Cool, overcast, fixin’ to rain. The weather couldn’t be better for planting trees, which is why Louisiana celebrates Arbor Day in January. Over at UL, arborist and horticulture professor Jim Foret is planting a Florida Leucothoe by Hamilton Hall to celebrate. Native to Louisiana’s Florida parishes, the evergreen shrub blushes bronze in the fall, and fills the air with a honey scent when it blooms with creamy white urn-shaped flowers in the spring.
Foret’s big news is that UL has just gotten word that the university has been named a Tree Campus USA by the Arbor Day Foundation. To receive the designation, the university has to commit to a program of tree care, name a tree board, execute a plan for planting and of course celebrate Arbor Day. Having a canopy of 100-year-old oaks and a collection of mature hollies, many of them planted by Foret’s late father, Dr. James Foret, who was dean of the Agriculture Department at UL in the 1980s, didn’t hurt the university’s chances to represent the urban forest here in Lafayette.
At 2 p.m., the Lafayette Garden Club will be planting along Camellia Boulevard near St. Barnabas Church. TreesAcadiana has donated seedlings to Lafayette Parish schools for tree plantings on campuses. And tomorrow at 9 a.m. TreesAcadiana and Jake Parra’s Eagle Scout Project will be planting trees on Louisiana Avenue, north of I-10, between Pont de Mouton and Merryview Farm Rosd. Everybody’s invited to participate, bring shovels, gloves and rakes. Happy Arbor Day.
In rendering his ruling, District Judge John Trahan all but called the real estate developer a liar for inconsistencies in his accounts of what prompted him to punch a school teacher unconscious.
Frank’s Casing Crew, now doing business as Frank’s International, will make its final appearance on ABiz’s list of the Top 50 Privately Held Companies in Acadiana this year, and once again it will likely be at the top with more than $1 billion in annual revenues. The 75-year-old company specializing in tubular fabrication and installation services to the oil and gas industry plans to offer shares of its stock to the public for the first time.
The defeat, or rather highjacking of House Bill 420 in the final days of this year's Legislative Session, say Reps. Vincent Pierre and Terry Landry, is the result of the propaganda spread by one unidentified local media outlet and an unnamed former state Representative, but nothing to do with the original legislation's lack of checks, balances or details.
City-Parish Council Chairman Brandon Shelvin heaped steady doses of condescending ire on a Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Louisiana executive while failing to reveal his financial ties to a BC/BS rival.
Abbeville native David Primeaux was a popular professor until his death late last year, and while he was successful at camouflaging a dark past, he couldn’t outlive it.
Tehmi Chassion’s failure to recuse himself in the school board’s selection of a group health benefits provider raises ‘serious questions’ on whether he violated state ethics law.
He’s a singer. A songwriter. A piano man. A family man. He’s even got his own Wikipedia entry. He’s David Egan. And he knows ancient secrets about the monolithic stones of Stonehenge that he’s not willing to share.
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