Columns

Members of every governing agency and body have tough decisions to make in considering their responsibilities to their organization, to this community, to their own integrity. If you have followed our coverage of the East Carroll Parish Hospital board’s decision-making process on outsourcing employee drug testing, you are aware of the facts of the situation. That is our job as a newspaper - to be a watchdog, and to report the facts.

The time that has passed since our last rain shower has been a blur, with every day running into the next. Truly I couldn’t tell you how long it’s been. Whatever amount of time it takes the grass in my yard to die. We have all gotten by in our own way, putting one foot in front of the other. As I trudge through field after field, trying to alleviate this dry spell, a phrase keeps running through my mind: “No one is coming to save you.”

All government bodies — from the local library board discussing book bans to the state board of education debating social studies standards — must send email notices of their meetings to anybody who requests them under a new law that went into effect Thursday, Aug. 1.

Happy anniversary to me! Today on this date, 25 years ago, I became the 911 Director for East Carroll Parish. I was hired by the communications district board and no one knew exactly what all was involved in getting enhanced 911 into East Carroll Parish.

Politics are usually something I don’t discuss. I used to be a member of the “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem” club.

Last week in the store I overheard a woman talking to her momma about another lady they'd just spoken to. She kept insisting, “Momma, you do know her, that’s Gertrude’s niece. They lived across from us for 20 years.” The more she said it, the more anxious her mom became. I realized the lady probably had dementia of some form. My heart broke for her; but it broke even more for her daughter.

For some reason, that title plays in my mind to the tune of the Twisted Sister song, “We’re not gonna take it.” Hey, we’re not out to get you! In the past few weeks, our office has had people ask us not to print things, ask us to print things, voice complaints over the way we printed things, voice complaints over our presence at public, open meetings. Let me say first, we welcome your comments.

Billy Coleman died May 10. He was 50.

This week I was reading the article in the paper regarding the frequent alligator sightings in the lake, and that many people were concerned for their safety and the safety of their children and grandchildren while enjoying our town’s biggest resource. I smiled to myself as I thought of something I was told recently, that there hadn’t been a fatality by an alligator in Louisiana since the 1800s. So I turned to the internet to find out if that statement was true or folklore. Surely in a state like ours with so many bayous, byways, and ditches, that could not possibly be the case. It turns out, the statement was incorrect, but just barely. A 71-year-old man in New Orleans was killed in 2021 while wading in the flood waters after Hurricane Ida. However, this is potentially the first fatal attack in Louisiana since 1774, when a man named Jacquos Du Bois was found dead along a river, and his death was accredited to an alligator. Two fatal attacks in over two hundred years! So why is there a stigma against these animals, if they are so rarely dangerous to humans?

“It’s 10 o’clock. Do you know where your children are?” I know this will be hard for all you young folks to believe, but there was a time when television shut down with just a test pattern at 10. And then it was extended to midnight. But no matter when or what station, this is the last thing they played. And many times, a public service announcement involved different celebrities with this message.