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January 6, the feast of the Epiphany, is the official end of the Christmas season, but that doesn’t mean we have to give up our festivities; it is also the beginning of Carnival, the season leading up to Mardi Gras. Even more importantly for those of us who are not overly worried about girth or diet, it is the official start of the King Cake season, when it is downright rude to refuse a slice — not that anyone I know would want to.
If there is any hesitation, we can tell ourselves that we have to eat it or people will call us a cheapskate who is afraid of having to buy the next cake. It’s all part of a long tradition that may have come to North America with our Acadian ancestors.
The first King Cakes were baked in France centuries ago as part of the celebration of the three wise men finding the infant Jesus twelve days after Christmas. At some point, bakers began hiding a bean or pea inside the cake, and the person who got it was declared royalty for the day.
Most histories say the tradition came to Louisiana with its first French settlers, who also brought the celebration of Mardi Gras, but Canadian scholar Carol Blasi says the ritual seems to have been observed in Acadie earlier than 1649, at least fifty years before the first “Louisiana” settlement at Mobile.
In that year, Charles de Menou d’Aulnay, lord of Port Royal, and his wife Jeanne Motin demanded that “on the eve of the Feast of Kings” their tenant Martin Chevery and his wife should present them with “a round cake made of a quarter of a bushel of the finest white wheat flour … and a half dozen eggs, a half pound of butter of the very freshest kind, in the edge of which cake they will place a black bean.” (“Land Tenure in Acadian Agricultural Settlements,” PhD dissertation, University of Maine, 2019, 100)
The King Cake got to Louisiana before the Acadians did, probably by way of Mobile, where some historians believe Mardi Gras was celebrated in the early 1700s. Nobody knows for sure just when Epiphany and Carnival and King Cakes all came together. Most of us are just happy that they did.
Our King Cakes are decorated in the traditional Mardi Gras colors — gold (for power), green (for faith), and purple (for justice). Traditionally, a small plastic baby symbolizing the infant Jesus is hidden in the cake. It’s supposed to bring luck to the person who finds it, but also the obligation to provide the next cake.
Donald Entringer Sr., a Metairie baker, is usually credited with substituting a baby for the traditional bean. In the 1940s. according to most accounts, he was asked by a Carnival krewe to hide prizes in some King Cakes. He added the tiny babies to his batter and a tradition was born.
Some sources say the tradition began earlier than that, but it couldn’t have been much earlier because tiny plastic babies weren’t widely available until after World War II.
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Haydel’s Bakery in New Orleans created the world’s largest King Cake in 2010. It took 28 full-time employees to make two cakes huge enough to go around the Superdome.
Both rings of the cakes were record-breaking: One weighed 4,073 pounds, shattering the old record held by a Houston bakery; the other ring weighed 4,068 pounds. Guinness didn’t say how the cakes were weighed or who did it, but it surely was an unwieldy (if not imprecise) process. Guiness is also silent on whether there was baby in the cake, but I know a few folks who might have kept eating until they found out.
There probably wasn’t one. Where are you going to find a plastic baby big enough for a two-ton cake? Besides, a lot of bakers nowadays just send a baby alongside the cake, not baked into it. Their lawyers or OSHA or some authority worried that somebody might choke on one that is hidden.
That’s fine with me, for the same reason some people favor Martinis without olives. Why would you want to take up room with a plastic bauble when it could be filled with the good stuff?
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.

Do you make New Year’s resolutions? I always do. A New Year always brings with it promise and uncertainty, but this coming year brings with it a greater foreboding than we have experienced in the past. The Chinese have a saying: “May you live in interesting times.” But their definition means dangerous or turbulent. We in Louisiana and throughout America certainly live in “interesting” times today.
One resolution I make each year is to maintain my curiosity. It doesn’t matter how limited your perspective or how narrow the scope of your surroundings, there is (or should be) something to whet your interest and strike your fancy. I discovered early on that there are two kinds of people — those who are curious about the world around them, and those whose shallow attentions are generally limited to those things that pertain to their own personal well-being. I just hope all those I care about fall into the former category.
Another resolution is to continue to hope. I hope for successful and fulfilling endeavors for my children, happiness and contentment for family and friends, and for the fortitude to handle both the highs and lows of daily living with dignity.
I also ask friends and family to re-read Night, the unforgettable holocaust novel by Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Peace laureate who survived the Nazi death camps. I met him shortly before his death. I have a Wiesel quote framed on my office desk:
“To defeat injustice and misfortune, if only for one instant, for a single victim, is to invent a new reason to hope.”
