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This year hasn’t presented many easy decisions.
While it wasn’t an easy one, Abbeville Mayor Mark Piazza said the decision to cancel the 2020 Abbeville Christmas Stroll was the right decision. The event would have taken place this Thursday.
“It was a difficult decision to make,” Piazza said. “We feel like the businesses, especially at this time, need all the exposure that they can get. That was the whole point in starting the stroll years ago.
“The origin of the stroll was to bring business to downtown Abbeville.”
After Gov. John Bel Edwards announced on Nov. 24 that Louisiana would be moving back into Phase 2 restrictions, Piazza said bringing people en masse to downtown would be too much. Piazza pointed out that Phase 2 does limit numbers for outside events to 150 people.
“When the governor moved back into Phase 2,” Piazza said, “restricting crowds, even for an outside event, it really forced us to make that decision.”
After some uncertainty regarding the decision to hold it at all, city officials had initially announced in early November that this year’s Stroll would take place. That was prior to the surge in COVID-19 cases that prompted Edwards to re-implement Phase 2 restrictions. Piazza said the goal to have it was to help those businesses, again, the mission of the event.
“We wanted to try,” Piazza said, “this year of all years.”
In the end, Piazza said the city didn’t want to put pressure on the businesses that would be open and would have to monitor capacity and masks, with people coming in and out.
“We already had a couple of the 10 businesses taking part share some concerns,” Piazza said. “When it came down to it, it was the right decision to cancel.”

NANCY DUPLECHAIN
LSN Associate Editor

VILLE PLATTE — In a first for the country, medicine and education are combining forces to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, and Evangeline Parish is ground zero for the pilot program. Local doctors are partnering up with the Evangeline Parish School Board (EPSB) to help keep students and staff safe, and to gather data that will help the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) keep track of COVID cases.
Thanks to the federal government, Evangeline Parish received 13,360 COVID-19 tests. There are around 5,700 public school students. The government is rolling out this national cooperative endeavor with public schools to protect students and staff, and to gather statistical data. The antigen tests are from BinaxNOW and are authorized for emergency use by the FDA. The tests are roughly the size of a credit card that opens up like a greeting card. They work by looking for small molecules on the surface of the virus that causes COVID-19.
Dr. Chuck Aswell, Dr. Ellis Landreneau, and Dr. Tommy Fontenot are on the Medical Advisory Board that has agreed to bring COVID-19 testing kits to schools. Students who exhibit COVID symptoms will be tested by the school nurse, with the parents’ permission. If the test is negative, but the students still has symptoms, they will be sent to their physician for a PCR (a genetic, molecular test).
Aswell stressed the school tests cost nothing for the patient and spoke of the test’s accuracy. “It’s 97% sensitive, 98% specific, so if it’s positive, it’s positive.” If the student is diagnosed with COVID-19, they will be quarantined for ten days, and their siblings will be quarantined for 14 days. The additional quarantine days for siblings are due to it taking several days for the virus to be present in the patient after catching it. Parents will be tested, too. If the student tests negative but still has symptoms like cough and shortness of breath, they need to get a PCR test before they can go back to school. Aswell said if the student and/or siblings/parents do not have a primary care physician or do not have insurance or financial resources, he will give them the PCR test.
The school tests are reported to be fast, with results ready in 15 minutes; they cost approximately $5 per test (no cost to the patient), and they do not require specialized equipment. In fact, they read much the same as pregnancy tests; two lines is “positive,” and one line is “negative.” However, like all antigen tests, positive tests are reliably positive, but negative tests are “presumptive negative.” All tests are to be electronically reported to the Louisiana Department of Health.
“What we’re trying to do is make a pilot program that’s nowhere else in the United States. This is ground zero here,” said Aswell. He has been working closely with Dr. Tina Stefanski, the Region 4 (Acadiana) Medical Director for the LDH. Stefanski will also be helping to bring this new program to New Orleans, Los Angeles, and New York. Aswell praised the LDH staff and Stefanski’s expertise on her work during the pandemic, adding, “She’s a phenomenal person, always accessible. She’s a tremendous and very honest person.” He also gave credit to EPSB Superintendent Darwan Lazard, saying, “Superintendent Lazard and his crew have done an outstanding job so far to protect our kids. Nobody’s doing this in the country. Probably in six-to-eight months they’ll be doing it, but we’re the first people doing it.”
Lazard said, “I think it’s wonderful. I appreciate Dr. Aswell accepting the challenge, helping us out. Our goal is to operate our schools safely, for the benefit of our employees and our students. We’ve had him on the phone at some very late hours, trying to chart the right path for our schools. We appreciate working with him, the Medical Advisory Committee, and with Dr. Stefanski. They’ve been absolutely wonderful. I feel like we’re doing some things that will really benefit our students and our community as a whole.”
Aswell had to take courses to get Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) certified with the state. He needed to be certified because he is overseeing the study to collect the data and to ensure the testing is conducted accurately and the students are taken care of.
According to Aswell, when people are diagnosed with COVID-19, they should follow up with their physician a few days later, adding the time window between the eighth and eleventh day seems to be the point where it gets worse. “You don’t want to see that ground-glass appearance on your lungs because you’re getting ARDS (Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome), and that’s when it’s time to save you.” He said if COVID-19 is caught early, some medications can help, but “if you’re really short of breath, you need to go to the emergency room, not to an urgent care,” because a CT scan will show the severity of the situation. He said an X-ray “doesn’t really tell you what’s going on.”
When asked if he wished more people would wear face coverings and social distance, Aswell said we are seeing severe spikes of COVID-19 cases in our country, and “I think masks and social distancing are very important. The most important thing as we go forward is we need to protect those people who are high risk.”
When asked if he sees any promise in the COVID-19 vaccines coming out, Aswell said, “That’s going to be the answer. If you take a flu vaccine it’s 40%-45% effective. These COVID-19 vaccines will be 90%-100% effective. That’s how we’re going to eradicate the disease. I’m sure there are mutations, but looking at the data now, it seems the vaccine will be good for life.” There are three companies coming out with vaccines with each company having tens of thousands of patients in their studies. “It’s safe. In all the data, it’s safe. You’re weighing the risk of taking a shot versus the risk of getting a disease that can kill you and also socially impact your life.”
Aswell said the data collected from the pilot program with the schools will help to determine new cases in the parish. “If we catch it early, we wear a mask, and we social distance, and we get people out of the system then we’re going to make a difference. In science we have to prove it. All the people who get swabbed will be in the system, as well as their parents and siblings.” He said it is rare for a child to die of COVID-19, “but one is too much. We hope to use these studies to make things better for our people,” said Aswell.

