As the state grapples with a $1.3 billion budget shortfall, agencies of every shape and form are bracing for possible reductions, even the Louisiana Center for Women and Government. Located at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, the center promotes public service by women through educational workshops, training seminars and outreach programs.
The center is also known for its hall of fame ceremony, which most recently hosted James Carville and Mary Matalin, and Statewide Leadership Institute for Women. This year, Executive Director Laura M. Badeaux says the center is requesting a simple restoration of its $300,000 operating plan that lawmakers approved in 2008.
The situation is so dire on the state level, however, and nerves are so frayed, that Badeaux says even the center’s relatively small budget could be susceptible to cuts. “What we’re assuming is everything in the state may be cut if it’s not academic,” Badeaux says. “So we’re fighting hard and proceeding with programs that are important to Louisiana.”
Specifically, Badeaux noted the Louisiana Girls Leadership Academy, scheduled for June, and the September debut of the National Women’s Leadership Summit, which is being co-chaired by U.S Sen. Mary Landrieu, a New Orleans Democrat, and U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, a Republican from Maine.
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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