Bank of Winnfield is proud to announce that, as of September 13, 2021, the lobbies at BOTH branches are open for business and the hours are back to the normal schedules for Lobby and Drive Thru business.
We ask that you continue to wear a mask to help stop the spread of COVID-19, but invite you to come inside and see us for all your banking needs.
If you have any questions, please call (318) 628-4677.
September 9, 2021 — Autumn Leaves Nursing & Rehabilitation Center recently joined a group of medical and economic development organizations in investing funding to support the Practical Nursing Program offered by Central Louisiana Technical Community College (CLTCC).
“Nursing is one industry we can barely keep up with demand,” noted Rod Brady Campus Dean Laurel Comeaux. The Practical Nursing program, which averages 30 students per course, is a two-year program. Based on demand, school officials added a second cohort and staggered the start to allow students to start each year. “This allows us to provide new graduates in May,” Comeaux said. “We are especially grateful for the support of local organizations like Autumn Leaves Nursing & Rehabilitation Center. They understand this is an investment in our community. These are very good paying jobs that give people who live here an opportunity to have a career and serve the health needs of our residents. After earning their Practical Nursing diploma, many of our students go on to get their RN. This creates a real economic boom, not just for LaSalle Parish, but for our surrounding parishes as well.”
“We are so very grateful for the support of Autumn Leaves Nursing & Rehabilitation Center and all of our financial supporters. Our partners are thrilled to have graduates each year,” said Michelle Morea, program lead for nursing.
Matt Walton, Administrator for Autumn Leaves Nursing & Rehabilitation Center, stated, “We are happy to have the privilege of supporting the Practical Nursing cohort at Rod Brady, as well as the mission of all of CLTCC. We look forward to continuing to partner in our shared mission of providing the best quality possible allied health workforce in the region, so that we can continue to enjoy a great health care community here in central Louisiana.
Dr. Heather Poole, Executive Vice Chancellor of Student Services, Enrollment Management and Foundation Relations, said, “Community colleges are often the lifeblood of rural communities. They help drive economic opportunity and engagement, providing access to higher education and creating hubs of cultural development and personal training. We are blessed in our region to have amazing partners like Autumn Leaves. Partnerships like ours play a key role in spurring workforce development, employment, and economic prosperity, as well as such social outcomes as health and family stability. We are blessed to have them in our community supporting our students.”
One of the cornerstones of CLTCC’s providing of high wage, high demand, and high skill career training is working with the local business community. We engage in several ways to ensure we are providing our students the skills training needed to be successful and make an immediate impact,” said CLTCC Chancellor Dr. Jimmy Sawtelle. “It is extremely gratifying when a local organization like Autumn Leaves Nursing & Rehabilitation Center chooses to invest in our program. That choice validates the need for and quality of our program, and it ensures that we will be able to continue to offer top-quality instruction to our students to meet the needs of the local community. We are extremely grateful to Autumn Leaves Nursing & Rehabilitation Center for their strong support and investment.”
Central Louisiana Technical Community College (CLTCC) is a two-year technical and community college offering associate degrees, technical diplomas, industry certificates, and customized training in more than 20 disciplines to support local workforce development and prepare students for high-demand and high-wage careers. CLTCC serves 10 parishes in Central Louisiana through its eight campuses and provides instruction in one state prison and one federal correctional institution. For more information, visit http://www.cltcc.edu.
Above photo: (left to right): Laurel Comeaux, CLTCC Rod Brady Jena Campus Dean, Dr. Heather Poole, CLTCC, Executive Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs and Foundation Services, Jimmy Dale Zimmerman, Administrator of Autumn Leaves Nursing & Rehabilitation Center LLC, Matt Walton, Administrator of Autumn Leaves Nursing & Rehabilitation Center LLC, Michelle Morea, CLTCC Rod Brady Jena Campus, Nursing Coordinator, Dr. Jimmy Sawtelle, CLTCC Chancellor
By Josh Beavers
It’s been 20 years. Two decades. They’ve gone by in a blink, and many of us have forgotten as those years have passed. Other troubles have come our way. Wars. The economy. Job loss. Politicians. Division, discord, disillusionment. The destruction of what it means to be a united country.
But we need to remember.
We need to remember the shock. We need to remember the tears. We need to remember our unity.
Twenty years ago, a bright September day was darkened by the worst attack on the American people in our history.