January 11, 1939 ~ November 28, 2020

ABBEVILLE — Funeral services will be held at 1:00 PM on Wednesday, December 2, 2020 at Vincent Funeral Home - Abbeville honoring the life of Nolan Joseph Colomb, Sr., 81, who died Saturday, November 28, 2020 at Heart Hospital of Lafayette. His cremains will be buried at a later date in St. Paul Cemetery.
Nolan is survived by his wife of 55 years, Sue Ann Jones Colomb; two granddaughters, Aimee Tuna and Courtney Colomb; one step-granddaughter, Jenna Duck; three great granddaughters, Lauren Tuna, Kristen Tuna and Melody Music; and one step-great grandson, Kaleb LeBlanc.
He was preceded in death by his parents, Simon Colomb and the former Azena Touchet; two sons, Nolan Joseph Colomb, Jr. and Ronald Paul Colomb; and granddaughter, Sydney Grace Colomb.
The family requests that visiting hours be observed at Vincent Funeral Home - Abbeville, 209 S. St. Charles St., on Wednesday, December 2, 2020 from 11:00 AM until time of service.
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.

Reverend John James “Jim” Merriman of Mobile, Alabama went to meet his Saviour on November 7, 2020.
Jim, age 93, was born on May 24, 1927 and was the son of John and Rosa Merriman of Vandalia, Illinois. He was a veteran of the United States Navy and served on the USS San Francisco during WWII. Jim achieved his Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology from Greenville College in Illinois, then obtained his Master’s Degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas. He pastored Abbeville’s First Baptist Church for 10 years during the 80s and spent his life serving the Lord as a Southern Baptist minister.
Jim was preceded in death by his parents, John and Rosa Merriman, his wife of 68 years Marilyn Tedrick Merriman, his son John Lester Merriman, and his two sisters, Lois Greeson and Rosemary Gerkin. He is survived by his daughters and sons-in-law: Deby and Karl Landry of Williamson, Georgia; Teri and Jay Comeaux of Abbeville, Louisiana; Pam and Mike Neely of Saraland, Alabama, 13 grandchildren, and numerous great and great-great grandchildren. He is also survived by his brother Tim Merriman and his wife Lisa of Kealakekua, Hawaii.
Jim’s funeral, officiated by Dr. Fred Wolfe, was held on November 20, 2020 at Luke 4:18 Fellowship in Mobile, Alabama, It was Jim’s wish to be cremated and he was interred with his wife Marilyn’s ashes at Alabama State Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Spanish Fort, Alabama.