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Another level of competition, another win for McKinsey Nicholas of Abbeville.
McKinsey, 18, earned the Louisiana Boys & Girls Club “Youth of the Year” over the weekend. He won the Acadiana version of the award a few months back.
McKinsey is a long-time member of the Boys & Girls Club Rodney Unit in Abbeville. He will compete for the Regional Boys & Girls Club “Youth of the Year” award in Atlanta this June.
He becomes the third Abbeville youth in seven years to earn the Louisiana Boys and Girls Club Youth of the Year.
In 2015, Abbeville’s Bre’Jai Roberton won the award. Then in 2020, Abbeville High’s Zontré Scott also won the state award.
“It is a big accomplishment,” said McKinsey about winning. “I am so blessed to win this award and represent Louisiana.”
He won a $2,500 college scholarship.
Since 1947, the Youth of the Year award has been the Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s premier recognition program. Each year, one Boys & Girls Club member is chosen for the role of National Youth of the Year from clubs across the
country.
McKinsey will go on to compete in the Southeast Regional Youth of the Year competition in June in hopes of becoming eligible for the National Youth of the Year honor. The National Youth of the Year serves as an ambassador for Boys & Girls Club.
McKinsey, a two-sport athlete, took the competition seriously, especially at the district level. He contacted Zontre Scott of Abbeville High, a former district and state Boys and Girls Club winner, and got major pointers. Scott and members of the Abbeville Boys and Girls Club prepared McKinsey with writing a special essay to draw the judges in and make them understand what the Boys and Girls Club means to him.
Once he won the region, McKinsey worked even harder preparing for the state level. He practiced answering questions that the state judges may ask him.
When he walked out of the interview room at the state level, he walked back to his table and told his mom, he drilled it.
“I knew I won,” said McKinsey. “The judges asked me leadership questions, and I was prepared.”
McKinsey has a twin brother, McKinley, who is not as vocal as McKinsey. McKinsey said he got his personality from his mother, Angienette, who is a pre-school teacher.
Because of his outgoing personality, McKinsey is not afraid to speak in front of a crowd. By winning the region and state competition, he added, “It gave me a lot of confidence about my self.”
The Abbeville High senior is not settling for winning the local and state Boys and Girls Club award. He wants to win more.
With high school just about over, McKinsey has already entered the work force and is working at least 40 hours a week with the City of Abbeville. For the next four weeks, his life will consist of work, sleep and preparing for the regional event in Atlanta.
“I am looking at the next competition as a sporting event. I am trying to win the championship. Winning the state award just got me closer to winning the national award.”

An Abbeville mother faces numerous charges related to severe injuries that her infant suffered.
​On May 2, at approximately 7 p.m. officers with the Abbeville Police Department received a call from the Louisiana Office of Child Services regarding possible child abuse. Detectives traveled to an area hospital to meet with the complainant.
​During the investigation it was learned that an infant was in the hospital for several extensive injuries, including broken bones and head injuries. After interviewing several persons, officers arrested the mother of the child, 26-year-old Kassidy McGee of Abbeville, for 2nd Degree Cruelty to a Juvenile and Illegal Use of Controlled Dangerous Drugs in the Presence of a Juvenile.
Kassidy was transported to the Vermilion Parish Correctional Center, where she was also booked on unrelated Contempt of Court warrants. The infant child is still in an area hospital and is listed in Critical Condition.
The Abbeville Police Department is asking that anyone who may have any information regarding any crime, to please contact the Abbeville Police Department by calling 893-2511. You may contact our “Tips” line at 892-6777. All callers may remain anonymous.
Citizens may also send anonymous tips through CrimeStoppers of Vermilion by calling 740-TIPS or the P3 app, which can be downloaded through the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.