The images are burned indelibly into memory – four hijacked American aircraft cut through a cloudless late summer sky; the World Trade Center plummeting to the earth; inky smoke billowing from the Pentagon; the wreckage of Flight 93, the call of “Let’s Roll” earning a place of immortality as heroes fought back against evil to spare further death and destruction.
Yet, I’d reckon the most heartbreaking images are those that only one or two of us have seen at any given time. These are the images of an empty seat at the dinner table. These are the images of children aging without a mother or a father.
The families of the 3,000 Americans who died that day go to bed every night with the knowledge that their husbands, wives, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, and friends will never again walk through the doors of their homes.
They were taken. Taken too soon.
In that great time of need, our pettiness was forgotten. Our politics and prejudices cast aside. We offered our neighbors a hand, and we offered the wounded aid and succor.
We reaffirmed our ties of simple humanity to one another. Community and country took precedent over class and political ideology. No matter where we came from, what God we prayed to, or what race or ethnicity we claimed, united as one American family we were.
Yet as time passed the old ways resurfaced, grievances reemerged, and squabbling returned. And today, 20 years after 9/11, this nation is arguably the most divided socially and ideologically it has been in its history.
But perhaps for a brief time we can stop our bickering. Perhaps for a brief time, a single day is all, we can remember our loss and the way it united us on that dark day and the uncertain ones that followed.
Perhaps we can remember those lives lost instead of being consumed by all our other faults.
Just for a day.
Because what happened on Sept.11, 2001, is one of the single most significant and tragic events in American history.
It must be respected. It must be remembered.
By everyone.
At least for a solitary day.
One question that the pros are asked more than anything else…”How do I become a professional bass fisherman?” Now this is a loaded question and one that I’ll try to answer for all you want-a-be professional anglers. I’ll give you not only my perspective but a dose of reality as well. For those of you trying to make it to the highest level, you might not like what you read in this article, but you’ll definitely have a greater understanding and appreciation for how difficult it is to make a living as a touring pro.
Today’s anglers actually have a more difficult time trying to become a pro than 30 years ago. There are a limited number of spots available on the two major circuits (B.A.S.S. Elite Series and Major League Fishing- MLF). But the rewards of making it on either of these two tours, makes it worth the gamble…or does it? What an awesome way to make a living….bass fishing! This is the dream and goal of so many youngsters growing up today. For me, my dream was to play professional baseball, and nothing was going to get in the way of me accomplishing that goal. I’ll use baseball as a comparison so you can see the similarities. In 1983 I was drafted by the Montreal Expos (now the Washington Nationals) and was sent to New York for minicamp along with 40 other draft picks. Our first meeting, the general manager of the Expos (Bob Gebhart) walked into the room and stood in front of all 40 draft picks and said, “Congratulations guys, each of you represent one out of every 10,000 baseball players in the country and only one of you will make it to the Major League level.” Turns out, he was exactly right…only one guy made it from our draft class: a fifteen-year-old shortstop from Dominican Republic by the name of Esteban Beltre. Now this was a dose of reality and it hit me at that point just how difficult it is to make it to the Major Leagues.
There’s an old saying in baseball, ”Baseball players are a dime a dozen.” Well, you can say the same thing about bass fishermen. They are everywhere and once again, there are only so many slots available. It used to be years ago, that the best path to becoming a professional angler, was to move south and become a guide at either Toledo Bend or Sam Rayburn. Make a name for yourself while learning how to catch bass in every condition imaginable. So many guys took this path like legendary pros Tommy Martin, Larry Nixon and Jack Hains to name a few. The other thing you had to do… quit your job and dedicate yourself to nothing but finding and catching bass. Becoming a guide makes you a better angler overall because it teaches you how to catch bass under various conditions. One of the toughest jobs you can have is guiding for a living. You have to learn to find and catch bass in order to make your customers happy. Now that’s a high-pressure job!
Your next option on pursuing a professional bass fishing career, is to fish the lower levels of bass fishing circuits and work your way up. For example, with B.A.S.S., there’s high school bass fishing circuits, college tours and what’s called The Open Series. The Open Series has three divisions nationwide (Southern, Central and Northern) and the top three finishers from each division’s points standings will receive an invitation to fish the 2022 Bassmaster Elite Series, as will the top three from the overall standings accumulated in all three divisions. We’re talking 716 anglers all across the nation vying for 12 spots in order to become a professional bass fisherman. This total does not include the over 850 college anglers who are trying for 1 spot on the Elite Series. Only one college angler (National Champion) from across the nation will get that opportunity.
