Gayle Marie Dauzat Jordan
Passed-March 19th, 2025.
Service: A memorial for Ms. Jordan will take place at a later time. 

Opal Ballio Thomisee
October 21, 1945 – March 20, 2025
Service: Funeral services for Mrs.Thomisee will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, March 25, 2025, in the chapel of Southern Funeral Home. Interment will follow at Bethel Cemetery (Colfax, LA). 

Louise Valerie Nugent
July 27, 1955 – March 24, 2025
Service: Funeral services for Mrs. Nugent will be held at 2:00 PM at First Baptist Church. Interment will follow at Garden of Memories Cemetery.  

Louisiana 4-H youth from across the state put their culinary skills to the test today in the 4-H Food Challenge.

Congratulations to the Winn Parish Cajun Cuties for Placing First in the State Food Challenge Competition and the Jalapeño Hotties for Placing Second in Division III.

The Spice Girls placed Second in Division II in the first heat out of 18 teams to make it to the second round of the competition.

The Cajun Cuties will advance to the National competition in Dallas, TX. Great job ladies!

4-H is A Win Winn Situation!

1st Team 

District MVP Jayden Wells, Red River, Senior, 10.3 ppg, 4.8 apg, 2.0 spg Jomello McDonald, Red River, Senior, 10.4 ppg, 8.0 rpg, 3.0 spg Jaylon Jackson, Winnfield, Senior, 14.4 ppg, 4.6 rpg 

Ja’Ven Jackson, Winnfield, Senior, 15.4 ppg 10.1 rpg 

Malique Smith, Red River, Junior, 9.4 ppg, 6.7 rpg, 1.5 spg

2nd Team 

Craig St. Cyr, Winnfield, Junior 

Warren Bowman, Red River, Junior 

Demarche Newton, Red River, Junior 

Terrell Pegues, Mansfield, Junior 

Kellen Cox, Many, Sophomore 

All Defensive Team 

Jaylen O’Neal, Mansfield, Senior 

Demascus “Tank” Lewis, Winnfield, Senior 

Jamarion Davis, Red River, Junior 

Malachi Johnson, Mansfield, Sophomore 

Jordan Washington, Winnfield, Senior 

Honorable Mention 

Colin Stafford, Red River, Junior 

Connor Williams, Lakeside, Senior 

Taron Riley, Lakeside, Senior 

Ky Warren, Many, Senior

Bryson Ebarb, Mansfield, Senior Jakorion Greer, Mansfield, Junior Landon Wilson, Red River, Sophomore Trevor Rials, Many, Fresh

Shannon Chevallier wears a lot of hats in our community. She is a nutritionist and community health specialist with the Louisiana Ag Center. She is on the Parks and Recreation Board and was honored by the Winn Chamber of Commerce as Volunteer of the Year. Shannon is a positive person and if you tell her she can’t do something she is determined to do it. She spoke to Kiwanis in her role as part of the Main Street program. The Main Street program is trying to revitalize Winnfield and look for opportunities to find funding. If we want Winnfield to look better it takes a community. We need to start with what we have and build on it. The programs are Main Street America, Main Street Louisiana and Main Street Winnfield. The Winnfield historic district includes Main Street all the way to the north side of Lafayette St. 

One project that is being worked on is “adopt a block”. A group or individual can adopt a block and keep that block looking good. A lot of traffic comes through Winnfield daily. The Stump Food Park is being spruced up. They painted a hopscotch area and are working on activities for kids where parents can sit and visit and kids can play. A concern is a gate for the fence that borders the highway but she has approval for that from DOTD. 

The sidewalk project has been approved. This is a $1 million project and is the effort of the Ag center, the city and DOTD. It should be starting soon. The second phase of the project requires another grant (TAP) that will be available in the near future. 

The start of the Arts Council is part of the Main Street program. At the beginning of the Main Street program they had to prove themselves. They needed $40,000. The city supplies $20,000 and fundraisers provide the other $20,000. 

“Love the boot” is a Main Street Louisiana project and will take place on April 5th. This is a city clean up. You can go to the “Love the Boot” website to sign up. There is another grant to paint murals on some of the buildings. 

The Main Street program has a member on the Chamber of Commerce and they work with them. Some of the members of the Main Street Board include Chevallier, Rhonda Howell, Lindlay Howell, Karli Stewart, and Tyler Pyles.

Shannon Chevallier has a heart to make our community a better place and to give back to the community. 

In their monthly tradition, members of the Kiwanis Club of Winnfield brought smiles to young students  by going to schools across the parish to recognize “Terrific Kids” in grades kindergarten through Grade 4 for the month of January.  Recipients are shown below:

In celebration of Women’s History Month, the Louisiana Girls Rock Foundation hosted the “I Am HERSTORY” event in Winnfield, Louisiana, on Saturday, March 1, 2025. This event provided high school students from Winnfield Senior High School and Jonesboro-Hodge High School the opportunity to educate, inspire, and motivate the next generation of young girls in grades 2-8. The students spoke about the impact of influential women—past and present—who paved the way for future generations, encouraging young girls to dream bigger and become the best versions of themselves.

