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May 3, 1939 - January 28, 2023

ABBEVILLE — Funeral services will be held at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, February 1, 2023, at Vincent Funeral Home - Abbeville honoring the life of Rose Marie Mills Suire, 83, who passed away at Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center on January 28, 2023. She will be laid to rest at St. Paul Cemetery with Deacon William “Billy” Vincent officiating the services.
Pallbearers will be Jason Suire, Andrew Page, John David “Bubba” Gary, Ryan Gary, Derrick Richard and Brent Bienvenu.
Rose Marie Mills Suire was born on May 3, 1939. She was a native of Perry, Louisiana. She and her husband, Raymond, married in 1960 and resided in Perry with their four children, Jude, Jason, Joanna and Jody. She graduated from Abbeville High School. In her earlier days she enjoyed going to casinos and loved taking trips to New Orleans. Her more recent favorite pastimes included lottery scratch offs, word search puzzles, and doting over her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She always loved watching the Atlanta Braves and basketball games. Rose was at her happiest when she was with family. She had an amazing sense of humor and loved making others laugh. She always had a kind and giving heart. She will be deeply missed by all who knew and loved her. 
She is survived by four children, Jude Suire (Deanna) of Scott; Jason Suire of Perry; Joanna Williamson of Perry; and Jody Janise (Murray) of Silsbee, Texas; grandchildren, Ashley Page (Andrew), Haley Williamson, Jacob Thomas, Joshua Thomas, Vegas Janise, and Skyler Janise; and great grandchildren, Kason Page and Hollyn White.
She was preceded in death by her loving husband, Raymond George Suire, who passed away just 3 short months ago; her parents, Dora Nunez Mills and Earl Joseph Mills Sr. of Perry; and brothers, Earl Joseph Mills Jr., and Gerald Dee Mills, both of Perry. 
The family requests that visiting hours be observed at Vincent Funeral Home - Abbeville, 209 S. St. Charles St., on Tuesday, January 31, 2023 from 1 p.m. until 8:00 PM with a rosary being prayed at 6:30 p.m.; Wednesday, February 1, 2023 from 9 a.m. until time of services.
The family would like to extend a special thank you to the staff and nurses of Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center for the loving care of their mother/grandmother. Special thanks to Robin and Nixie for their loving care and support in her last moments. 
Condolences may be sent to the family at http://www.vincentfuneralhome.net.
All funeral arrangements are being conducted by Vincent Funeral Home of Abbeville, (337) 893-4661.

The National Science Foundation’s annual index of research and development spending contains a bevy of good news for the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
According to NSF’s 2021 Higher Education Research and Development, or HERD, Survey, UL Lafayette:
• Is, for the second consecutive time, the seventh-best university in the United States for research that’s funded through partnerships with business and industry.
• Is ranked 93rd among public research universities for R&D funding, maintaining its place among the nation’s top 100 public research universities. UL Lafayette achieved the status based on 2020 HERD data.
• Secured $65 million in federal R&D funding, the most in University history.
• Is ranked 135th overall on the HERD Survey, placing it among the top 21% of the 647 universities the index includes.

NSF released its 2021 rankings earlier this month. UL Lafayette’s showing is based on the record $181.4 million it expended on R&D during the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2021. That’s a 9.7% increase from the previous year’s $164 million total.
UL Lafayette competes against other universities for federal and state government grants, and private sector contracts. It acts as a steward for the funds awarded to faculty and staff researchers.
Between 2013 and 2021, the University marked more than $1 billion in total R&D spending, a milestone Dr. Joseph Savoie, UL Lafayette president, celebrated during his annual State of the University address in August.
The speech was the first since the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education designated UL Lafayette as R1, or a university with “very high research activity.”
Just 146 – 3% – of public and private universities in the United States have R1 status.
“This money comes to us from state and federal funding agencies and through partnerships with business and industry because of the reputation this University has for consequential work that answers the greatest questions we face as a global community,” Savoie said at the time.
“Because these dollars have an effect that ripples beyond campus – into our region and into businesses and into the tax base – this ($1 billion) figure represents an infusion into the local economy that is extraordinary,” he added.
Dr. Ramesh Kolluru, vice president for Research, Innovation, and Economic Development, said the 2021 HERD Survey data – and the milestones it contains for UL Lafayette – reflects “the passion of our faculty, research staff, and graduate students to invest their time and efforts into research and discovery as well as the administrative staff members throughout the University who support them.”
“Our ability to continue to attract this level of funding – and to maintain such impressive growth year after year as reflected on the HERD Survey – points to the caliber of the world-class faculty on our team at UL Lafayette. The hard work of our researchers has enabled the University to demonstrate – and deepen – its commitment to ‘research for a reason,’” Kolluru said.

