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Community Foundation of Acadiana (CFA) and Hancock Whitney Bank are pleased to announce the 2021 Leaders in Philanthropy Award honorees for Vermilion Parish, John T. and Sandra B. Landry.
John T. and Sandra B. Landry are lifelong residents of Vermilion parish. John T. was a successful auto dealer and Sandra taught 1st grade for 32 years in the Vermilion Parish Public School System.
They are very active in their community supporting causes near and dear to their hearts such as Palmetto State Park, St. Theresa Catholic Church, and the University of Louisiana. Additionally, they have set up endowment funds to support the B.I. Moody III College of Business, St. Theresa Catholic Church, and an endowment to support nonprofits in Vermilion Parish through the Vermilion Foundation. The Landry’s have also established a significant planned gift to benefit Our Lady of the Oaks Retreat House in Grand Coteau.
“John T. and Sandra have an impressive list of statewide and community activities in the civic and religious arena. They believe in giving back to their community and their philanthropy has truly made a difference in the Vermilion Parish.” - Charles Sonnier, Vermilion Foundation Advisory Board member.
John T. previously served as the Director of Development at University of Louisiana at Lafayette. During his tenure the gifted assets of the university grew from $19 million to $130 million.
For his fundraising efforts, John T. received the Top Fundraiser of the Year Award for the state of Louisiana from the Baton Rouge Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals.
Leaders In Philanthropy Awards are presented annually to outstanding individuals, couples, and corporations who have supported nonprofit organizations, churches, and schools through charitable giving and/or philanthropic work.
Individuals and couples are selected from each of the eight parishes of Community Foundation of Acadiana’s (CFA) primary service area which includes Acadia, Evangeline, Iberia, Lafayette, St. Landry, St. Martin, St. Mary, and Vermilion Parishes.

CFA welcomes nominations from the general public at www.cfacadiana.org/lip. Nominees need not be donors or have a Fund at CFA. CFA’s Past Board Members consider nominations and submit their recommendations to the CFA Board of Directors for final approval, including those proposed by any Parish Affiliate Advisory Board.

Community Foundation of Acadiana’s core purpose is to build legacies and improve communities by connecting generous people to the causes they care about. CFA has realized more than $317 million in philanthropic activities since inception in 2000 and currently has assets of more than $187 million. CFA’s donor-directed grant distributions now exceed $165 million. While donors are not limited geographically, CFA’s primary service area includes the parishes of Acadia, Evangeline, Iberia, Lafayette, St. Landry, St. Martin, St. Mary, and Vermilion. CFA is the third largest community foundation in the state and expects to soon be included in the Top 100 U.S. community foundations by assets. These important milestones ensure CFA’s position as one of Louisiana’s premier philanthropic organizations.