Attendees participated in the “I Am HERSTORY” Walk, where they learned about twenty-two remarkable women who took risks, challenged the status quo, and created opportunities for future generations. During the walk, participants played a game in which they had to identify and record the names of all twenty-two women. Those who completed their game cards were eligible for prizes.

The event also honored one of Winn Parish’s own, Princis Goff, who was presented with a Certificate of Achievement for her accomplishments both on and off the basketball court. In just her 52nd career appearance as a member of the Louisiana Christian University Wildcats Women’s Basketball Team, Goff cemented herself as one of the top scorers in school history, reaching 1,000 career points. She also participated in the “I Am HERSTORY” event by sharing her journey and signing autographs for attendees.

Students who took part in the event included:
From Winnfield Senior High School – Farrah Lewis, Jamiah Smith, Ja’Nyiah Weary, Kennedy Weston, Khristyonna Scott, Macey Anderson, Madison Foster, Maleigha Brown, and Persia Davenport.
From Jonesboro-Hodge High School – Jaidon Venzant, Ma’Riyah Jones, and Sa’Tavia Qualls.

Jew-hating protesters supporting Mahmoud Khalil invade and occupy Trump Tower lobby

The actions of America’s so-called elite colleges and universities are often so absurd and reflexively anti-American that it seems futile to comment upon them.  However, I make an exception this week as it pertains to the plans of the Trump Administration to revoke the green card of Columbia University student, Mahmoud Khalil, a prominent supporter of the terrorist group Hamas, and leader of last year’s anti-Israel protests. 

Recall in a 2023 hearing before the U.S. Congress, the presidents of our “elite” institutions of higher education, including Harvard, MIT, and University of Pennsylvania, were unable—after being asked several times to do so—to say that calls for the genocide of Jews violated their student codes. 

These three college presidents were pressed about the massive protests on their campuses where chants calling for the genocide of Jews, “intifada,” and “from the river to the sea” were heard.  All three awkwardly dodged the question or claimed it did not violate their policies as such, and whether the characterization of such vile hate speech violated school policy depended on the “context,” seeming to suggest that only if gatherings of students chanting genocidal slogans crossed into “conduct” would it be prohibited.

The greatest duplicity was when these school presidents attempted to draw a false moral equivalence between calls for the genocide of Jews—equating it to Islamophobia—despite virtually no evidence Islamophobia is a problem even remotely comparable to the shocking wave of hate directed at Jews.  (H. Grossman, Fox News, 12-08-2023) .  In fact, “critics say that putting incidents of antisemitism and Islamophobia together is to equivocate the two, when Jews are the #1 targets for hate crimes, according to the latest statistics.  Jewish people comprise 2.4% of the U.S. population but make up 60% of hate crimes linked to religion.”  (Id.).

Can you imagine if Black people were being verbally targeted for slaughter and elimination!  What about transgender people? What about the mentally handicapped? What about gay people, Asians, or American Indians? The Leftist uproar would shake the globe. But not for Jews. They can be threatened with murder and only when the knife comes to the throat, it might be condemned at Harvard.

Now, back to Mahmoud Khalil. 

As legal scholars have noted, a green card comes with certain legal obligations including the disavowal of terrorism.  Under 8 U.S.C. 1182, an alien is inadmissible if he or she “endorses or espouses terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity, … or is a “representative … of a political, social, or other group that endorses or espouses terrorist activity.”

As the Wall Street Journal notes, “Mr. Khalil seems to have violated that obligation.  He belongs to Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) and was a lead negotiator during last spring’s anti-Israel encampment on the campus.  Those protests glorified Hamas.  CUAD was also a key player in the school’s encampment, which was a ‘Zionist-free zone,’ a designation that excluded Jews from a large part of campus.” (WSJ, March 13, 2025).   If that were not enough to have satisfied the legal justification for his deportation, WSJ further notes that “in October 2024, CUAD formalized its support for Hamas and again celebrated the Oct 7, 2023, massacre … stating that ‘Zionists don’t deserve to live.’”

As Josh Hammer writes in RealClearPolitics about the Trump Tower Occupation, “Khalil is a Syrian national and Algerian citizen who was the face of last year’s violent pro-Hamas Columbia University campus riots. He was the spokesman for CUAD, a demented organization which referred to the Oct. 7 slaughter of Israelis as a “moral, military, and political victory” and asserted that it is fighting for nothing less than the “total eradication of Western civilization.” 