Mr. and Mrs. Ricky and Kayla Vidallier of Abbeville are pleased to announce the engagement and forthcoming sacramental marriage of their daughter, Miss Hannah Marie Vidallier of Abbeville, to Mr. Luke Steven Thompson of New Iberia. Luke is the son of Todd Thompson of New Iberia and Pauline Babin Jordan of New Iberia.
The nuptial wedding Mass will take place on Saturday, February 25, 2023, at Sacred Heart of Jesus Caatholic Church in Broussard, Louisiana.
Grandparents of the future bride are Kenneth and Sue Neveaux of Abbeville, Annie Vidallier and the late Mahlan Vidallier of Abbeville. Hannah is a 2015 graduate of North Vermilion High School and a 2019 graduate of Franciscan University as a licensed Physical Therapy Assistant. She is currently employed by Ochsner Lafayette General.
Grandparents of the prospective groom are Diane Babin and the late Lewis Babin of New Iberia and Joyce Thompson Sikes and the late Wayne Ray Thompson and step grandfather George Sikes of New Iberia. Luke is a 2013 graduate of New Iberia Senior High School and is employed by Butcher Air Conditioning.

The Vermilion Parish Police Jury re-elected Jason Picard as its president and Brent Landry as its vice president at Wednesday’s first regular meeting of 2023.
Both were the only nominees for the positions.
Picard said the standing committee assignments would largely stay the same as they were in 2022 with a couple of changes.
On the Coastal Protection and Restoration Committee, Picard appointed Chad Lege as the chair and Sandrus Stelly as the vice-chair.
He also appointed Dr. Paul Whittington to the rabies control board.
In other business, the police jury voted to adopt a reapportionment ordinance.
The police jury heard from Janice Fabre of Sellers & Associates, who was accompanied by Registrar of Voters Tina Broussard, about the district reapportionment ordinance.
“Tina and I had to redo the districts, because whenever you ran for police jury, the districts changed, and precincts have to follow police jury lines,” Fabre said. “So some of them were split, and she had to give them another name. After we did that we renamed everything to make it easy on her. She got permission from the Secretary of State to do that. So it’s all in the same ordinance.”
The police jurors also voted to re-bid Phase II of the 2022 Bridge Improvements Project after rejecting the low bidder’s bid as non-responsive.
Kim Touchet of Primeaux Touchet & Associates said the bid was in violation of state law because the bid documents did not include evidence of corporate authority to submit a bid.
The project is being paid for by state funds.
“In meeting with Paul (Moresi III, the police jury’s legal counsel), we determined that his bid was non-responsive and should be thrown out
“Under the public bid law, written evidence of the authority of the person signing for the public bid works shall be submitted at the time of bidding,” Moresi said.
In the absence of that written evidence, he said, the bid is considered non-responsive and the public body has no discretion to consider the bid. Moresi said if anyone from L&R Construction of Kaplan, which submitted the low bid, was at the meeting they could speak about the issue.
“Unless I’m missing something, then I really don’t think you have any choice but to declare that the bid of L&R is non-responsive to the bid invitation and so therefore it must be rejected as being non-responsive,” Moresi said.
Police juror Dane Hebert asked why Moresi thought the information was not included in the bid. Moresi said he thought it was probably just an oversight, because situations where bids are deemed non-responsive is a rare occurrence.
“It doesn’t happen very often, but the courts over the last 10 or 12 years have said, if you miss one of these basic blocks that have to be submitted, then the public body does not have any discretion,” he said. “It’s not a good situation because they were by far the lowest bid, but if the bid’s not responsive, it can’t be accepted.”
Hebert asked if it was possible to begin the bid process again once the low bid was rejected.
Two other bids from Reliant Industrial Solutions and Keiland Construction were significantly higher than the apparent low bid.
“You haven’t accepted any bids yet,” Moresi said. “The first step is to reject the apparent low bidder for being non-responsive. It appears that the second and third low bids were proper, so you could accept the second low bid. However, if that bid is above the amount that you budgeted or estimated, that would be one of the things under the public bid law that would give you the flexibility to reject the remaining bids and do the project over again, if you choose to do so.
“You have to have a reason to do so, but the fact that it’s above your estimate or budget is an acceptable reason to reject the remaining bids, if you choose to do so. That’s up to you.”
The police jury then voted to reject the low bid as non-responsive. Touchet said that he thought the police jury could either reject all bids because they are over budget, or foot the bill and pay the extra cost ($227,000) to build the three bridges in the project.
Touchet said he also considered removing one bridge from the project, but even with only two bridges, the next lowest bid was still over budget.
“We really need three of those bridges redone,” Touchet said. “Even if I subtract out one of the bridges, which was the least one that we felt could last a while longer, he’s still over budget. I’m going to have to go in and revise the plan and try to probably put bids in alternates to where we can pick and choose, and revise the plan to where we can try to get it back under budget in the next bid.”
Touchet answered another question from Hebert, saying he thinks there is time to rebid the project. The parish can use the state funds until July, and ask for an extension if it needs it beyond that point.
With that, the police jury voted to reject the remaining bids and rebid the project.