March 9, 1925 ~ October 3, 2021

ABBEVILLE — A Mass of Christian Burial was held at 11:00 AM on Tuesday, October 5, 2021 at St. Mary Magdalen Catholic Church honoring the life of Roland Francis LeBlanc, Sr., 96, who passed away peacefully in his home on Sunday, October 3, 2021 - the day of the Lord's Resurrection and the feast of St. Therese of Lisieux. He was laid to rest at St. Paul Cemetery with Father Donald Bernard officiating the services.
Roland "Poly" was a lifelong resident of Abbeville. He was the son of Senator and Mrs. Dudley J. LeBlanc (Coozan Dud).
In his youth, Roland served as an altar boy at St. Mary Magdalen Catholic Church. It was through this service that he was asked by Blessed Father Joseph LaFleur to recruit friends to establish the first boy scout troop through St. Mary Magdalen Church. Roland credits his boy scout adventures under Fr. LaFleur, including a trip to Philmont, as a basis for his character and spiritual development. He achieved the rank of Eagle Scout.
Roland graduated from Mt. Carmel High School in 1942 and then continued his education at Tulane University. At the age of 18, he enlisted and served in the US Navy during WWII as a corpsman assigned to the Marines in Okinawa Japan. After the war he attended LSU and graduated from Southwest Louisiana Institute with a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry.
Roland used his knowledge in chemistry working as the Chief Chemist for his father in the making of Hadacol. He fondly recalled sitting next to Hank Williams on the Hadacol Train, along with other entertainers, contributing to the lyrics of Jambalaya (on the Bayou).
He married Maxine Laura Landry in 1952 and, after a short stint in the oilfield, he began his lifelong career with New York Life Insurance Company. He was a counsel agent for 32 years, but remained in the company for a total of 60 years until 2020. Roland won many prestigious sales awards including Chair (3 years), President (23 years), and Executive Council (6 years).
Roland enjoyed national and international travel throughout his life. Roland also went on many spiritual pilgrimages inviting family members to accompany him to places such as Conyers Georgia, Rome Italy, Medjugorje, The Holy Land, Lourdes France, Garabandal Spain, and a 6-week long World Tour.
Roland was active in many community and civic affairs including serving on the board for Abbeville Building and Loan and the Abbeville Chamber of Commerce to name a few.
Roland was a devout Catholic and a charitable donor. For most of his life he was a daily recipient of Holy Communion attending morning Mass. For many years he served as a lector at St. Mary Magdalen Catholic Church and as a Eucharistic Minister bringing Holy Communion to the sick. He was devoted to praying The Twelve-Year Prayers of St. Bridget, of Sweden, on the Passion of Jesus for the last 15+ years. He and his son, Tommy, met together daily at 2pm for recitation of the Divine Mercy Chaplet and the Holy Rosary.
Poly was an avid hunter and fisherman. He learned to hunt and fish at an early age from his father and his maternal uncle, Lester Hebert. He fished from the Vermilion Bay to the Gulf of Mexico and on many of his travel excursions around the world. Poly enjoyed his final fishing trip in the Gulf of Mexico four weeks prior to his death. He passed down this love to his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.
He was a man who enjoyed life, loved to entertain and host anyone who was willing to join his party. His life centered around his family. He raised his seven children after the death of his beloved wife, Maxine, in 1971. Poly loved telling jokes, giving toasts for special occasions and fixing his "specialty" punch for family gatherings. He was a HUGE LSU football fan. When he stopped tailgating, he continued to passionately watch the Tigers from his home. He enjoyed playing tennis, golf, and many other sports that kept him active.
Roland is survived by six children, Leah LeBlanc Foster, Roland F. LeBlanc Jr., Terrence J. LeBlanc (Kitty), Theresa LeBlanc Rabeaux (Randy), Laura LeBlanc McLain (Allen), and Thomas D. LeBlanc (Barbara); twenty-nine grandchildren, and fifty great-grandchildren. He is survived by his siblings, Kay Jarrell, Jean LeBlanc (Mike), Bertha Curley, and Morgan LeBlanc (Carol), sister-in-law, Claudette LeBlanc; and numerous nieces and nephews who played an important role in his life. He is also survived by a family friend of many years, Arthurine Sirmon.
Roland was preceded in death by his wife, Maxine Landry LeBlanc; parents, Dudley J. and Evelyn Hebert LeBlanc; brother, Dudley J. LeBlanc Jr.; son, Stephen Marshall LeBlanc; great-granddaughter, Kaylee Abigail McLain; daughter-in-law, Melissa Hebert LeBlanc; and son-in-law, Samuel M. Foster.
The family requested that visiting hours be observed at St. Mary Magdalen Catholic Church, 300 Pere Megret St., Abbeville on Tuesday, October 5, 2021 from 9:00 AM until time of services.
The family offers a heartfelt thanks to Dr. Joseph Brierre, Lourdes Hospice (Meg, Gary, and Marie), Fathers Donald Bernard and Louis Richard for their selfless attention and spiritual care.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to St. Mary Magdalen Catholic Church, 300 Pere Megret Street, Abbeville LA 70510.
Condolences may be sent to the family at www.vincentfuneralhome.net.
All funeral arrangements were conducted by Vincent Funeral Home of Abb