Like many of you, our family welcomes in the New Year with “Auld Lang Syne.” It’s an old Scotch tune, with words passed down orally, and recorded by my favorite historical poet, Robert Burns, back in the 1700s. (I’m Scottish, so there’s a bond here.) “Auld Lang Syne,” literally means “old long ago,” or simply, “the good old days.” Did you know this song is sung at the stroke of midnight in almost every English-speaking country in the world to bring in the New Year?
I can look back over many years of memorable New Year’s Eve celebrations. In recent years, my wife and I have joined a gathering of family and friends in New Orleans at a French Quarter restaurant. After dinner, we make a stop at St. Louis Cathedral for a blessing of the New Year. Then it’s off to join the masses for the New Year’s countdown to midnight in Jackson Square.
When my daughters were quite young, we spent a number of New Year holidays at a family camp on Davis Island, in the middle of the Mississippi River some 30 miles below Vicksburg. On several occasions, the only people there were my family and Bishop Charles P. Greco, who was the Catholic Bishop for central and north Louisiana. Bishop Greco had baptized all three of my daughters, and had been a family friend for years.
On many a cold and rainy morning, the handful of us at the camp would rise before dawn for the Bishop to conduct a New Year’s Mass. After the service, most of the family went back to bed. I would crank up my old jeep and take the Bishop out in the worst weather with hopes of putting him on a stand where a large buck would pass. No matter what the weather, he would stay all morning with his shotgun and thermos of coffee. He rarely got a deer, but oh how he loved to be there in the woods. Now, I’m not a Catholic, but he treated me as one of his own.
New Year’s Day means lots of football, but I also put on my chef’s apron. I’m well regarded in the kitchen around my household, if I do say so myself, for cooking up black-eyed peas as well as cabbage and cornbread. And don’t bet I won’t find the dime in the peas. After all, I’m going to put it there.
I’ll be back next week with my customary views that are cantankerous, opinionated, inflammatory, slanted, and always full of vim and vigor. Sometimes, to a few, even a bit fun to read. In the meantime, Happy New Year to you, your friends and all of your family. See you next year.

Peace and Justice
Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.

GUEYDAN — It’s been 64 1/2 years, but Robert “Bobby” de’Perrodil remembers the events that unfolded here on May 5, 1961, as if it were yesterday — and how the infamous “Legend of The Peanut Man” became local lore.
His memories put a different twist on a tale that garnered national headlines, cast Gueydan in a negative light as a place with little or no regard for conservation or wildlife laws, and was lauded by a media that portrayed an ambitious federal undercover agent as nothing short of a super hero.
“They (U.S. government officials) tried to say that they broke up the biggest ring of wild game sales ever known: They’re full of crap!” said de’Perrodil last week, breaking 64 years of silence on ‘The Peanut Man’ and the events surrounding him leading up to that fateful day six-plus decades ago.
It was a story that shook this quiet, close-knit and trusting Southwest Louisiana community to its very core: The arrest of more than 60 residents from Gueydan and surrounding communities in a federal sting that came to be known as D-Day —for Duck Day.
Those arrested were accused of selling wild game and they were referred to in government documents as “market hunters”
De’Perrodil has always taken issue with that portrayal.
“There wasn’t no wild game sales going on here until he (The Peanut Man) got here, no market hunters,” insists de’Perrodil. “He created the whole thing.’’
De’Perrodil, now 80 and possessing a sharp mind and quick wit, insists to this day that residents back in those days conserved wildlife similar to the way subsistence hunters do today in places like Alaska. The fowl harvested then, he said, helped many in the community get through winter months and beyond, at a time of low wages and low employment.
Oh, perhaps a few ducks were bartered here and there among friends, but....
“We ate that,” he said. “You put those birds in your freezer and when you were hungry, you’d pull out a goose to pot roast it or you would take out some ducks to make a gumbo or whatever,” he said.
That all changed shortly after a stranger, driving a “big Cadillac” arrived in this sleepy little town where the coastal marshes meet the rice fields and lower plains of Louisiana, a place that proudly bills itself as the “Duck Capital of the World,” for its reputation throughout the country as a duck and goose hunting haven.
That stranger’s name was Anthony Stefano, a.k.a. Joe Grecco. Later, he would be known simply — and infamously — as “The Peanut Man” in these parts.