Now let’s look at the other route you can take by fishing with MLF (Major League Fishing). They to have a difficult path but it is an avenue that’s available to anglers all across the country. They have what’s called the Big 5. This includes, Tackle Warehouse Pro Tour, Toyota Series, Phoenix Bass Fishing League, Abu Garcia College Fishing and the U.S. Army High School Fishing. It’s a series of tours that if you do really well, you can possibly advance to the highest level called the Bass Pro Tour. This tour has a unique format that allows anglers to catch, weigh and release their catch immediately while on board officials record their every fish that weighs two pounds or better. Unlike B.A.S.S. in which anglers bring their best 5 bass to scales for weigh-in. Once again thousands of anglers nationwide are fishing the Big 5 Tours attempting to progress and advance to the Bass Pro Tour.
Today’s angler has to be not only GREAT, but a businessman, speaker, road warrior, mechanic and put in long 10-to-12-hour days on the water. This level requires family sacrifices like missing birthday parties, school programs, recitals, holidays and athletic events. These guys are on the road for weeks and months at a time. I asked legendary Pro Shaw Grigsby one day when was the last time he slept in his own bed in Florida? He said he had only slept in his bed two days the entire month of March.
So, you think you still want to be a professional bass angler? The odds of making it are really slim to none as you can see from the numbers above. You might have better odds of being struck by lightning! But I’m not here to discourage you from trying, I just want to make sure you understand how difficult it is to make it to the highest level of professional bass fishing. Many an angler have gone broke trying to make it to the highest levels, not to mention the number of divorce attorneys that have been hired. It can be very rewarding both from a personal standpoint and financially if you’re one of the lucky ones. Till next time, good luck, good fishing and don’t forget to set the hook!
Steve Graf
Owner/Co-host
Hook’N Up & Track’N Down Show
And Tackle Talk Live
BATON ROUGE, LA – In the wake of Hurricane Ida, Attorney General Jeff Landry is warning citizens not to fall prey to those looking to exploit their charitable giving.
“While natural disasters can bring out the best in most people, they unfortunately can bring out the worst in others as well,” said Attorney General Landry. “So many of our neighbors need help; and with that in mind, I encourage all Louisianans to make sure their donations are actually going to those in need.”
Attorney General Landry offers the following quick tips before making a charitable donation:
Baton Rouge, LA – Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin announced that Governor John Bel Edwards has agreed with his recommendation to reschedule the fall 2021 elections in light of the devastation brought on by Hurricane Ida.
“I am thankful that the Governor has recognized the importance of our recommendation to move the October 9 election to November 13 and the November 13 election to December 11,” Secretary Ardoin said. “This will allow our staff and local partners more time to properly prepare for a statewide election while ensuring the integrity of our election processes and that our voters’ traditional voting habits are as undisturbed as possible.”
Further announcements including an emergency certification and election-related deadlines are forthcoming.
Bobby Joe Poisso, age 61 of Winnfield, Louisiana passed away September 7, 2021 after a lengthy battle with cancer.
Bobby was a native of Winnfield and attended church at Central Assembly of God where he enjoyed watching his grandchildren sing. He was a graduate of Northwestern State University with a degree in Criminal Justice. He was a Veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, having served in Marine Helicopter Squadron One. (HMX-1) is a United States Marine Corps helicopter squadron responsible for the transportation of the president and vice president of the United States, heads of state, Department of Defense officials, and other VIPs as directed by the Marine Corps and White House Military Office. Bobby proudly served in the HMX-1 during the Presidential Term of Ronald Regan. He also loved serving as a police officer in various departments throughout north and central Louisiana including the Winn Parish Sheriff’s Office, Winnfield Police Department, NSU Police Department, and the ULM Police Department.
Bobby is the son of the late James E. Poisso Sr. and Margie Lee Hughes Poisso. He is also preceded in death by his son Adam Heath Poisso and father-in-law James L. Moore.
He leaves to cherish his memory his wife of thirty six years Jana Moore Poisso, daughter Allison Carpenter (Nick) and son Aaron Moore Poisso, grandchildren Savannah Lea Carpenter, Anna-Kate Rose Carpenter, Jameson Stewart Carpenter, siblings Jimmy Poisso (Lois), Margaret Crawford (Phillip), two nephews James Poisso, and Matt, Poisso and niece Jennifer Poisso. He is also survived by his four legged children Lucy, Molly and Murdock.
