savoy was the District 1-2A MVP.

5 years ago
...Crowley’s Adrian Stafford and Rayne’s Seth Duplechain were both honored by Lafayette-based KPEL radio station for their work as emergency medical technicians.
...Notre Dame football standouts Bryant Thevis, Matthew Rosinski, Patrick Burleigh and Doug Leonards were joined by Crowley High’s Xavier Johnson as selections to participate in the inaugural I-10 Bowl.

The Crowley Solitic Club will hold its 13th annual Jingle Bell Noel event on Sunday, Dec. 12.
The fun-filled afternoon will be held at the Grand Opera House, 505 N. Parkerson Ave., from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Activities at the family-friendly event will include pictures with Santa Claus, face painting, games, story time with Mrs. Claus, ornament decorating, a drawing and coloring station, and much more.
Popcorn and hot chocolate will be served.
Jingle Bell Noel is the only fundraiser of the Crowley Solitic Club, a non-profit organization, and all proceeds from the event go back into the community in the form of scholarships and donations to charitable causes.
Solitic Club President Elise Leonards says of the event, “We get to bring the spirit of Christmas to the children of Crowley while raising money for local nonprofit organizations and providing scholarships for graduating seniors.”
Advance tickets are $20 plus one new children’s book per family.
Admission at the door is $30 plus one new children’s book.
Tickets may be purchased online at eventbrite.com or at Indigo Blue, 318 N. Parkerson Ave., or Puddles and Lace, 300 N. Parkerson Ave.
For more information contact Emily Lemoine at (337) 962-8329 or soliticclub@gmail.com.

More than a quarter of American households are made up of people living alone as the ranks of senior citizens swell and younger Americans continue to delay life milestones that previous generations reached earlier in life.
There were 37 million one-person households in the United States in 2021, the U.S. Census Bureau reported this week, representing 28 percent of all households across the country and 15 percent of the overall population.
In 1960, just 13 percent of households were occupied by just one person. In the past decade, the number of Americans living alone jumped by 4 million.
Just half of American adults, 50 percent, are living with a spouse, down from 52 percent a decade ago. At the same time, the share of Americans living with an unmarried partner is rising — today, 8 percent of Americans over the age of 18 live with a partner to whom they are not wedded, almost double the 4.1 percent rate the Census Bureau measured in 2001.
Those two figures continue a long-term trend in which Americans delay marriage to later in life. When the Census Bureau first analyzed marriage data in 1947, the median man got married at 23.7 years old, and the median woman wed for the first time at age 20.5.
Today, the median age for a man when he first gets married is 30.4 years old, while the median woman is 28.6 years old. Today, 34 percent of all Americans over the age of 15 have never been married, up from 23 percent in 1950.
The data are symptoms of a population that is making critical life decisions at later ages than earlier generations at the same age. The evidence is most evident in birth rates, which have been dropping steadily for decades — and more precipitously in recent years, a phenomenon demographers call the baby bust.
“Both more young adults living alone and an increasing age at first marriage are likely to diminish the number of births. Of course, not all births occur in marriage, but the increase in young adults living alone and delayed marriage reflect changing societal attitudes about families and children,” said Kenneth Johnson, senior demographer at the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey School.
The number of American women who gave birth in 2020, a year in which many decisions to have or grow a family may have been influenced in part by the pandemic, fell at the steepest rate over the previous year since 1973, according to the National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That drop came even though there are more women of childbearing age in the population than there were a decade ago, Johnson said.
But even before the pandemic, birth rates were falling off a cliff: Birth rates were lower in every month of 2020 — including January and February, before the pandemic enforced lockdowns, and in subsequent months, when pregnancies begun long before the coronavirus dominated news headlines — compared to 2019.
The trend has continued this year: Births are down another 5 percent over the first three months of 2021 from the already record low of 2020.
Just over 3.6 million births took place in 2020, about 700,000 fewer births than occurred in 2007, the year American births reached a peak.
The intervening years included the Great Recession, which set the millennial generation well behind their predecessors in things like savings, debt and accumulated wealth — all of which tend to be precursors to decisions about whether to buy a home, get married or begin a family.
Johnson, an expert on the plunging birth rate, estimates that the fertility declines that began in the midst of the Great Recession have added up to about 7.6 million fewer births than might have been expected over the same number of years at a previous point in American history.
Another indication of the delayed life decisions is the increasing number of younger people living with their parents. The 2021 figures show 11.2 percent of adults over the age of 18 still live with their parents, up from 10 percent in 2001 and 10.6 percent in 2011.