Columns

It’s not unusual to get a night, or even two, when hard freezes visit Acadiana, but it is uncharacteristic for us to see a weeklong surge of frigid nights like the one that ushered in the new year.
Still, Old Man Winter will have to work some to beat the bleak, blizzardy January of 1940. The overnight temperature fell below freezing — most nights far below freezing — on 22 of the 31 days of that month, and into really icy weather for 18 consecutive nights. The temperature dropped to 25 degrees or below on 12 of those nights, and into the teens on five.

Judge Kaliste Saloom Jr., who died Dec. 2 after a long and fruitful life, was elected and re-elected to the Lafayette city court for 40 years, even though friends said his first election would be his last because he refused to “fix” traffic tickets.

After Roy R. Theriot died in April 1973, he was remembered as “a dedicated public servant, a one-man state chamber of commerce, and perhaps the foremost messiah of heritage preservation.”
He was also one of the best storytellers these parts have ever seen.