Friends may visit with the family at the Central Assembly of God at 1013 Ogden Street in Winnfield on Thursday, Sept, 9, 2021 from 5:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. and also on Friday from 8:00 a.m. until 10:00 a.m. The funeral procession will depart at 10:00 a.m. Friday from the church to Antioch Cumberland Cemetery in Quitman Louisiana. Graveside services will be at 11:00 a.m. with Reverend Russell Jones officiating. Services are in care of Southern Funeral Home of Winnfield.
Pallbearers will be Mark Johnson, Micah Harper, CBo Dean, Mike Guilliam, Mike Anyan, and Kevan Chandler. Honorary pallbearers will be Stanley Martin, Winnfield Police Dept, ULM Police Dept, and all Law Enforcement.
WINN:
Shirley James Tolbert
November 17, 1941 – September 09, 2021
Service: Sunday, September 12 at 2 pm at Southern Funeral Home
Leonard Roy Henderson
December 17, 1961 – September 07, 2021
Service: Friday, September 10 at 10 am at the Georgetown Cemetery
Esean Smith
September 11, 2003 – September 6, 2021
Arrangements TBA
NATCHITOCHES:
Frank William Snodgrass, Jr.
September 22, 1965 – September 08, 2021
Service: Tuesday, September 14 at 2 pm at Blanchard-St. Denis Funeral Home
Pearl Ethelene Bright
December 01, 1927 – September 07, 2021
Service: Friday, September 10 at 10 am at Memory Lawn Cemetery
Felenn Sowell
September 08, 2021
Arrangements TBA
Betty Sue Setliff
July 19, 1949 – September 02, 2021
Service: Thursday, September 9 at 10 am at The Pentecostals of Cloutierville
Fannie Willis
September 07, 2021
Arrangements TBA
Lloyd “REV” Smith
September 07, 2021
Arrangements TBA
Charles Henry Bobb
September 02, 2021
Service: Saturday, September 11 at 2 pm in the Winnfield Memorial Funeral Home Chapel, located at 318 North Street in Natchitoches
Minnie Johnson
September 04, 2021
Arrangements TBA
The City of Winnfield will host a Memorial Ceremony in honor of the 20th anniversary of 9/11 on Saturday, September 11, 2021, at 4 PM.
The procession of local dignitaries and first responders will begin a the Earl K. Long Park and travel down Main Street to the flag poles a the Winnfield Farmer’s Market.
Immediately following the procession, we will remember the lives lost on September 11, 2001, and honor the first responders then and now.
Join us as we come together as a community and as Americans to pray, sing, raise new flags, honor and remember the events of September 11, twenty years ago.
Refreshments will be served after the ceremony. Tables and chairs will be provided, but we cannot guarantee a seat for everyone, so please bring a chair.
Winnfield High School head football coach Jay Watson visited with members of Winnfield’s Rotary Club on September 1, 2021, bringing with him the two members of this year’s senior class who have played on the football team all four years of their high school career, Travon Nichols and K. J. Delaughter.
Coach Watson said that, although the football team began practice with 50 members this year, it now has a roster of more than 60 players, including some who are on the basketball or baseball teams and decided to try football this year. The team now has 28 freshmen, 12 sophomores, about 18 juniors and around 10 seniors. Given the newness of several players, it will take time for the team to gel, but Coach Watson feels sure the added depth will enhance the team’s success. This is especially true because of the impact COVID-19 has had on the team thus far this year. In fact, the team began the season with several starting players in quarantine due to COVID, and, as a result, the team was led in its first game against West Ouachita by a freshman quarterback.
Another impact COVID-19 has had on Winnfield’s football program is on ticket sales. The program is funded almost completely by season ticket and weekly ticket sales, so last year’s season of only four games resulted in less than half of the usual revenue for the team. The only other revenue is provided by the Boosters. Therefore, ticket sales are especially important this year to make up for the loss of revenue in 2020.
The stadium has been given a face-lift in preparation for the season, including pressure washing, some painting, refurbishing of the flagpole and new goal posts, it is ready for the first home game on September 3.
The schedule includes games against Jonesboro-Hodge, Caldwell Parish, and Delhi Charter before the district games begin. District games are against Red River, Avoyelles, Many, Holy Savior Menard, Bunkie and Lakeview. The final game, not a district game, is against Jena.
Coach Watson has a staff of four assistant coaches, Byron Keller, defensive coordinator, Mike Breaux, offensive coordinator, Jake Parks, who covers a blend of offense and defense, and Mason Garfield. Eric Jones is a non-faculty volunteer coach for the team.
