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Organizers of the Daylily Festival and Garden Show announced Friday morning that the event will be moved from Magdalen Square.
Due to the higher percent of rain chances on Saturday, June 5, the Daylily Festival and Garden Show will be moved to the Cecil McCrory Exhibit Building, located at 1105 West Port St. in Abbeville.
The event will still be held from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Memorial Services will be held Friday, June 4, 2021 at 11 AM for William “Bill” D. Gooch, Jr. in the Chapel of Louisiana Funeral Services and Crematory, 108 Hardware Road Broussard, LA. The family will receive visitors beginning at 9 AM. Following the Memorial Services, interment for Bill will be at Lafayette Memorial Park Cemetery, 2111 W. Pinhook in Lafayette, LA. Graveside Military Honors will be conducted by the United States Department of the Navy. Father Louis Richard, Pastor of St. Mary Magdalen will officiate the services.
William “Bill” D. Gooch, Jr., age 90, passed away peacefully on Friday, May 28, 2021 at his residence due to complications from Parkinsons.
Affectionately known as Coach Gooch, he was a native and lifelong resident of Abbeville. Bill was born in Abbeville in 1931, graduated from AHS in 1948, and obtained his degree in education from SLI in 1952. He served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War from 1952 - 1956. Bill met his future wife and life partner, Lynn Conley, in 1947 at AHS and they were married on October 15, 1952, a marriage which spanned 68 years. Upon discharge from the Navy, Bill and Lynn began their careers as longtime educators in Vermilion Parish.
Bill was a highly successful track and field coach from 1956 - 1968 producing perennial state championship teams with numerous individual champion athletes. He later earned his Master’s degree in higher education from LSU and advanced into school administration as a guidance counselor and assistant principal. Subsequently, Bill worked for several years for the Vermilion Parish School Board as a consultant for special programs. Upon final retirement, he was able to dedicate his free time to his favorite hobby of golf which he played avidly since childhood.
The hallmark of Bill was that he was a man of the highest personal and professional integrity, known widely as a person of gentleness, kind nature and a loving heart. Throughout his life he was consistently told of the significant impact he had on the lives of so many young students and athletes.
Bill was preceded in death by his parents William “Red” Gooch and Effie Simoneaux Gooch. He is survived by his wife Lynn; brother Larry Gooch of Baton Rouge; daughter Karen O’Connor of Denver, CO; son Bill Gooch, III of Lafayette; granddaughters Kara Lynn Gaspard of New Orleans; Colleen O’Connor of Fort Collins, CO. and great-grandsons Max Bugg and Sean Linyard of New Orleans.
Share your condolences, send memorial gifts or sign the guestbook by visiting www.lafuneralservices.com
Mr. William “Bill” D. Gooch Jr. and his family were cared for and entrusted final arrangements to Louisiana Funeral Services & Crematory of Broussard (337) 330-8006.

January 29, 1928 ~ May 29, 2021

ABBEVILLE — A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 1:00 PM on Friday, June 4, 2021 at St. Mary Magdalen Catholic Church honoring the life of Rayward Joseph Frederick, 93, who passed away peacefully at his residence on Saturday, May 29, 2021. He will be laid to rest at Our Lady of Lourdes Cemetery with Father Donald Bernard officiating the services. Those serving as pallbearers will be Chase Derouen, Curt Eberhart, Kyle Frederick, Trey Derouen, Jared Frederick, and Zachary Frederick. Honorary pallbearers will be Gaven Gautreau and Ben Frederick.
Rayward was a veteran of the United States Navy, he retired from Union Oil, and was a member of the American Legion Post #29. In 1948, he played semi-pro baseball with the Abbeville Athletics, later he became an umpire-in-chief of the Babe Ruth Baseball Southwest Regional Tournament. He was a Fourth Degree Knight with the Knights of Columbus. He found joy in camping, he belonged to several recreational vehicle clubs.
He is survived by his daughter, Cindy Frederick Eberhart and husband, Glenn; sons, Phillip Frederick and wife, Kelly, and Richard Frederick and husband John; step-son, Kevin Delahoussaye; eight grandchildren, Heather Gautreau and husband Garett, Curth Eberhart and wife, Stevie, Kyle Frederick and wife , Danielle, Jared Frederick, Zachary Frederick, Chase Derouen, Trey Derouen, Trey Derouen and Taylor Gogreve and husband, Michael; and four great-grandchildren, Alexandra Gautreau, Gaven Gautreau, Ben Frederick and Amelia Frederick.
He was preceded in death by his parents, Luke Frederick and Elite Frederick Vallot; wife, Laura Denaise Frederick; brother, Gayle Frederick; step-daughter, Tammy Delahoussaye Derouen and husband Kendall Derouen.
The family requests that visiting hours be observed at Vincent Funeral Home - Abbeville, 209 S. St. Charles St., on Thursday, June 3, 2021 from 4:00 PM until 9:00 PM with a rosary being prayed at 7:00 PM; Friday, June 4, 2021 from 8:00 AM until 12:45 PM when the procession will depart for the church.
The family would like to thank the entire staff at Eastridge Assisted Living Center for their care and compassion to our father. Also, would like to thank Hospice of Acadiana for the kindness shown towards our dad.
In lieu of flowers the family request donations be made to Hospice of Acadiana or your favorite charity in memory of Rayward J. Frederick.
Condolences may be sent to the family at www.vincentfuneralhome.net.
All funeral arrangements are being conducted by Vincent Funeral Home of Abbeville, (337) 893-4661.

