Michael Doucet, fiddler for BeauSoleil, has been awarded the country's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. Doucet is one of 12 recipients of the 2005 NEA National Heritage Fellowships, which include a one-time award of $20,000. Award recipients are judged by a panel on their continuing artistic accomplishments and contributions as practitioners or teachers.
Doucet and his fellow winners will be honored in Washington, D.C., with an awards presentation at Capitol Hill and a concert at George Washington University on Sept. 23. ' SJ
KQIS' WIRTZ JOINS KATC
Last week Tracy Wirtz left her five-year gig at KQIS 102.1 to take Candice Gale's morning show spot at KATC-TV3. The former host of "Fast and Tracy in the Morning," Wirtz also served as the adult contemporary radio station's news and programming director. "It'll be nice to have one major focus," she says.
Though her radio experience dates back to 1988, the 35-year-old mother of three has been on the tube as the commercial face of Courtesy Automotive Group for the past five years, a post she's also leaving for her new job.
Wirtz, who lives in Crowley, has a degree in mass communication and broadcast production and says she's always hoped to land in TV. She hits the morning airwaves mid-month, joining co-host Tom Voinche and meteorologist Dave Baker.
Gale and her husband, Lewis, relocated to Utah ("UL dean and his TV wife head west," May 18). ' LT
ACADIANA CHEFS SPOTLIGHTED
Louisiana Cookin' magazine features two Acadiana-born chefs on its August cover. Holly Goetting, a Lafayette native, rules the kitchen at Charley G's Seafood Grill. She studied under Chef John Folse at Nicholls State, interned at Goose Cove Lodge on the coast of Maine and cooked at Mirabelle in Colorado before returning to Lafayette, where she whipped the pastry station into order before rising to executive chef.
Chuck Subra, born and raised in New Iberia, stirs things up as executive chef of La Cote Brasserie in New Orleans. Subra got his start in cooking working for Peltier's Catering in New Iberia. After culinary school at Delgado Community College in New Orleans, he honed his chops at Versailles Restaurant, Windsor Court and Rene Bistro before being tapped for executive chef at La Cote Brasserie.
The pair, along with New Orleanians Anton Schulte of La Petite Grocery, Bob Iacavone of Cuvee and Kristen Essig (who runs The Savvy Gourmet School of Cooking), were dubbed Louisiana Cookin's "Chefs to Watch" for 2005.
Locals will get a chance to taste Subra and Goetting's creations at a series of guest chef dinners at Clementine in New Iberia. Subra will be cook on July 6, and Goetting makes her way down the Teche on July 20. For reservations, call Clementine at 560-1007. ' MT
MAY 17 Here's a column from James Gill, this time in the Advocate. Gill, who has jumped ship from the Picayune, writes about the absurdity of dueling polls in this post. The numbers are so wildly different, it is obvious that both sides are "cooking the books," he writes. In particular, he looks at Sen. Mary Landrieu, and how her recent actions in DC have been received by those polled. Gill's acerbic, amusing prose is a welcome addition to a paper so conservative as to be occasionally lacking in personality.
MAY 17 Blogger Tom Aswell continues delivering bombshells about the state education department and Gov. Jindal's education "reform" efforts. In this post, he reports that students in the Shreveport area have been signed up for a charter school without their knowledge or consent. Most interesting to Aswell is how this Texas-based charter (with ties to GOP types) got the personal student information it has, if the students didn't give it.
MAY 17 This post by JR Ball in the Baton Rouge Business Report is an interesting tongue-in-cheek look at recent Baton Rouge economic development efforts. Among the items he examines is the idea that gaining a Costco makes BR a "world-class city." (Really? All you need is a different brand of Sam's? MK!) This effort, and other recent ones, are all built on the taxpayer's back, with tax zones, tax incentives and tax rebates, Ball writes.
MAY 17 Blogger CB Forgotston is critical of the legislature's reliance on a revenue-estimating committee's decision to include projected tax amnesty income in this year's forecast. That's a problem, CB posts, because the deadline for these people to pay their taxes is June 30, 2014. So when do you think these people who haven't paid taxes in years are going to pay their taxes? Surely not before June 30, and that means the money won't be there for this year's budget, he argues.
MAY 17 Here's an interesting blog out of California by a Hollywood writer, attorney and academic named Brian Alan Lane. He blogs about higher ed, and was a whistle-blower in a scandal over false credentials. In this post, he takes aim at LSU's new top dog, King Alexander. It's convoluted and a little confusing, but it sure makes Alexander a lot more interesting than he was yesterday.
MAY 17 Blogger Robert Mann writes about the LSU Board's refusal to allow Dr. Fred Cerise to testify before the legislature about Gov. Jindal's plan to close down all the state's charity hospitals and dump the poor on the private system. It's hard to imagine anyone more qualified than Cerise to testify about that, so why would anyone try to prevent him doing so? Mann thinks it is because the powers that be aren't interested in hearing any truth about the plan.
MAY 17 This post on the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle, a blog that notes developments in the Bayou Corne and Jefferson Island salt domes, talks about a proposed expansion of the salt dome storage under Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish. Residents are working against it for several reasons, including two biggies: the sinkhole disaster in Bayou Corne and the continuing, unexplained bubbling on the surface of the Lake.
MAY 17 NOLA police arrested more people Thursday accused of either being involved in the Mother's Day shooting or hiding the suspect afterward, this Gambit story reports. The NOLA police chief said he suspects the whole thing was gang-related and throws out a challenge to the gangs: he's got informants now, he says, and he knows a lot more than the gangs want him to know. The people who live in the neighborhoods terrorized by gangs are ready to talk, he says.
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