Watson encourages all everyone in the community to come out to the games this fall and support Winnfield High School’s football team. You can make a difference to the team’s success not only with your ticket purchases but also with increased team spirit in the stadium!
Pictured above: from left Travon, Watson, KJ
Name: Leslie Broomfield
Date: 9-1-21
Charge: Theft, Criminal Trespass
Name: Joseph Todd Browning
Date: 9-1-2021
Age: 39
Race: White
Sex: Male
Charge: Theft, Criminal Trespass
Name: James D. Sanders
Date: 9-1-2021
Age: 48
Race: White
Sex: Male
Charge: Driving Under Suspension W/O Accident
Name: LaShonda Hardwell
Date: 9-3-2021
Age: 38
Race: Female
Sex: Black
Charge: Burglary-Simple, Criminal Damage to Property
Name: Kevin D. McKinney
Date: 9-3-2021
Age: 38
Race: Male
Sex: Black
Charge: Flight from an Officer – Aggravated X5, Battery of a Dating Partner, Reckless Operation (no accident) X10, General Speed Law X2
Name: Robert Lee Brown
Date: 9-5-2021
Age: 60
Race: Black
Sex: Male
Charge: Failure to Appear
A large percentage of the world’s population uses mobile phones in their daily lives to do a myriad of tasks. Just over a century ago, however, telephones were in their infancy. Prior to the telephone, messages were transmitted between two points by a telegraph system. Rather than hearing a human voice, the person receiving a message only heard a series of beeps (Morse code) which he had to decipher.
In 1876, the United States Patent Office issued a patent to Alexander Graham Bell for the electric telephone, a device that clearly produced a replication of the human voice at a second device. On March 10 of that year, Bell completed the first successful intelligible telephone transmission when he spoke into the telephone’s microphone “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.” Thomas Watson, Bell’s assistant, was listening to a receiver in an adjoining room. He heard and understood each word.
In the following year, Bell’s father-in-law organized the Bell Telephone Company. Other telephone companies were subsequently established throughout the world. Initially, two telephones were connected by a single, direct wire or line, which meant that the two callers could only communicate with each other.
For telephones to be more marketable, they needed to be able to connect to other telephones with ease. In May of 1877, Edwin Holmes, owner of the Holmes Burglar Alarm Company in Boston, Massachusetts, installed the first ever telephone switchboard. Telephone callers in Boston called the operator at the Boston Telephone Dispatch and requested to be connected to whomever they wanted to speak with. The operator manually plugged in a cable which connected the two telephones. Switchboards in large cities were usually mounted floor to ceiling to allow for the ever-increasing number of telephone users. When the number of calls reached capacity, another switchboard was installed on another wall nearby. Switchboards in rural areas were usually located in the operator’s home so the operator could service calls at all hours.
Originally, the Boston Telephone Dispatch company hired only boys as telephone operators because they had been successful as telegraph operators. The company quickly determined that the boys lacked patience, expressed bad attitudes to callers, and their general behavior was unacceptable. In September, the company hired Emma Nutt, the world’s first female telephone operator. The experiment was so successful that, for the next 80 years, most telephone companies only hired female operators.
Candlestick telephones were common from the 1870s until the 1940s. These telephones featured a mouthpiece mounted onto a stand and an earpiece which the user held to the ear during a call. In 1919, the Bell telephone company sold and installed the first ever rotary dial candlestick telephone in Norfolk, Virginia.
As more and more telephone customers upgraded their telephones with ones featuring rotary dialing, switchboards with live local operators were mostly abandoned for automatic switchboards. This improved telephone callers’ privacy because operators had the ability to listen in on telephone conversations. Rather than telling an operator who you would like to be connected with, callers dialed the proper number and connected themselves to the person with whom they wished to speak.
Most of the telephone switchboards in the United States were eventually upgraded to automatic switchboards. Santa Catalina Island, just off the coast near Los Angeles, was the last holdout. The island was the last telephone office in the United States which operated entirely using manual switchboard operators. Santa Catalina finally replaced its 19 wooden switchboards and its 16 full-time switchboard operators with dial telephones… in 1978, one hundred years after the installation of telephone operators.
Sources:
The Los Angeles times, August 10, 1978, p.162.
By: Royal Alexander/Opinion
Tuesday, September 11, 2001. When friends and family have asked me over the years to recount for them that day and week I spent in D.C.—I was stranded in our nation’s capital because no commercial airlines were allowed to fly immediately after 9-11—I still struggle to fully describe what I saw and felt that day. It was unlike any other day of my life and I’m certain I’ll always feel that way.
