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The Lt. Dronet Detachment Marine Corps League and Gulf Coast Bank Scholarship is awarded to one full-time high-achieving high school graduate from Vermilion parish to attend SLCC’s Abbeville campus. The scholarship is awarded in the amount of $1,000 with installments of $500 per semester.
The Lt. Dronet Detachment Marine Corps League and Gulf Coast Bank Scholarship will be awarded for the Fall semester beginning in August and Spring semester beginning in January. The scholarship was created in 2013 and is awarded annually.
Gulf Coast Bank President and CEO Paul Patout and Gulf Coast Bank Vice President Jason Patout presented Gulf Coast Bank’s annual contribution to the Lt. Dronet Detachment Marine Corps League and Gulf Coast Bank scholarship to Lana Fontenot, SLCC Foundation Executive Director and Morgen Landry, SLCC Development Officer.
Glenn Suire, MCL Lt. Dronet Detachment Sr. Vice Commandant; Paul Mire, MLC Lt. Dronet Detachment Commandant; Thomas B. Thompson, MCL Lt. Dronet Detachment Adjutant/Paymaster; and Bill McKee II, MCL Lt. Dronet Detachment Chaplain Detachment Chaplain, presented the Abbeville, LA Lt. Dronet Marine Corps League (MCL) Detachment No. 1304’s annual contribution.
Paul Patout previously served on the SLCC Foundation Board and has strong ties to SLCC after five of his six children attended classes there.
“One great thing about SLCC is that it has campuses throughout Acadiana, which makes higher education more accessible to more people. The community college enables the workforce to rise to a new level,” Patout said. He also pointed out that Gulf Coast Bank has and continues to hire many SLCC students and graduates.
Patout challenges other businesses throughout Acadiana to get involved and help-out financially.
Students interested in applying for the Lt. Dronet Detachment Marine Corps League and Gulf Coast Bank Scholarship can log onto solacc.edu and click on “Scholarships.” The deadline to apply for this scholarship and others is June 1, 2017.
For information about establishing a scholarship or giving to the Foundation, contact Lana Fontenot, Executive Director of the SLCC Foundation, at 337-521-9026 or Lana.Fontenot@solacc.edu.
Gulf Coast Bank is a locally-owned and operated full-service banking institution with fourteen locations throughout Acadiana, including branches inside four area Walmarts.
South Louisiana Community College is a comprehensive community college that operates campuses in Abbeville, Crowley, Franklin, Lafayette, New Iberia, Opelousas, St. Martinville, and Ville Platte. The college serves more than 13,000 students annually and offers an array of academic programs. Students earn associate degrees, technical diplomas, certificates, and industry-based certifications. It is ranked 14th among the Top 100 Associate Degree Producers as determined by Community College Week.

An “armed and ready,” Louisiana-based super PAC called Truth In Politics started taking aim at Gov. John Bel Edwards last week not long after lawmakers convened their spring regular session.
With startup funding from a group of well-connected donors like Cajun Industries founder Lane Grigsby and a fundraising operation being headed up by Allee Bautsch, who helped build the campaign war chests of former Gov. Bobby Jindal, the group will operate under a large umbrella that will include 501(c)3, 501(c)4 and 527 structures.
Media consultants have already been hired as well.
While such threats are not uncommon across today’s political landscape, those involved with Truth In Politics insist the effort is not a flash in the pan and that organizers are committed to three years of engagement.
Television, radio, billboards and polling are all part of the larger game plan as Edwards inches toward re-election and navigates one tumultuous session after another.
Kelli Bottger, currently the state director of the Louisiana Federation for Children, will be transitioning away from that position to lead Truth In Politics.
“We’re going to be an accountability hub,” she said. “And we have the whole kitchen sink coming. We’re ready.”
While the focus will be on Edwards, his politics and his policy agenda, Bottger said other elected officials may be taken to task as well by the group.
This creates a possible PAC-against-PAC face-off with Rebuild Louisiana, the pro-Edwards organization being operated by Baton Rouge consultant Trey Ourso. He said he welcomes the competition and plans to place “an emphasis on truth” as the anti-JBE group gears up.
“We wouldn’t want a PAC named that telling lies about the governor,” he said with a laugh.
The attacks actually started last week with a Truth In Politics digital ad called “Louisiana’s Hurting.” It claims that the governor “raised taxes on nearly everything” last year.
The spot also seeks to undermine the administration’s session agenda.
Meanwhile, Ourso’s outfit, Rebuild Louisiana, started circulating an internal poll that showed wide support for the governor’s session plan.
A PAC is a political action committee regulated by the state Ethics Administration. Sometimes they oppose or support candidates. In other instances they might just push a single issue.
PACs can be structured in different ways — for example, a super PAC is allowed to raise unlimited donations and does not have to follow the same giving guidelines as standard PACs.
JBE has leadership PAC too
Not to be outdone by the donor forces acting against him — and in an effort to help groups like Rebuild Louisiana — supporters of Gov. John Bel Edwards quietly established a leadership PAC last year to help further his agenda.
The John Bel Edwards For Louisiana Leadership PAC is definitely off to a much slower start compared to the official Edwards campaign, which raised an impressive $3.3 million last year with roughly that much in the bank as of Feb. 15.
The leadership PAC, being run by Robert and Gwen Barsley of Ponchatoula, raised $77,000 in 2016 and has $65,000 cash on hand.
The governor’s special guest
Gov. John Bel Edwards had a special guest on the House floor with him last week during his session-opening speech — his brother, Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff Daniel Edwards.
It was yet another show of support from the governor for his sibling.
According to The Advocate, “the FBI has launched an investigation into a fraudulent bail-bond scheme within the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff's Office, bringing fresh federal scrutiny to the administration of Sheriff Daniel Edwards.”
The sheriff is declining to comment on the investigation while still confirming it, while the governor told Baton Rouge’s daily newspaper in December, “Without any fear of contradiction or ever being proven wrong, I will tell you now, he did not engage in anything improper, much less illegal.”

