Sam Irwin | Thibodaux Rotary Club
April 8, 2014
Sam Irwin is a freelance journalist and writer who lives in Baton Rouge. He is the former editor of the Louisiana Market Bulletin, a state agricultural journal, and served as the press secretary for the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry under Mike Strain. He is currently the public relations director of the American Sugar Cane League. In addition to writing numerous news articles and features for the Advocate, Country Roads, Louisiana Cookin’, Offbeat and other journals, Irwin’s fiction has been published in a number of online magazines. He invites you to read The Ransom of Red Goat, a comic crime novel of New Orleans, Jefferson Parish and the Barataria. It’s available on e-book.
A product of a mixed marriage (his mother is from South Louisiana, his father’s roots are north of Alexandria, Irwin has traveled the state in search of the story. He is the author of Louisiana Crawfish: A Succulent History of the Cajun Crustacean, a new book released by History Press of Charleston, South Carolina, which makes him the foremost historian of Louisiana crawfish lore.
John M. Barry |
January 21, 2014
By: Brian Rodrigue
John M. Barry is a prize-winning and New York Times best-selling author whose books have won multiple awards. Barry is best known as the author of the bestselling book, Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America.
John Barry is a consultant for storm protection for all major storms anywhere in the world and is also the leader of the lawsuit against oil and gas companies filed in August by the local Flood Protection Authority.
Since leaving the levee board last year, a website was established by John Barry called Restorelouisiananow.org . The levee board saw themselves as a group tasked not to oversee levees, but as a group responsible for protecting people’s lives.
When considering what is happening to the Louisiana coast, this task is becoming more and more difficult. Louisiana has already lost nearly 2,000 square miles of coast. That land lost is not stopping and the lost rate is actually increasing even though it has leveled off recently.
The storm surge is increasing due to multiple causes. The levees are a cause in coastal loses even though without the levees there would be no Baton Rouge, no New Orleans and no industry between those two cities. The levees cannot be taken down; however, diversions could be built. Another reason is due to the oil and gas industry.
Many people agree that the land loss is caused by oil and gas operations. Some areas have zero loss and other areas are as high as 90 percent land loss. The oil and gas companies were allowed to exploit the Louisiana resources and in return they agreed to restore what they destroyed.
Using Delecroix area as an example, one can see the minimal losses over time before the oil and gas industry arrived. Thus, the coast can sustain itself if the oil and gas industry does not dig canals in the coastal areas. The law reads that when an area is damaged, the vegetation must be restored and the land be put back in its original condition.
Coastal restoration is absolutely necessary for maintaining storm surge protection. The govenor’s office was asked to have industry to pay for the restoration and the answer was no. The governor’s office opposes the lawsuit while every parish has supported the lawsuit.
Mr. Barry’s latest book is related to the lawsuit because the first 100 pages are about constitutional law which is summarized in that everyone is equal before the law, even the oil and gas companies.
Scott Courtright -Trinity Tree Consultants
Thibodaux Rotary Club
January 14, 2014
Mr. Courtright has been in the “green industry” his entire professional career. He currently owns and operates Trinity Tree Consultants. He received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Forest Management from Louisiana State University in 1996 and has been a Louisiana Licensed Arborist for 15 years.
As a Forester/Arborist, Scott has provided Expert Witness Testimony, conducted tree evaluations, produced tree management plans, tree inventories, tree restoration plans, tree evaluations, and tree appraisals. He was chief consultant for New Orleans City Park after Hurricane Katrina, in the effort to restore the park’s many old oak trees.
Additionally, Mr. Courtright conducts seminars, talks, and forums addressing urban forestry/arboriculture, traditional forestry, Geographic Information Systems/Global Positioning Systems Technologies, and responses to environmental incidences.
Scott has also been a keynote speaker for several Master Gardener events throughout Louisiana. He currently serves on the Louisiana Urban Forestry Council and is currently serving as the Chairman for the Educational Committee as well as the Educational Chairman for the 2014 Burden Museum and Garden Arbor Day Celebration in Baton Rouge.
One of the great natural symbols of the coastal plain of the Southern United States has to be the live oak tree, of the genus Quercus Virginiana. No one who lives outside of our region can imagine how the graceful, stately tree defines our environment.
When we realize, too, that so many old survivors were here to witness the explorations of the Spanish and French in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there is nothing less than a sense of mystery, and even awe, about such grand old things.