Turns out that Stefano was an undercover agent for the U.S. Department of the Interior. He introduced himself to people in Gueydan as a salesman representing a major peanut company.
Thus the moniker “The Peanut Man.”
Stefano’s DOI resumé, unbeknownst to anyone at the time, was quite impressive: He had worked undercover cases from California to Maryland, down to Louisiana and Arkansas and up to northern states like Michigan and Illinois.
During his career, Stefano reportedly was credited with the arrests of hundreds of individuals, 161 of them on the same day of the Gueydan operation.
The sting that day overall actually involved individuals in five states, not just Louisiana according to government documents. The others were Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia and Arkansas, according to a DOI document.
For his part in it all, the culmination of 2 1/2 years of undercover work, Stefano was awarded the DOI’s “Superior Performance Award” and along with it a hefty $750 bonus.
The bust was touted as the biggest of its kind to date and the news made newspaper headlines across the country.
It also wound up being part of a featured story about Stefano’s overall exploits which appeared in the October 1962 issue of Sports Afield magazine. The article, by author Paul Kalman, was teased with a cover headline that read “Special Expose: I Hunt the Market Hunter.”
Those in Gueydan most certainly would have titled it differently.
“Peanuts! He sold peanuts,” recalled de’Perrodil. “I’d like to know how much in peanuts the government bought and gave away. I don’t think he ever sold any. He’d show up in town with bags full of peanuts and he’d give them all away.
“And the first thing he did when he came here was say he liked to eat wild game and that if anybody had a couple of wild ducks or geese, he’d be willing to pay for them.
“He was giving $4 a pair! Can you imagine that?
“You going to come around here around the holidays and you tell somebody you want to give $4 for a pair for ducks! You damn right you gonna sell ‘em... And then you gonna go get yourself a ribeye for a $1, probably even less than that back them.
“He started off slow and just kept going. He STARTED the market right there.”
In a town where many in the community made just $5 a day or less during the time, the offer was simply too good to pass up - leading to the mass roundup.
Gueydan was the epicenter.
Those arrested from there and surrounding communities were brought to a staging area near the school where they were loaded onto busses and transported to Lafayette for arraignment.
“I think there were three busses,” said de’Perrodil.
The bonds for the group reportedly ranged anywhere from $500 to $1,000 (the equivalent of $5,295 to $10,591 today).
“When it happened, we had a man in Gueydan, Isaac Hudson Boatner,” said de’Perrodil. “Everybody knew him as ‘I.H.’ He was a wealthy man and he was on the board at the bank. Well, when I.H. heard what they had done, he drove down to that federal courthouse and told that judge: ‘anybody on that list who is from Gueydan, I’m making their bond good.’
“He posted everybody’s bond and nobody took a penny out of their pocket ... not a penny.”
De’Perrodil should know: He was there, experiencing it all —up close and personal.
It turned out that his mother and father had both been ensnared in the trap.
“Oh, do I remember? Sure do,” he said.
De’Perrodil was just a teenager the morning agents from the Department of the Interior and other conservation agencies, all armed, descended upon his home and so many others like his in Gueydan, Kaplan and Lake Arthur.
“I remember hearing a knock on the door that morning and when I opened it, a man with a gun was standing there, and another one with a gun was standing a few feet away in the yard,” he recalled. “So I opened the door and the man just came in.
“Daddy (Wilson, or ‘Snookie’ as he was known) came from the back of the house in just his underwear and the man said ‘Are you Wilson de’Perrodil?
“Dad said he was and the man said: ‘You’re under arrest!’”
De’Perrodil said the agent would not even allow his father to get fully dressed “unless they followed him” to put on his clothes.
“Dad hollered back to momma in the bedroom for her to get dressed and when she came up front, dad went and got dressed. Then they took him off to the school where they were loading people on busses,” he recalled. “Naturally, they left momma at home because of the kids.”
De’Perrodil remembers Stefano, or Grecco as he was known, as a charming man who eased his way into the tight-knit community. It started one day when he showed up at Gueydan’s popular gathering spot —Lou Lou’s.
The restaurant/bar was the perfect place to meet people, gather information and, as it turned out, bait a trap.
Lou Lou’s was the place waterfowl hunters stopped each morning before their hunts to enjoy hot coffee and biscuits and it was where locals gathered in the evenings to talk about the events of the day over a few beers.
