When James Lee Burke was building his new house in New Iberia, over a decade ago, he called me to ask if there happened to be a liberal catholic church in town. I didn’t know, but I knew who would — a small group of nuns who had been working for social justice in south Louisiana since the 1960s. The nun's organization, Southern Mutual Help Association, has won many awards over the years and recently received tremendous accolades for their quick response to Hurricanes Rita and Katrina.
Jim Burke found spiritual sisters in them, and lovingly created a character, Molly Boyle, a red headed ex-nun who becomes the third wife of Burke’s famous detective, Dave Robicheaux, in the novels Crusader’s Cross and Pegasus Descending. So it is no stretch to see why the red carpet premier of In The Electric Mist, the film version of another Burke novel, In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead, starring Tommy Lee Jones, John Goodman, Peter Starsgaard and Mary Steenburgen, is being held as a benefit for SMHA.
The premier will take place on February 18, at the Grand 10 Theatre in New Iberia. Burke will be in attendance. The $35 price of the ticket will also include a reception at The Gouguenheim, in downtown New Iberia, following the screening. Tickets will go on sale at Books Along the Teche, 367-7621, on Feb. 7, with a limit of two tickets per purchase. On line, tickets can be bought at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/55744. The film will also play for a limited run, from Feb. 20-26, at the Grand 10 in New Iberia, before heading straight to DVD.
David Calhoun and Elizabeth “EB” Brooks are the first two employees of Lafayette Central Park Inc., the nonprofit charged with turning Lafayette Consolidated Government’s 100-acre Johnston Street Horse Farm property into a passive public park. Calhoun was named executive director, and Brooks is director of planning and design.
At Thursday's State of the Economy luncheon, LEDA President and CEO Gregg Gothreaux said PXP has already quietly hired 180 people for its Broussard expansion.
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.
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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