This is the intellectual rot that has poisoned our American institutions of “higher learning” for decades—masquerading as political correctness—coming home to roost. This is where we are with the Woke American Left.  There can be no dissenting thought, no genuine exchange of ideas.  Rather, you are either Woke, or you are silenced.  Censored.  Cancelled.  Free speech in the context of genuine academic freedom is largely non-existent in American higher education.  Many of us have observed this academic censorship for years but the virulent antisemitism we have witnessed on college campuses over the last two years is a stark and disturbing reminder.

Mahmoud Kahlil should be deported immediately

Beware the winds of March. On the evening of March 18, 2025 at approximately 4:30pm, church officials of River of Life Church were notified that their roof had suffered major damage. Upon inspection, the metal roof was in fact partially dislodged from the entire building due to high winds that swept through the area. Church members worked through the evening documenting the damage and making temporary repairs to prevent further loss of the structure. 

The Pastor of the church, Reverend George Procell, expressed his gratitude for the community quickly alerting him to the damage. 

“The Goldonna community is so close knit and we all look out for each other. I was so grateful for the phone call and more importantly the hands that helped make the temporary adjustments. We are a blessed village,” said Procell. 

River of Life Church was founded in 1978. Reverend Procell has been the Pastor since 1987.

The Goldonna Cemetery Fish Fry Fundraiser was a resounding success as it drew crowds from all over the Parish and surrounding Parishes. Raising over $4,000 for the much needed repairs of the facility, the coordinators were very pleased with the turnout. The Goldonna Baptist Church Second Annual Skeet Shoot will be taking place this Saturday, March 22nd, with the first shot being at 10:00am. Concessions will be served, bring your chairs, awnings and ear plugs. All proceeds will benefit the church’s Operation Christmas Child mission.

As already previously mentioned in many news outlets, the Natchitoches Parish School Board voted to close the beloved, over 100 year old school, Goldonna Elementary Junior High School. I would personally like to invite you to share all of your memories, photos and stories with me so I can share them with the masses. The historic school shaped the lives of thousands of children over the last century. 

Reba Phelps jreba.phelps@gmail.com

So many things impact our lives as individuals, but nothing more than hard work. Growing up as a kid on a ranch, I learned many of life’s lessons through the chores that had to be done. It wasn’t always something I enjoyed, but these were things that were necessary in order for our ranch to operate properly. 

First, let’s look at the ranch I grew up on, located about 10 miles east of Talco, Texas. My dad and his brother were partners of this property, known as Graf Brothers Ranch. My dad’s brother (Uncle Bill) lived in Ft. Worth and was the owner of a major trucking company, while my dad worked full time in the Talco oil field as the superintendent for Vick Well Service. 

Uncle Bill’s involvement with the ranch was mainly financial as Dad did 90 percet of the work that took place. On the ranch, we raised several breeds of cattle including Herford, Angus and Brahmas, and at one point we even ran a few Charolais. The ranch was known for producing high quality crossbred calves, all due to one awesome Angus bull by the name of “Doc.” 

Doc was a pure black Angus bull that became famous for the calves he produced, which landed him on the cover of Texas Farm Magazine. My dad truly loved this bull and had a special relationship with Doc, who was his favorite bull that we ever owned. 

A ranch requires a lot of work and there were many chores that had to be done, some I dreaded and others I looked forward to. But nothing was worse than what my dad called “picking up chunks.”

This was a job that took place anytime Dad decided to clear some of the timber on our property in order to create more pastureland. We owned a D8 Caterpillar dozer that was used exclusively for clearing property and building stock ponds. 

Once the timber was cut and piled up ready to burn, there were a lot of “chunks” of wood that had to be picked up by hand and placed in small piles, also to be burned. I do remember mutterig a few choice words every time I heard the call, “Pick up chunks.” It really was the worst job in the world!

One thing about working on a ranch — there was never a shortage of things to do. Whether it was building or mending fence, bailing hay, bush hogging, barn repairs, or doctoring cattle, there was plenty of work.

The greatest lesson I learned from growing up on the ranch was the importance of a strong work ethic. Our ranch was our family business and required plenty of attention. Being a teenager, a lot was expected of me by my dad when it came to getting things done, as he worked full-time in the oil field six days a week. Therefore, Sundays were always dedicated to any and all jobs needing to be done on the ranch. 

But this place was also my playground for hunting and fishing. It’s where my passion grew for both hunting and fishing as I spent hours upon hours fishing our stock ponds or hunting ducks and squirrels. 

Looking back at my time on the ranch rekindles some great memories. It helped shape me into the person I am today and motivated me to continue my education as Dad reminded me often that if I did not go to college, I would be working seven days a week on the ranch. That was something I DID NOT WANT! 

‘Til next time, enjoy every opportunity you get to wet a hook or enjoy the great outdoors and remember, it is always a great day when you get to go fishing, whether or not you catch fish. 

Contact Steve at sgraf26@yahoo.com

This information has been provided by a law enforcement agency as public information. Persons named or shown in photographs or video as suspects in a criminal investigation or arrested and charged with a crime have not been convicted of any criminal offense and are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.