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Congratulations to Nealy Atkins for winning the Betty W. Robbins award at AEC for Volunteer of the Year
Many women have graced Junior Auxiliary of Abbeville with their talents, heart and drive for service throughout the years. Several have gone beyond the call of Chapter requirements and have shown a level of commitment that far exceeds the standard. One name stands out—Nealy Atkins. Nealy is a second year Associate Member who is the epitome of service, community and leadership.
Nealy received a Master’s degree in art education and currently works as a Visual Arts Teacher at a local high-risk elementary school. Nealy is an accomplished artist and potter who has a passion for creativity, is a lover of nature and holds the spirit of volunteerism dear.
While working as a remote Art Professor, Nealy felt a calling to interact with and serve her community. This is where her journey with Junior Auxiliary began. Throughout those first few months, a fire sparked, and she blazed forward with a renewed spirit of community and service. Nealy led her Provisional Class as Chairman of The Rummage Sale fundraiser. She routinely showed up to volunteer on different projects throughout that year landing Provisional of the Year award at the Chapter’s Awards Social.
Nealy continued her Active years with the same energy. She found a connection with the service project, Artfully Yours. Artfully Yours provided arts and crafts to children of Abbeville’s Boys and Girls Club. Her heart of service spanned across the Chapter and community, whether creating flyers for the Thanksgiving service project, Holiday Harvest, to showing up and giving her ‘woman-power’ for a community Clean-up Day picking up trash in the city. She never ceased in helping others and proved that by joining another women’s-based organization to expand her service to the community. Nealy asserted herself as teacher, encourager and, above all else, leader to children served as well as her peers within Junior Auxiliary. This cultivation of character led to her election as Chapter President for the 2018-19 year. During her reign, she actively served on projects lending her skills without hesitation. The following year, Nealy became Artfully Yours Chairman, revamping the long-standing service project to meet the ever-evolving needs of those served.
As Associate member, Nealy continues to chair Artfully Yours bringing creativity and innovation to kids who do not get exposure to high-quality arts/crafts. She cultivates their imagination and nurtures dreams that follow.
Nealy has been instrumental in the redesign of the Chapter’s website, most recently lending her time to establish online ticket sales for JA’s Charity Mardi Gras Ball.
Being an artist and potter, she designed the crest used for the Ball and graciously donates her wares for auction. Pottery was also specially made and donated to the NAJA Foundation in honor of the organization that has given her so much over the years.
The Chapter’s Encore award is presented to the Associate/Life member who continues to set the example of service by actively participating and growing the Chapter through dedication and leadership. During the 2021-22 Awards Social, Nealy Atkins received the Encore...with a standing ovation.

Someone once called the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway a “thousand-mile miracle,” but there was nothing miraculous about getting it built. The miracle was that the idea for the canal came from west Texas, not south Louisiana.
The idea of using inland waterways had been around well before Louisiana became a state. U.S. Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin formally urged Congress to consider it in 1808. The War of 1812 crimped funding for his scheme, but it also reinforced his idea that waterways were needed for military transport as well as everyday commerce.
Army engineers were finally given a little money for planning in 1824, but focused on the Atlantic coast, where most Americans lived in those days. They did think about a shortcut from the Atlantic to the Gulf across the Florida peninsula, but Louisiana never entered their thoughts.
It didn’t matter. Those plans got no further than a few lines on a map. Waterways languished for the next 50 years while money poured into the more exciting prospects offered by railroads.
It wasn’t until March 1873 that Congress approved spending “not to exceed twenty thousand dollars” for a survey “connecting the inland waters along the margin of the Gulf of Mexico” from Donaldsonville to the Rio Grande. Two survey teams did the Louisiana work. One began at the Mississippi River, the other at Sabine Lake. They met on June 6, 1873, between Vermilion Bay and White Lake, went to New Orleans to write a report, then forgot about the whole thing.
The engineer in charge did say a waterway across western Louisiana and into east Texas would replace long, often-obstructed routes using the Atchafalaya or Bayou Lafourche, and would connect the Mermentau, Calcasieu, Sabine, and Neches rivers with seaports at New Orleans and Galveston.
Both were good ideas, he said. But, as one history put it, “the prospect of dredging an inglorious ditch through an often desolate … swampland did not fire the imagination or loosen the purse strings of Congress.”
Congress did not look seriously at waterways planning again until 1909, and then largely because of relentless lobbying by a group of business owners in Victoria, Texas. They’d organized The Inland Waterway League in 1905 to push for a route from the Great Lakes, down the Mississippi, then along the Louisiana and Texas coastlines.
That summer they put ads in Louisiana and Texas newspapers calling for a convention to discuss “the feasibility, plans, and final construction of an intracoastal canal from Brownsville, Texas, to Donaldsonville, Louisiana, and for the purpose of organizing an intracoastal league.”
Several south Louisiana organizations supported the idea, but nobody went to the convention. Everybody was quarantined by a yellow fever epidemic.
Once again, there was mostly talk and little action from Congress, but the group was persistent. It may have been just to shut it up that, finally, the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1925 appropriated $9 million to begin a waterway nine feet deep and 100 feet wide from New Orleans to Galveston. It looked like the canal could become a reality.
That spurred a great deal of excitement, and towns across south Louisiana (as they had when the railroad came through in 1880) wanted a piece of the action.