“He (Stefano) made friends quickly. The way I heard it, he starting talking with a waitress there and that’s where he first said he would pay $4 a pair,” said de’Perrodil. “Of course, everyone there heard about what he was offering and word spread fast.
“Well, it didn’t take long before nearly everyone was selling him birds.”
One person who refused to sell Stefano any waterfowl was one of de’Perrodil’s uncles, who “Snookie’’ had told about the offer and encouraged to take part.
“Strange man. Dangerous man,” the uncle warned “Snookie.”
That uncle did, however, provide “Snookie” with some of his own birds, as de’Perrodil recalled. “Snookie” sold the birds for his brother.
“My daddy probably took his cut,” he said with a chuckle.
The uncle was never implicated.
And for good reason.
“They didn’t have his name on the list,” said de’Perrodil.
On the flip side of that was another acquaintance (anonymous), who did sell ducks and geese to Stefano.
Predictably, that decision wound up having foul consequences.
De’Perrodil still laughs about that today when he relates the story.
“I brought him (Stefano) to my uncle Savay’s house one day and he (Savay) took him next door,” he recalled. “His neighbor raised what we called English callers back then; they were like little mallards that would squawk like hell.
“They were actually tame; they were ducks that had had their wings clipped and people would take them to their blinds, tie a string to their feet and let them swim around and call to wild ducks.
“Hell, wild ducks would even be in his yard with his ducks sometimes. He had a yard full of those little callers.
“Well, when he found out how much he (Stefano) was paying, he would take some of his ducks, wring their necks and hang them on the clothes line with some clothes pins. Then he’d back off and shoot them so they had some lead in them like a wild duck would have had.
“So he shot his own ducks, sold them and they burned his ass.
“He didn’t want to talk about that too much. He was mad.”
Strangely enough, no one ever questioned Stefano much during it all ... even after he would disappear for days at a time.
“Everybody just welcomed him in, even invited him into their homes,” said de’Perrodil. “Where he went, where he lived or stayed, no one knew.
“He’d usually show up on the weekends. By then, everybody had their stuff cleaned and frozen. So it was just a matter of: How many (birds) do you want?
“Everybody got on board, it seemed. It was two bits (25 cents) for bread and he was offering $4 a pair.
“Nobody questioned it.”
De’Perrodil said he and others — most or all of those arrested are now deceased — never talked much about it publicly because “nobody would have believed us.”
“They (government) sold it as a big market hunter bust and the people bought it hook, line and sinker.
“Who would have believed us?”
He still has questions about the events. When he looks back at it today, he is convinced of only one thing: The residents here were simply pawns in an elaborate government scheme.
“Hey, it WAS against the law what they did,” he admitted of the selling of the waterfowl. “But nobody here was selling that before he (Stefano) came here. That (ducks, geese) was what you ate here, not what you sold.
“What they (government) did then was contrived ... a scam. There WASN’T a market here. There WASN’T any market hunters here.
“But you don’t come here and wave that kind of money in front of people around the holidays. Christmas is coming and you want to buy something for your children if you can. It’s kinda hard to have that temptation waved in front of someone and not have them bite on it.”
“He got ‘em. Yeah, he got them.
“But I’ll always believe that that was one of the biggest rackets the government has ever pulled on anybody, I guarantee you.”

Each year, the Vermilion Parish School System has the tall order of naming Teachers of the Year.
It’s a challenge in that there are so many worthy of the honor. With that said, the challenge has been met, with the district honoring four across grade levels.
This year’s honorees are:
• Elementary Teacher of the Year - Daedra Howard, LeBlanc Elementary School
• Middle School Teacher of the Year - Katie Griffin, J.H. Williams Middle School
• High School Teacher of the Year - Devin Romero, Abbeville High School
• New Teacher of the Year - Briana Richard, Eaton Park Elementary
“Through passion, dedication, and a true commitment to students,” Vermilion Parish Superintendent Tommy Byler said, “these outstanding educators make a difference every single day. Their impact reaches far beyond the classroom, shaping futures and inspiring excellence across our parish.
“Thank you for all you do, and congratulations on this well-earned honor.”
Howard, a third-grade teacher, is in her third year at LeBlanc. Her mission in the classroom is clear.
“I teach to create unforgettable moments,” Howard said.
For Howard, who said her perseverance, curiosity and creativity helped set her apart, this qualifies as one of those moments.
“Winning this award feels surreal,” she said. ‘It’s not just a personal milestone but a reflection of the incredible support system at LeBlanc.
