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His career was apparently winding down when Edward LeRoy returned to Lafayette to walk a wire strung high above the high school campus.
“Mr. LeRoy has been walking the high wire for many years,” the Lafayette Advertiser reported on July 5, 1941, “and states that he first learned to do this high-wire walking in Lafayette when he was a boy.” His act, the account said, “will consist of various tricks on the wire” and that “he states he is the only man who is able to perform some of the more difficult stunts.”
I’ve looked in vain for record of his birth and death and details of his early life. I suspect that Edward LeRoy was the performer’s stage name, and that when he was a boy in Lafayette he was known as Edward LeRoy Broussard or Thibodeaux or Hebert or some other last name.
The Advertiser said he’d “performed all over the United States from many high buildings,” and that was apparently true.
I found an advertisement in the Houston Post that in May 1914 proclaimed him “King of the High Wire.” The ad promised that the “sensational tight wire walker” would put on a “sensational act 50 feet in the air, amongst the tree tops.” They seemed to like the word “sensational.”
LeRoy had apparently performed in Natchez several weeks before. The Natchez Democrat reported in April 1914, that he would close out his stay there “with an exhibition of wire-walking that has never been equaled in this city.” He was first going to walk a wire strung on top of the Baker Grand Theatre, and then put on “a clever slack wire performance inside of the theatre.”
He was in Kansas in July 1919, when the Fort Scott Monitor reported that the “high wire walker extraordinary more than lived up to all advance notices when he performed on a wire stretched [from two tall buildings] across Main Street.”
“While a crowd of 1,500 people looked on, LeRoy did every conceivable stunt on the tight wire,” that account continued. “He walked frontwards and backwards and then, to the astonishment of the crowd, he imitated a drunken man performing on a wire.”
There were shrieks from the crowd when he pretended to slip, but “it was all in the act, as not once did LeRoy lose his bearings, and seemed as much at home on the wire as on the ground.”
His name crops up regularly in old copies of Billboard, the show business magazine, and in the 1940s he sometimes performed with his wife. A 1942 blurb referred to them as Edward and Helen LeRoy of the LeRoy High Wire Troupe. Their act included something called the “revolving ladder” routine. In 1944, another blurb reported that “The Great LeRoy, high wire,” had been signed by the Ray Brothers Circus for performances in Houston and New Orleans. I presume that was Edward.
That seems to have been one of his last gigs. Billboard recorded on Christmas Day, 1949, that “Edward LeRoy, former wire walker for 35 years, has been a switchman for the M.K.T. Railroad in Houston for several years.”
He’d dropped in to visit old friends at the Billboard office in St. Louis, according to that report, then as far as I can tell dropped out of the limelight.
A collection of Jim Bradshaw’s columns, Cajuns and Other Characters, is now available from Pelican Publishing. You can contact him at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.

April 19, 1936 ~ April 27, 2018

COW ISLAND — A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 1:00 PM on Monday, April 30, 2018 at St. Anne Catholic Church honoring the life of James “Teanny Man” Hebert, 82, who passed away on Friday, April 27, 2018 at his residence. He will be laid to rest at Harrington Cemetery with Reverend Matthew Barzare officiating the services.
He is survived by his two sons, James B. Hebert and his wife, Charlsie of Cow Island and Roylee G. Hebert and his wife, Angela Mayeux Hebert of Sunset; two daughters, Lorna Bourque of Kaplan and Tawana and her husband, Pete Vaughan of Kaplan; one sister, Lina Ruth Miller of Ragley; one brother, Mickey Hebert of Lake Charles; one brother-in-law, Dale Stelly of Cow Island; 9 grandchildren; and 23 great grandchildren.
He was preceded in death by his wife, Florine S. Hebert; one grandson, Brock Vaughan; one brother, John “Bootsie” Hebert; and his parents, Roy Hebert and the former Beulah Broussard.
The family would like to thank Hospice of Acadiana, Carleen Grogan, and Priscilla Broussard for their special care.
The family requests that visiting hours be observed at Vincent Funeral Home - Kaplan, 300 N. Eleazar Ave., on Sunday, April 29, 2018 from 4:00 PM until 9:00 PM with a rosary being prayed at 7:00 PM; Monday, April 30, 2018 from 9:00 AM until the procession departs for the church.
All funeral arrangements are being conducted by Vincent Funeral Home of Kaplan, (337) 643-7276 [Service Information 225-5276]. Condolences may be sent to the Hebert family www,vincentfuneral home.net.

A union man through and through,Tim Del Cambre has passed away. He will be greatly missed.
The President of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 3634, representing MTA Supervisors for the County of Los Angeles, Brother Del Cambre left an indelible mark. He led perhaps the most successful contract campaign ever in his local union, culminating in a 21% raise over five years for his members in July 2017. That contract won 99 percent ratification in a sign of the appreciation he earned from rank and file members.
Services to honor Del Cambre’s life were held Friday, April 27 at Friendship Baptist Church in Pasadena, California.
Born in Los Angeles, he loved to golf and relished time with his family. He was a man of deep faith. His father was Timothy Del Cambre, Mother Zenobia Harris- Del Cambre and Sister Marian Jean Shivers.
His wife, Darcy Del Cambre, is also an elected officer of Local 3634. His extended family came from small towns including Delcambre, Louisiana, his family's namesake, Pine Bluff Arkansas, and elsewhere. She recalled his mother as a hard-working woman who raised the kids while his father traveled the world working on merchant ships.
Tim and Darcy met 32 years ago, when Tim was a bus driver for what was then known as RTD, and continued to be employed by the Metropolitan Transit Authority over a 43 year career. Throughout, he was active in his union, including as the elected Chairman of Local 1565 and as a contract negotiator for MTA Operators in 2006, during which time a milestone agreement was reached. A plaque was erected on the Plaza Level of Metro Headquarters, dedicated to all involved in those negotiations. When Tim was promoted at his job in 2012, he became an AFSCME Local 3634 member. Three years later, Tim was elected President.
Besides Darcy, President Tim Del Cambre leaves behind daughter, Kimberly Prepetit, son Damon Del Cambre, sister Jean Shivers, and six grandchildren.