North Louisiana runoff still hot

Raymond Crews continues his charmed candidacy in the House District 8 runoff with endorsements from U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, Congressman Mike Johnson, Attorney General Jeff Landry and retired Air Force Col. Rob Maness.
With the bulk of Baton Rouge’s business lobby behind him as well, Crews enters the April 29 runoff against Robbie Gatti with a political wind at his back.
But Gatti, a fellow Republican, is by no means going at it alone. His brother — Sen. Ryan Gatti, R-Bossier City — is a legislator, he’s well-liked in his church community, Bossier City Mayor Lo Walker is behind him and the American Physical Therapist Association has endorsed his campaign.
The Louisiana Federation for Children, however, has been pouring money into the race to help Crews push past the finish line, with radio and mail continuing in the runoff.
That total investment could potentially end up being somewhere north of $80,000.
Locally, you couldn’t find a hotter race, especially after the opposition research dump on Gatti in the primary, which largely surfaced on TheHayride.com. That research questioned everything from personal to business decisions.
Rep. Alan Seabaugh, R-Shreveport, among others, have been hands-on. Seabaugh, for his part, recently took to Facebook with this line: “Louisiana can not afford another Gatti in the Louisiana Legislature.”
Political History: Legislative sessions weren’t always like this
Historically Louisiana lawmakers are fond of making changes to when they meet in legislative sessions.
From its inception in 1812 until 1879 the Louisiana Legislature met on an annual basis. Just like it does now.
The exception was a span of time between 1845 and 1852 when lawmakers decided to go with a biennial 60-day session, meaning every other year.
In fact, lawmakers liked it so much that the Legislature went back to that biennial format in 1880 and stuck with it all the way up until 1954, when Robert F. Kennon was governor.
It was during the 1954 session that lawmakers advanced a constitutional amendment that set up the session framework we’re all familiar with today. That legislation called for annual sessions, with those held in odd-numbered years hosting budget and fiscal matters.
Over the years lawmakers have reversed that order, going to tax matters only in even-numbered years and, more recently, switching back to the 1954 model of having fiscal sessions in odd-numbered years.
The December 1954 edition of the Louisiana Law Review dives into a bit of this history and also made this observation, which serves as a reminder that some things never change at the Capitol: “Anyone surveying the total of the legislative product cannot fail to be impressed with the large number of relatively trivial matters upon which the legislature is compelled to expend time during each session.”
They Said It
“A good tax is one someone else pays and a bad one is one I pay.”
—Rep. Kenny Havard, R-St. Francisville
“This hearing gives me a headache every year. I'm sorry. It's horrific.”
—Speaker Pro Tem Walt Leger, D-New Orleans, during a higher education budget meeting

For more Louisiana political news, visit www.LaPolitics.com or follow Jeremy Alford on Twitter @LaPoliticsNow.