On 9/11, I was in Washington, D.C. with the late Clyde C. Holloway, former U.S. Congressman and Louisiana Public Service Commissioner. We were there to try to build support from members of Congress we knew for our campaign for Congress. The day began uneventfully. We had spent the night at a hotel in Crystal City, Virginia which is only a few hundred yards from the Pentagon. That day we woke, had coffee and Mr. Holloway left for the first meeting of the day while I stayed behind to organize.
Sometime in the next 10-15 minutes or so, I heard a roar. The sound startled me. I walked out to the parking lot of the hotel and looked across the way and saw black smoke billowing from a corner of the Pentagon. Shortly thereafter, there was an exodus of terrified-looking people from the Pentagon into Crystal City. After this panic, D.C. was locked down. D.C. was so eerily still, so dead, that I have imagined we would have to go back to our nation’s founders and their horse-drawn carriages to find a time the City was so silent and unmoving. All I saw was black military helicopters hovering in different places over the City and fighter planes circling high above. There were also black suburbans with black-clad men brandishing serious looking weaponry out of the windows.
I was numb; unnerved and disconcerted. Watching the TV video of the planes hitting the North and South towers and then seeing the towers collapse was an experience that neither I nor any American could ever forget. I struggled to comprehend what had happened so near me and across America that day. I had also been stressed and nerve-wracked to know that my older brother, Tom, who served as Legislative Director for U.S. Senator Jon Kyl at the time, worked in the Senate Hart Office Building and, had the Capitol sustained a direct hit as we have since learned was the terrorist’s plan, he would have been in grave danger.
As the day wore on and the sun began to set, I was able to walk some distance closer to the Pentagon. The gaping hole in the building burned brightly and would for days, emitting a large acrid plume of smoke. When night came, and as the emotion of the day weighed heavily on me–and the stench and the smell of the foul night air bombarded my senses and burned my eyes–I was reminded of images from Dante’s Inferno. I also remember being struck by the sense of a loss of innocence and security–that America would never feel as safe or impenetrable again.
9/11 is indelibly imprinted in my memory both because of the evil that is reflected in such an act–with over 3000 American lives tragically lost–and because of the powerful sense of patriotism and unity that did then exist—and must again exist—in our great country when we stand together.
However, who could have ever predicted that 20 years later America would be led by a stunningly incompetent, ineffectual president who just abandoned thousands of Americans and our Afghan allies to face virtually certain death at the hands of the Taliban and who has gifted $85 billion in military hardware to the Taliban, which will now be used to kill those same Americans and our allies left behind.
As we all know, the Taliban is the government of Afghanistan that allowed Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden to plan and prepare to attack our country on 9-11; now, in a painful irony, on the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the Taliban plans to celebrate their self-proclaimed victory over America in the United States Embassy in Kabul. Take a moment to prayerfully reflect upon the magnitude of this American tragedy. America deserves better than this. President Biden should be deeply ashamed for the great dishonor his cowardly leadership has imposed upon the patriotic men and women who have bravely protected our homeland.
On this day, and on Veterans Day and Memorial Day, I say a simple prayer in gratitude for those who have suffered and died on our behalf–and remind myself to strive to be worthy of their sacrifice. I include in my prayer the hope that America may find a way—without a tragedy—to again be as united as we were then.
The views and opinions expressed in the My Opinion article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of The Winn Parish Journal. Any content provided by the authors is of their opinion and is not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual or anyone or anything.
On Sunday, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) began documenting oiled birds apparently the result of damage caused by Hurricane Ida at an oil and gas refinery located about 25 miles south of New Orleans.
The incident of particular significance is occurring at the Alliance Refinery, located in Belle Chasse along the Mississippi River. Following an initial survey, LDWF identified a minimum of 50 birds with external oiling of varying degrees along with the potential for additional oiled wildlife to be recovered.
Black-bellied whistling ducks, blue-winged teal and a variety of egret species are among the birds found.
LDWF’s initial site visit to the Alliance Refinery on Sunday was implemented in partnership with the Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinator’s Office, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, the United States Coast Guard and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.
LDWF will continue implementing wildlife surveys at the Alliance Refinery with the intention of wildlife rescue and ultimately rehabilitation and release. LDWF is also working with Alliance to establish a wildlife hotline and are in the process of setting up a rehabilitation center.
“These efforts by the Department and other partners are critical in protecting our state’s precious natural resources,” LDWF Secretary Jack Montoucet said.