“Showing the community what kind of dedication our school fosters is a huge point of pride for me.”
The LeBlanc community is certainly proud of Howard.
“Daedra Howard has an unwavering passion for teaching,” LeBlanc Principal DeEtte Bigot said. “The success of her students is due to the extraordinary effort that she puts into her classroom each day.
“This recognition is well deserved.”
Griffin appreciates the recognition, but it’s not only her name she is happy to see on the award.
“I am truly honored and humbled to be named Vermilion Parish Teacher of the Year,” Griffin said. “While I am incredibly proud of this recognition, the real praise belongs to J.H. Williams. It is a joy to come to work each day surrounded by supportive administration, wonderful coworkers, and the opportunity to be a part of our students’ lives.”
Griffin, the school’s librarian, among other titles, said she has been “blessed” to be at J.H. Williams for the past six years, and in Vermilion Parish for the past 14.
“I am blown away by the love and support I’ve been shown,” Griffin said. “I hope to continue making J.H. Williams and Vermilion Parish proud.”
Ryan Abshire, the principal at J.H. Williams, said Griffin continues to make the school proud.
“Congratulations to Katie on being selected as Teacher of the Year!,” Abshire exclaimed. “Katie truly wears many hats at JHW and takes pride in everything she does. She serves our school as librarian, test coordinator, sponsor of our B&G Club, and is a dedicated member of our PBIS team.
We appreciate her hard work, commitment, and heart for our students and staff. I am extremely proud to have Katie representing JHW as the Vermilion Parish Middle School Teacher of the Year.”
Romero shares that feeling about her own award.
“I was definitely surprised when they announced the award,” Romero said, “but I am so proud to represent Abbeville High. I love everything about this school, the staff, the students, and the community.”
That sentiment is a two-way street, as far as Abbeville High Principal Jenni Frick is concerned.
“Abbeville High School is proud to congratulate Devin Romero on being named both our AHS Teacher of the Year and the Vermilion Parish High School Teacher of the Year,” Frick said. “Her dedication, passion, and unwavering commitment to student success are evident every day in her classroom and throughout our school community. This well-deserved honor reflects the positive impact she has on our students and the pride she brings to Abbeville High School.
“We are truly grateful for her leadership and proud to have her represent AHS.”
Frick used passion when describing Romero. It’s appropriate, in that the word serves as an anchor for the teacher, who is in her 19th year at Abbeville High.
“You can do anything as long as you have the passion, the drive and the support,” Romero said.
That passion is what stokes Romero’s fire for the ProStart program she conducts at Abbeville High. It is a culinary and management program that prepares students for restaurant careers.
“Anyone who has spoken with me about the ProStart program in the community can see and feel the passion I have for my students and the opportunities they are given to show off their skills,” Romero said. “I am able to involve students that would never participate in extracurricular activities or be part of things on campus because of their lack of qualifications, and I love to help them find something they are good at, and they can shine like other students are able to do.”
Richard’s kindergarten students are many years away from even thinking about a career, but she is happy to be part of their educational process, especially at Eaton Park. This is Richard’s first year at the school.
“I feel so blessed to have found my way to Eaton Park because it is truly the place to be!” Richard exclaimed. “We have the best admin who offers so much encouragement and support. They celebrate even the small wins. The staff is truly one of a kind. The teachers here genuinely want to see their students succeed and become the best versions of themselves. I am the teacher I am because of the administration here and all the teachers who have welcomed me with open arms.”
Eaton Park Principal Amber Wyne said Richard has been a welcoming presence at the school, not only for staff, but for students and their families.
“She brings enthusiasm and professionalism,” Wyne said. “She ensures that students feel supported, challenged, and motivated to succeed. Her positive attitude and strong work ethic have made her a valued member of the Eaton Park Elementary team and a role model for both students and peers.
“Being named New Teacher of the Year is a testament to Briana Richard’s hard work and dedication to excellence in education.”
Wyne added that the school community “looks forward to the continued impact she will have on students and the school community for years to come.”
Richard is grateful for the impact Eaton Park has had on her in just this short time.
“I feel so lucky to get the opportunity to represent Eaton Park with this award because this school has given me so much more than I will ever be able to offer in return,” Richard said. They have given me purpose, believed in me when I did not believe in myself, and loved me on the hard days just as much as my good days. I wish everyone could experience Eaton Park. I have no idea what my life would have been like if we had not crossed paths. The atmosphere we are fostering here is something so special for both teachers and students.”