The City of Abbeville will host a community town hall meeting to discuss the development of Downtown Abbeville and reuse of the former Audrey Hotel. The event will be held from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on May 5, 2022, at the Vermilion Parish Library — Abbeville Branch and is part of a week-long study done in partnership with the Acadiana Planning Commission, Louisiana DEQ, and Kansas State University – Technical Assistance to Brownfields (KSU TAB).
These partners will visit Abbeville the first week of May and will host focus groups with different strategic professionals to develop a market analysis. They will work with locals to generate ideas for reuse and present to the public for community feedback in the town hall meeting on Thursday, May 5.
“I have had many conversations with members of the community who are enthusiastic about potentially putting the upper floors of City Hall to use,” Abbeville Mayor-Elect Roslyn White said. “I am excited to work with this dynamic team to learn more about programs available to us in the redevelopment of our community.”
The initial program and assessment will focus on reuse of Abbeville City Hall, previously the Audrey Hotel, as a potential redevelopment property, but will open discussion for the community’s wishes for downtown Abbeville. At the end of the process, the City of Abbeville will have ideas on viable projects to pursue funding and start putting vacant properties into use.
“It is our hope that this project becomes a catalyst for redevelopment throughout the City,” White said. “Once we finish this phase, we will have a blueprint on how to use incentives and LDEQ Brownfields Program funding to put other vacant properties back into use and make that plan available to our community and investors.”
The program is planned to be the catalyst project for the new Imagine Abbeville Campaign. Learn more about the campaign by visiting ImagineAbbeville.com. Residents can now submit ideas for the City of Abbeville anytime by emailing them to ideas@iloveabbeville.com.
About DEQ Brownfields Programs: Addressing potential environmental issues, especially financial and regulatory hurdles, is often intimidating, creating a barrier to the redevelopment or expanded use of these sites. LDEQ’s Brownfields Program helps convert these properties from community liabilities into community assets by assisting local governments and communities navigate the environmental process from investigation to cleanup and redevelopment.

One of my gifts under the tree last Christmas was a tee shirt inscribed with the question: “Have you ever noticed how many towns are named after their water tower?”
It gave me a good laugh when I unwrapped it, and it also caused me to wonder when we started building the towers and putting our names on them. I’ve heard somewhere that naming began as a way to guide pilots in the early days of aviation, but I think it probably started earlier than that.
The first towers began to sprout in the late 1800s, when reliable steam pumps capable of pushing water into them began to be developed. They were hailed as an inexpensive way to use gravity to distribute water, but the first ones were also symbols of community growth — showing that a place had become big enough to need one, and prosperous enough to build one.
I haven’t been able to find for sure just where the first one went up in south Louisiana, but a remembrance in 1899 by a man who appeared to be well past middle age gives New Iberia a good claim. The tower there, he said, had been built by his grandfather “by the old ferry crossing” and was filled with water pumped from Bayou Teche. We don’t know how old grandpa was when he built the tower, so we can’t put a date on when he did it, but he seems to have been an innovator.
“The tower was built from a large, hollow cypress log, about 60 feet high, sawed off square and a bottom nailed on, and mounted on a platform,” according to the reminiscence.
Lafayette was planning construction of a fancier tower about the time that letter was written. The engineers said it would be made of steel plates riveted together, 12 feet in diameter, 125 feet high, and that it would hold more than 100,000 gallons of water.
Opelousas was putting up a steel tower on the courthouse square about the same time, but it was not so well received. People were afraid it would topple over and kill someone.
The police jury had a long and contentious meeting over the question of “whether it was dangerous to the public and private property in that vicinity, and whether, safe or unsafe, it should be allowed to be built on the square.”
The controversy came to a head after the town council condemned the foundation for the tower and ordered the contractor “to construct a new one of better material.”
The parish and town officials ultimately met in a joint session and the police jury approved the tower, with a new base, by a 6-4 vote.
In Alexandria in May 1898, folks were so proud of their 140-foot tower that they raised money to put a pole on top of it to fly “a great flag … [that] can be seen all over town and far into the country.”
Alas, the big, visible flag, perhaps a forerunner to painting a name that could be widely seen, lasted only a year.
There may or may not be some moral to be drawn here, but it was on July 4, 1899 — Independence Day — that lightning shattered the flag staff, and — shades of Opelousas anxiety — “a few of the larger pieces that struck the ground would have killed whoever had been struck by them.”
The adage “pride goeth before the fall” comes to mind, but I make no judgments.
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.