Louisiana Folk Roots, the organization behind the Dewey Balfa Cajun and Creole Heritage Week, is reaching out to the next generation of musicians and ambassadors of local culture. A June day camp for kids ages 6-12 offers summer fun combined with intensive learning. The two independent one-week sessions, June 16-20 and June 23-27, will present some of Acadiana’s young-adult musicians to serve as instructors and role models. Feufollet fiddler Chris Segura, who started playing professionally at age 11; Courtney Granger, grand-nephew of Dewey Balfa and member of Balfa Tourjours , who released his first album at 16; and accordion player Kristi Guillory of Bonsoir, Catin, who formed her first band at 12 comprise the stellar team of music teachers. Campers will bring their own instruments, and study intensively with the instructors, as well as playing in a camp band. Other activities include French singing and dance classes, cooking, Louisiana cultural history, and a field trip. The camp will be held at the Acadiana Center for the Arts, in downtown Lafayette. Tuition for each one week session is $175. The time to sign-up is now, while there’s still space for campers. To sign up, call Folk Roots at 234-8360.
There will soon be a whole lot of shakin’ going on at Benny’s Sportshack Supplement Depot, a new concept by Opelousas native Benny Nele. Located at 2002 Johnston St., the supplement shop, smoothie bar and café, featuring hot off the press paninis and wraps, plans to open in late May.
Philip deMahy Sr., a once respected New Iberia ad exec, was sentenced May 2 to spend the next two years (he faced up to 100 years) in a state penitentiary after state and federal investigators found dozens of images depicting children engaged in lewd sexual acts on his personal computer.
This year’s Cool Town issue is all about people who are not native to South Louisiana but made a conscious decision to be here, to be among us, to participate in our culture and contribute to it.
A shelved ordinance transferring $200,000 from a northside drainage project to a south Lafayette development may not break any laws, but it stinks to high heaven.
An effort to restore a shuttered dancehall and document other vacant or razed honky-tonks could serve as a model for saving an endangered species of entertainment.
Lafayette’s gene pool has been host to a long line of eccentric characters who have blurred the lines between crazy, genius, disturbed and curiously entertaining.
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