It was welcome news when rubber rationing was lifted at the end of World War II, and it may have been welcomed more in south Louisiana than in many other places.
Tires, and the inner tubes that kept them round, were the first things to be rationed after major rubber-producing countries such as Malaya and the Dutch East Indies fell to the Japanese.
That may not have caused as much of a problem here as it did in some other places, because a lot of people were still using (or began to use again) the horse and buggy they’d relied on for years.
But rubber was used in plenty of other things that either disappeared or became strictly rationed — gloves, raincoats, hot water bottles, girdles, toys, and, importantly, boots.
That included hip boots worn by hunters and trappers, the smaller ones used by fishermen or by farmers who waded in rice fields, and everyday boots worn by workmen when the rains rained down on south Louisiana. Many folks here had a tough time deciding between a good pair of boots and a new tire for a car or truck that required gasoline that was also hard to get.
Some boots were still being made, but not nearly enough. Ladies could still find galoshes, but workmen needed a special certificate to buy their boots, and they were expensive, if they could be found at all. For more than three years, fishermen and farmers and trappers had to suffer with wet feet caused by leaky ones held together by inner tube patches — or by wading without any boots at all.
That’s why the Abbeville Meridional considered it front-page news when L. M. Goldberg, chairman of the Vermilion Parish War Price and Rationing Board announced at the end of September 1945 that Regulation 6-A, the restriction on rubber boots, had been lifted.
He said the regulation had applied to six types of boots, including “hip boots, Storm King boots (a three-quarter rubber boot), heavy type knee boots, light type rubber boots about knee high, and pacs [sic] and bootees less than 10 inches high.”
“In this section, agricultural workers and professional trappers especially will be benefitted by the removal of the restrictions,” Goldberg said. “Duck hunters and fishermen also, who have found it difficult to secure certificates since most were reserved for essential workers, will be pleased.”
Those folks and others were indeed pleased by the news, but it took a while for the bootmakers to get waders onto store shelves in south Louisiana, or anyplace else.
Most of the manufacturers had been busy making boots for soldiers or other war material, and it took them some time to get back to making waders good for the marsh, and setting up the distribution lines to get them into the stores.
Besides that, rubber stayed in short supply for months after the war’s end, and car makers grabbed the lion’s share of what was available to meet the nationwide demand for car tires.
Most people in south Louisiana still patched old boots and grumbled over wet feet for months. For all intents and purposes, Regulation 6-A remained in effect, no matter how pleasing the announcement of its demise.
A collection of Jim Bradshaw’s columns, Cajuns and Other Characters, is available from Pelican Publishing. You can contact him at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.

A former head football coach at Vermilion Catholic for three years, Charlie Cryer, passed away Tuesday morning in Houma.
He was 59.
Cryer coached at VC from 2002 to 2004. He was the head coach when the VC Eagles beat Kentwood in the Class 1A finals to win the school’s first football state title.
At the time of his death, he was an assistant football coach at Vandebilt Catholic in Houma.
Cryer was a high school coach for 31 years and grew up in Shreveport, where he was a stand-out high school football player at Woodlawn High School.
He played football at LSU under former LSU head football coach Bo Rein.
In March of 2019, Cryer was diagnosed with Non-Alcoholic Cirrhosis of the liver. He received a new liver two years ago.
Current Vermilion Catholic head football coach and VC alumnus Broc Prejean played for Cryer from his freshmen year to his junior year. He received word that his former head coach died Tuesday morning.
“We all loved that man,” said Prejean. “He was to us players what a high school coach should be. He just loved his players, scolded them like they were his kids but celebrated them the same.
“He never had a bad day out there with us, and what he did for us players and our community in such a short time was truly special. For the most part, the entirety of that 2003 football team is still very close friends and sees each other, and that’s largely credited to Coach Cryer making us an actual family.”
Prejean said the players had a special relationship with him and his family.
“He and his wife would call and text all the time just to say ‘we’re proud of you,’ and when you hear it in his big bellowing voice, it just had a different feel to it. It’s a big loss to everyone who had the pleasure of being around that man. Just praying for Mrs. Kristie, Kacie, Cody, and Chris and the rest of his family.”
Cryer began his coaching career in Cumming, GA in 1989.
He was hired as the first-ever head football coach for a new school (South Forsyth High School) and coached there until 1997.
The family moved back to Louisiana, where he has coached at a few high schools in Louisiana (Merryville, Oberlin, Acadiana Prep, Northwest, St. Mary’s, St. Louis, and Pope John Paul II).
Last year, after three years, he stepped down as Pope John Paul II head coach.
While at Pope John Paul II, he went through three rough seasons and a boatload of health problems, including a liver transplant.
Cryer spent the first two games of the 2019 season in a golf cart coaching from behind the end zone before Chris took over as the head coach.
He spent 15 seasons as a head coach and finished with an 87-64 overall record, including a Class 1A state championship at Vermilion Catholic in 2003.
On Sept. 30, 2020, Cryer was interviewed by the Advocate newspaper before his third season at Pope John Paul II.
The writer asked Cryer what moment sticks out in high school career.
Cryer said winning the state championship at VC.
“Yeah, the state championship at VC in ’03 was great. It was before the split, and we beat a great team in Kentwood (10-6), and my years at St. Mary’s in Natchitoches were great because my son played for me. Both my boys played for me, and we were pretty solid at St. Mary’s.
“I went to St. Louis because it was a good opportunity, and I have been known to go to programs that weren’t very solid and help them out and turn them around a little bit. I did that at VC and I did it at St. Mary’s, and I enjoy that challenge.
“Still, though, I would have to say the state championship was really special. No one thought we could beat Kentwood, and we did. It was a big upset. Those kids are in their late 30s now, and I stay in touch with them. It was a great time.”