Pig Out season nears, but whose counting calories? By Jim Butler
We’re a week away from the official beginning of Pig-Out season, also known as Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Year’s-Mardi Gras.
This annual calorie combination contributes significantly...
Gray gloves changed a custom
War leaves lasting legacies, sometimes in places and ways that we least expect. That was the story behind the headline in October 1951 about a wedding in Vermilion Parish involving a World War II v...
Tales of fortune excited heirs
Sixty-eight million dollars is a lot of money, even if it is going to be split among 120 people, especially if most of them are poor southwest Louisiana farmers.
That's why there was such big exci...
They hunted the rascals down
Rev. J.M. Johnson was the only passenger aboard the stage coach that pulled out of Bayou Chicot in what is now Evangeline Parish about 9 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 3, 1881. But the driver, Robert Fergu...
St. Landry School Board has to get past racial politics Who has the harder task - the Libyan foreign minister or the St. Landry Parish superintendent of education?
The former will try to maintain order among the host of tribes that dictator Kadafy kept...
Why Evangeline?
In a recent talk to the Evangeline Parish genealogical society, I raised the question of why the parish was named for an Acadian girl when most of the early French settlers had few ties to the Acad...
A lesson in intolerance and learning tolerance By Jim Butler
Bob Blotner’s passing reminded of how he introduced me to intolerance and helped me learn tolerance.
By virtue of our last names starting with B, he and I were in the same room in hi...
Jake, Fifine, and Father Forge
Three thousand people, about half of the town population, attended the last rites for Father Ernest Forge, a beloved and long-time pastor of St. John Cathedral in Lafayette in 1905. He was so loved...
Math, margins and public records By Jim Butler
Let’s do some math today.
First, we have a 500-sheet package of copy paper.
It cost us $2.50.
Our cost per page is one-half cent.
Second, we have a 500-sheet package of perforated le...
Early settlers were true pioneers
When we talk about the American frontier we usually think about pioneers in Conestoga wagons lumbering across the Western prairies. But the first settlers in south Louisiana were every bit the pion...
Happy 50th, Clovis Crawfish!
Remember When-Georgie Manuel column The gentle little bayou resident is half a century old this year. He was the brainchild of the late Mary Alice Fontenot and he has followers for each of those years.
Generations of Cajun children h...
Jury took up collection
Neighbors rallied around Joseph Hartman after he was convicted of manslaughter in 1847. They even took up a collection to take care of his wife when he was sent to prison.
The story started on May...