For public officials, things can be incredibly hectic when preparing for and responding to a hurricane.
Having all of them on the same page helps increase the efficiency of both the preparation and response.
To get all public officials and entities in Vermilion Parish on the same page, Homer Stelly got them in the same room.
Stelly, who took over late last year as director of the Vermilion Parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, held a 2021 Hurricane Preparedness meeting on Wednesday.
Officials from all levels of government, representatives from Abbeville General and Acadian Ambulance, as well as first responders in the parish, attended the meeting, which took place at the LSU AgCenter building in Abbeville.
Stelly invited Vermilion Parish Police Jury President Dane Hebert to kick off the meeting.
“I thank everyone for coming,” Hebert said. “What I would like to do is call on God to carry us through the season without any hurricanes or other disasters.”
Hurricane season officially runs from June 1 through Nov. 30. Should one or more storms
impact the parish during that time, Stelly said a high level of communication among all entities in the parish will be vital. That served as a critical message during Wednesday’s meeting.
“One of the weakest aspects is communication,” Stelly said. “We don’t communicate. If something is going on in the City of Abbeville, they can let me and the OEP office know. We can pass that information on to Maurice, Kaplan, Erath, Gueydan and Delcambre.
“That can get information and knowledge going.”
Stelly stressed that “knowledge is power,” another theme of Wednesday’s meeting. Stelly invited people from various areas of expertise to speak. That list of speakers included Roger Erickson of the National Weather Service in Lake Charles, Kirk Frith of the Vermilion Parish Sheriff’s Office, Gabe Mathiew of Vermilion Parish 911, Karen Buroker with the Office of Public Health, Mark Creswell of Acadiana Ambulance, Debbie Garrot, director of the Vermilion Parish Animal Shelter, Melissa White, who spoke about point-to-point shelter, and Lee John of the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOSHEP).
“All of these guest speakers today have the knowledge,” Stelly said. “I hope we can pass that knowledge to all the leadership in this parish. Hopefully, when you leave here today, you can go back to your organization and be able to say, I know what to do before a hurricane gets here, I know what to do during a hurricane and I know what to do after a hurricane.”
Frith agreed that bringing all parties together can yield the best results. Frith also credited the police jury for continued efforts to seek funding to construct a building that would serve as a command center during a storm.
“I credit their leadership,” Frith said. “They are going for a grant to fund a building for these types of emergencies. This would create a room big enough for all the entities to come together.
“It’s a lot easier when we’re all together.”
As this is expected to be a busy hurricane season, Erickson said it is likely that leaders in Vermilion Parish will be coming together, even if it is just to monitor potential threats.
“This is not to say how many are going to come to Vermilion,” Erickson said of predictions for the season. “Hopefully, nothing comes into Vermilion. We’re just expecting it to be busy in the Gulf of Mexico. If nothing else, we will get a lot of practice when monitoring something in the Gulf.
“Hopefully, Louisiana catches a break this year, and we don’t get the activity like we did last year.”
Erickson said planning is important because you can’t will away a storm.
“Nature is nature,” Erickson said. “All you can do is track it and then respond to it.”
Stelly said communication among everyone in the parish could create a cohesive response.
“I like to see everyone in the loop,” Stelly said. “Tom is going to talk to Bill. Bill is going to talk to Mary. All of this knowledge is then going to start moving around Vermilion Parish.”