The canal association president reported in June 1926, “Vinton has its waterway to connect with the Intracoastal canal now under construction. Jennings is giving serious consideration to the digging of channels to connect with the Mermentau. … Welsh is planning a survey for a waterway. …. Lake Arthur is already connected with the canal and is waiting for completion. Other towns and cities [wanting to connect] are Gueydan, Kaplan, Abbeville, Lafayette, Sulphur and New Iberia.”
When dredging began in 1929 on the link between the Mermentau River and Vermilion Bay, the Abbeville Progress reported. “Advocates … are hopeful that the canal between the Mississippi River and Galveston will be completed within a few years.”
So much for hope.
The Louisiana-Texas portion was not completed until 1942, and probably would have taken longer except for World War II. An inland canal became a lot more important when German submarines began to sink oil tankers in the Gulf of Mexico.
The canal was rushed to completion and tugs and barges rushed to use it. By 1943 they were moving every day more than a million barrels of gasoline, aviation fuel, and vital chemicals from western Louisiana and east Texas refineries to Atlantic ports to be shipped overseas.
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.

Harvest Time Church will no longer exist after 44 years on Wildcat Drive in Abbeville. The new name of the church and school is Our Savior’s Church.
The Meridional recently learned that the entire five acres and all the buildings, including the school, were donated to Our Savior’s Church, a regional church in Acadiana.
Our Savior’s Church already has six churches throughout Acadiana, including two in Lafayette, one in Youngsville, Church Point, Broussard and New Iberia.
Pastor Jacob Aranza is the lead pastor at the Abbeville church.
Former lead pastor Steve Delino will continue to preach, just not at Our Savior’s Church. In 2019, Delino began praying to God for a direction for Harvest Time.
That direction came when Pastor Aranza recently called him asking about Harvest Time possibly donating its grounds and buildings to Our Savior’s Church.
“It makes sense,” said Pastor Delino. “There are a lot of people from Vermilion Parish who attend Our Savior’s Church in Lafayette.”
Our Savior’s Church was in the process of looking for a location in Abbeville before contacting Delino.
This will be the second school that Our Savior’s Church inherits.
A few years back, Our Savior’s Church took the reigns of Acadiana Christian School in New Iberia.
One of the strengths of Our Savior’s is its regional focus with churches all over Acadiana, and Delino said the school could use those resources to help the school prosper.
Brother Brad Broussard of Pecan Island began the nondenominational Harvest Time church in 1978.
As the church expanded, a pre-K through high school was eventually opened.
Pastor Robert Wells Sr. was the lead pastor at Harvest Time for 31 years. When Pastor Wells began, the church started with 13 people. Over time, it grew to as big as 400 followers. Today, that number is cut in half.
Delino and his wife Shelia were youth pastors for 15 years under Wells, who retired.
In 2013, Steve and Sheila assumed the role of lead pastors of Harvest Time.
Steve, an Abbeville native, will continue to preach. For the last 17 years, he has been the pastor at the Glad Tidings Church in Pecan Island.
He recently launched “Steve Delino Ministries Inc.” He plans to be active in the Abbeville community.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 2 p.m. on Thursday, June 15, 2023 at Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church for William Johnny Dupre, Sr. Fr. Buddy Breaux, Pastor will be the celebrant for the service. Following the Mass he will be laid to rest at Our Lady of the Lake Mausoleum.
The family requests visitation be observed on Wednesday, June 14, 2023 from 4:00 pm until 9:00 pm at Evangeline Funeral Home. A Rosary will be prayed by the Men’s Rosary Group at 6 p.m. on Wednesday. The funeral home will reopen at 8 a.m. on Thursday until 1:30 p.m.
A native of Golden Meadow born on December 8, 1940 to the late John Evans and Hazel Terrebonne Dupre, Johnny entered into eternal rest on Sunday, June 11, 2023 at his residence.
Johnny was a loving husband, father, grandfather, great grandfather, brother and friend to many. As a young teenager he began shrimping with his parents. His love of the water lead him to a career as a boat captain in the Oil and Gas industry for many years.
He was a huge supporter of the Delcambre Shrimp Festival and was proud to serve as Shrimp King in 1978. He enjoyed gardening and his greatest joy was the time he spent with his family.
Those left to cherish his memory are his beloved wife of 65 years, Clara Belle Bourque Dupre; his son, William Johnny Dupre, Jr. and wife Tina; daughter, Clarissa D. Delcambre and husband Lenny; son in law, Terry LeBlanc; four grandchildren, Michael Paul Dupre and Natasha; Sheila Marie D. Abshire and Keith; Clay James LeBlanc and Brenna Claire Delcambre; seven great grandchildren, Landon Sanders; William Sanders; Gabby Duhon; Ty Duplechin; Melissa LeBlanc; Gabriel Abshire and Noah Abshire; one brother, Rickey Dupre and wife Michelle and his sister in law, Anna Lou Dupre.
Along with his parents, he is preceded in death by his daughter, Deborah LeBlanc and one brother, Jimmie Dupre.
Honored to serve as pallbearers are William Johnny Dupre, Jr., Lenny Delcambre, Keith Abshire, Michael Paul Dupre, Clay James LeBlanc, Terry LeBlanc and William Sanders. Honorary pallbearers will be Landon Sanders and Ty Duplechin.
Donations may be made in his name to American Heart Association Southeast Affiliate, PO Box 409410, Atlanta, GA 30384-9410 and/or Parkinson’s Foundation, 200 SE 1st Street-Suite 800, Miami, FL 33131.
Family and friends are encouraged to share their condolences and memories with the family by visiting his memorial page at www.evangelinedelcambre.com
Evangeline Funeral Home of Delcambre is in charge of arrangements.