Robert Travis Scott-President Of The Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana (PAR)
October 30, 2012
By: Amy Connor-Flores
Robert Travis Scott is currently the president of the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana (PAR). Before joining PAR, Scott worked for 14 years at The Times-Picayune.
It was here where he received awards for his political, business and investigative reporting. Scott also served as a business editor, columnist, and investigative journalist for a non for profit think tank based in Washington, D.C.
PAR (Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana) was founded in 1950 and is a private, nonprofit, non-partisan public policy research organization. It focuses on the most pressing problems of state and local governments in Louisiana. Through PAR’s research, the organization recommends ways of solving these problems.
Although PAR does not lobby, PAR’s research gets results. Many significant governmental reforms can be traced to PAR recommendations. Through its extensive research and public information programs, PAR contributes constructive ideas and solutions to the mainstream political thinking.
The primary purpose of PAR is to educate the media and public officials’ accurate and objective information on these problems and well as specific recommendations to solve these issues.
PAR differs from other organizations through the following:
- PAR is an independent, unbiased source of information on state and local government issues.
- PAR’s only business is research.
- PAR does not lobby or have a PAC, believing that the best way to improve government operations in Louisiana is through an informed citizenry. Louisiana government will never be any better than its citizens demand.
- PAR’s recommendations are not determined by its members or its board, but by the findings of its research studies. PAR’s research program is not designed to support a predetermined point of view but to find the truth.
- PAR can and does tackle issues others can’t or won’t.
- No other group does what PAR does the way PAR does it.
Louisiana has a significant number of far-reaching problems that require study. PAR has a full research agenda planned. Permeating the list are problems that have plagued the state for a long time: the tax structure, education and governmental ethics. Louisiana needs PAR today for the same reason it did 50 years ago.
PAR also prints out a guide to voting as well as information on the amendments being proposed for that specific election. They also provide an updated handbook known as “The PAR Guide to Louisiana Legislature”
To order additional guides contact PAR at (225) 926-8414 and for more information on PAR please visit their website at
PAR Guide to the 2012 Constitutional Amendments
1. Medicaid Trust Fund for the Elderly
2. Strict Scrutiny Review for Gun Laws
3. Earlier Notice of Public Retirement Bills
4. Homestead Exemption for Veterans’ Spouses
5. Forfeiture of Public Retirement Benefits
6. Property Tax Exemption Authority for New Iberia
7. Membership of Certain Boards and Commissions
8. Non-Manufacturing Tax Exemption Program
9. More Notice for Crime Prevention District Bills
The Amazing Future Of E.D. White Education
David C. Boudreaux and Michelle Chiasson, E. D. White principal, with three 9th grade students: Cody LeBouef, Andre Broussard, and John Hue; discussed the iPad program for the 2012-2013 school year.
In the 21st century, understanding and using technology will be an integral part of virtually every aspect of daily life. It is our school’s responsibility to prepare students for this future. Our holistic approach to education is based on the belief that a young person learns from his or her whole experience.
The classroom is the primary place where this preparation will occur; therefore, every classroom must be equipped with diverse technologies to support teaching and learning. Every teacher must be knowledgeable and skilled in the use of these technologies in daily instruction. When integrated into instruction, technology will support new strategies for teaching and learning by addressing diverse learning styles, accommodating individual learning rates, helping students accept responsibility for their learning, providing the means to communicate globally, and improving academic achievement. .
Why iPad?
In addition to the amazing educational apps that may be downloaded on the iPad, it has the ability to perform the following functions:
▪ Create, read, edit, and produce a full set of Microsoft Office compatible documents
▪ Create dramatic video presentations
▪ Perform wide-ranging internet-based research
▪ Utilize subject-specific apps to engage the students in the learning process
▪ Take class notes including PDF annotation
▪ Save and retrieve files through Cloud-based storage such as DropBox
▪ Create simple and complex graphic organizer
▪ Read e-books and textbooks
After years of research, four parent informational meetings, a parent survey, and discussion by the E. D. White Advisory Council, our school will implement an iPad program for the 2012-2013 school year. The iPad has the potential to greatly enhance the way teachers teach and the way students learn.
Students can take part in the school’s lease purchase plan through Apple or bring an iPad 2 from home. They are to be Wi-Fi only without 3G capability. All iPads will connect to the school’s network and internet filtering software.