For the second year in a row, employers in the area have an opportunity to fill open positions with Vermilion Parish talent.
The Vermilion Parish Job Fair will open at 9 a.m. this Wednesday, April 19, at Abbeville High School. Job seekers will have four hours to meet with businesses from around the region. There is no charge for the event.
The event is being conducted by the Vermilion Chamber of Commerce, the Vermilion Economic Development Alliance (VEDA) and other partners.
“Last year was a major success,” VEDA Executive Director Anne Falgout said. “Because we hadn’t had a parish-wide job fair in Vermilion in over a decade, it created quite the hype.”
More than 700 people looking for jobs attended.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we had somewhere close to that this year,” Falgout said.
However, the amount of businesses may be a bit lower than a year ago because of various circumstances.
“People are still excited about putting locals back to work,” Falgout said, “but this year the situation has changed a bit. Businesses are telling us that they’re doing more with less – meaning they’re either not hiring, or can’t spare the time to attend the fair.
“Businesses like people in Vermilion are resilient, so we weren’t surprised to hear that they were adapting after the changes in the oil and gas industry and post flooding economies.”
Just as businesses have adapted, organizers of the job fair took suggestions last year and made a few changes to improve this year’s event.
“We received rave reviews last year about the event,” Falgout said. “The few issues that were addressed centered around logistics, all of which have been addressed for this year – we are providing a lunch to our employers after the event so we can have a proper debriefing with those involved, we’re making sure the school bells get turned off (it was a hilarious oversight last year) and we will have maintenance staff onsite all day to ensure our facilities stay clean and stocked.
“We want to keep our employers happy and coming back each year if their workforce needs are there.”
When the workforce needs are met, it is a great thing for economic development.
“In every survey and article published in our field, workforce availability ranks at the top in terms of importance,” Falgout said. “Everything from education to expansion probability revolves around employees. In smaller communities like ours, economic development goes one step further, too. We’re just as concerned with community-oriented initiatives as we are with assisting businesses. Getting our hard-working people back into stable job environments must be a priority if we want to sustain our parish’s economic success. A low unemployment rate means more money circulating in our communities, which translates to more services, better infrastructure and ultimately an improved quality of life for everyone.
“It’s my favorite project of the year because it brings the business community and our residents together in a meaningful way.”

Several Church communities came together to celebrate Abbeville's first Spirit Fest at the Christian Service Center.
Several hundred people with many faith backgrounds and folks from the local neighborhood came together to honor God and one another during Spirit Fest. New Life Church, Harvest Time, St. Mary Magdalen, St. Theresa's, First Holy Ghost, Lighthouse Ministries, Family Missions Company, St. Paul's Episcopal Church, United Methodist Church and Pleasant Green Baptist Church were all present and worked together for the ecumenical event.
For the last month, participating churches collected food in support of the Christian Service Center. Churches were invited to collect a particular item in order to provide a special gift bag to give away for the event. For example, Harvest Time collected hundreds of cans of spaghetti sauce, St. Paul's and United Methodist Church collected pasta, Pleasant Green Baptist Church collected desserts and several other churches and schools collected canned vegetables. On the days leading up to Spirit Fest, the food was delivered to the Christian Service Center and on Saturday morning, over 100 volunteers from a dozen faith communities gathered and assembled bags of food to give away to those in need. Over 400 bags of food were assembled and given away within the last week, due to the teamwork and commitment of local faith communities.
"The mission of the Christian Service Center is the 'Feed the Body, Mind and Spirit with Love'. In this event, our goal was to do just that. We had a ecumenical prayer team, we provided resources to empower the community for a better life and we offered food for the body as well. We plan on this being an annual event" said Director of Operations, Marcelo Davis.
John Listi, whose parents founded the Christian Service Center forty years ago said, "Having been raised on that property and knowing that it had always been used to serve the Lord and glorify God, it was amazing to see the Christian community come together across racial and denominational boundaries to praise God together and love one another in the spirit of unity."
Frank Summers, Catholic missionary and founder of Family Missions Company added, "It was the first time I have ever seen so many denominations all come together in this area for the common purpose of serving the poor and honoring God".
Pastor Lane Payne from New Life Church who helped to plan the event was filled with optimism as he shared, "I am thankful to the leadership of the Catholic Church for opening the opportunity to us to join with them in bringing Jesus to our Community. I am so looking forward to working together with the entire Body of Christ moving forward."
Other church leaders and pastors expressed great enthusiasm for the new momentum to serve the community in a unified effort. "I am so deeply thankful for the uniting of so many different churches and groups to serve the needs present in this community. Spirit Fest was Spirit-filled as we shared together the love of God, especially for those in need." says Fr. Christopher Heying from St. Paul's Episcopal Church.
Reverend Osborne Taylor from NAACP shared "The Spirit Fest was phenomenal. There was such a sweet Spirit of peace and togetherness. I believe Heaven was well pleased."
Pastor Michael Wight from Pleasant Green Baptist Church said,
"I was so blessed to be a part of this, it was so wonderful to see everyone working together for a common good. We need more opportunities like this for our Abbeville Community."
Spirit Fest was an awesome time of God's people coming together under one banner. The Love of God, through Jesus Christ His Son, Vermilion Parish will never be the same after this beautiful show of unity in the Body of Christ, said Pastor Steve Delino from Harvest Time.
"We hope this is the beginning of a stronger team effort for our community to come together and 'Feed the Body, Mind and Spirit with Love.' added Marcelo Davis. "Our next focus will be on serving together as a united community for a teen service day on July 29th, 2017. We will keep the community informed as we move forward.
The Christian Service Center would like to thank all the pastors, volunteers and individuals who contributed to making the event a success. Sponsors include Gulf Coast Bank, Abbeville General, Vermilion Parish School Board, Vermilion Interact Club.