May-June 2013 cover by Jax Frey.

“Sin. Repent. Repeat,” says a little painted plaque in Jax Frey’s kitchen. Framed by a patch of sunlight coming through the window, it seemed an appropriate concept for a visit to her home just before Mardi Gras Day and the inevitable halt of Carnival festivities by the arrival of Ash Wednesday and 40 days of Lent.

While the plaque’s directive may sound unabashedly hedonistic, it’s obvious that Jax is nothing of the sort. For the soft-spoken mom of four grown children (the plaque was made by her daughter), it’s really about letting go and starting anew, something Jax has done many times during her life, or as she phrases it, during “many lives lived”—all tied together with art as a common thread.

A New Orleans native from Lakeview, Jax went to St. Francis Cabrini Elementary, St. Joseph’s Academy and Kennedy High School. After her marriage, she and her husband lived “a series of adventures,” going from upstate New York to a West Virginia farm and then on to El Paso and Denver. For a time, she went to medical school in the Dominican Republic.

Eventually settling in California, Jax, then divorced, had a few adventures of her own. She went to a culinary academy and opened a catering business, studied business, marketing and life coaching, and worked in sales at a software firm. When she left that firm, she had a new name: “Jax.” A co-worker, also from New Orleans, always greeted her by a name associated with the city, like “Mardi Gras,” “Sazerac” or “Pontchartrain Beach.” One day, he called her “Jax Beer.” It stuck, and the woman-formerly-known-as-Judith became “Jax” to one and all. She says, “I could probably have gone back to Judith when I returned to Louisiana, but I brought Jax with me because it actually works as an artist’s name. And besides, I was pretty used to it by then and kind of liked it.”

After studying life coaching, Jax became certified, started public speaking, wrote a book, The One Life Plan, and became the host of The Sales Diva radio show in San Luis Obispo, Calif. As a life coach and public speaker, Jax worked with corporate and private clients throughout the state. Life coaching, she explains, involves helping people set a course for where they want to get to in their lives. “Basically, what I did, was take a snapshot of where they were in their life, or where their business was, and ask, ‘Where do you want to be?’” she says. One task was to keep clients looking forward. “I’d say, ‘Let’s not look back in your life.’ I’m not a therapist; I’m not qualified to do that. I’m qualified to get you from where you are now to where you want to be. That’s the way we worked.”

About seven years ago, Jax left California. After a year in Sedona, Ariz., she landed “with both feet on the ground” in Covington. She says, “I’m never leaving home again.”

Through all of her many journeys, Jax painted. She says, “The one thing I didn’t study in all those years was art! But I did paint, and I knew that one day I would live my life as an artist. I always felt like an artist and knew it was just a matter of time. As a life coach, I always told my clients, ‘Life is art. Make it a masterpiece.’”

Back in Louisiana, Jax decided she had to choose between being an artist or a life coach. She chose art, saying, “I haven’t looked back since. But I tend to paint what I used to coach. There is always an inspirational or thought-provoking message to all of my paintings.”

Jax has since made a successful career as an artist, partly on the basis of painting New Orleans-area landmarks. She notes that, especially as a result of Katrina, many of her childhood landmarks have become things that “ain’t there no more.” But that’s not anything Jax dwells on. The landmarks she does paint are all very much in existence and still very much beloved.

“I do fine art, and then I do a line of what I call ‘fun art,’” says Jax, whose miniature paintings (the “fun art”) can be found in area gift shops. “I call them Little Views.” The 4-by-4-inch acrylics feature a wide range of Louisiana- and New Orleans-centric subjects; the city is covered from Jackson Square to Jacques-Imo’s restaurant. Our cuisine and taste for adult beverages are mini-fodder for Jax’s brush as well. Beignets; oysters and crabs; Roman Candy; and a triptych of jambalaya, crawfish pie and filé gumbo are featured, as are Dixie and Jax (of course!) beers and the Sazerac cocktail.

“I did the Sazerac for the Roosevelt Hotel,” she says. Home of the Sazerac Bar, the hotel carries Jax’s Little Views in its gift shop. A miniature of the hotel itself is in the works, too. “I’m trying to develop a Roosevelt Hotel image, but for some reason it’s hard to get a bead on.”

Jax’s fine art paintings, like this issue’s cover, The Gathering, present more of her spiritual side. “My fine art is usually abstract figurative, usually of women, and includes a certain kind of message—like a secret message, if you will—an inspirational message,” she says.

After she moved to Covington, Jax started a group, the Women of Infinite Possibilities, which meets monthly and engages in a variety of activities. “It’s going on its fourth year now, and it’s really cool. We do a yearly retreat in July, and we use it for networking and support. We go on trips together—we have adventures!” she says. “We’ve been canoeing together; we go to concerts; we’re planning a women’s night out; and we’re going to do a bus trip to a plantation.”

The women appearing in Jax’s paintings represent their own possibilities. Some of her favorites she’s kept in her own collection. “Life Strut. It’s basically different things that can happen to you in life,” she explains about one of the paintings. “It’s a little bit autobiographical. The desert, the spirituality, walking through different parts of the country and moving forward—themes like that.”

May-June 2013 cover Artist Jax Frey.

Some are more poignant. Jax says, “I painted Prayers to the Ones We Love after losing a friend and thinking about all the people we’ve lost in our lives. We think about them up in heaven—wishing them well, hoping for abundance for them and that we’ll get to see them again some time.”

Jax explains how our cover painting came to be. “My paintings always have themes. For this one, I knew I wanted a group of women. I wasn’t sure they were going to be on the beach, but I always start with the women first and put the backgrounds in later.”

And, just as with the inspired name of her group, the canvas seems to present Jax with infinite possibilities. “I always get the feel of the women first, but sometimes it just turns out to be someone completely different than I thought was going to show up. And that’s kind of fun.”

Jax’s paintings can be found at Arabella Fine Gifts and Home Decor, Rug Chic, Simply Southern and at artbyjax.com. Her Little Views miniatures are available in area gift shops.

The post Infinite Possibilities: Cover Artist Jax Frey appeared first on Inside Northside Magazine Online.

There was no reason to panic, though. Mayhem ruled over the scene, but it was under control, as the Lethal Ladies of the Northshore Roller Derby League met the Crescent City Derby Devils in a Halloween match-up titled “Slamityville Horror.”

Rising out of Depression-era marathon skating exhibitions in the late 1930s, roller derby gained great popularity—it was one of the first sports ever televised, in 1948. By the 1950s, professional leagues were developed; they never really took off, but never really disappeared, either.

In the early 2000s, the sport saw a resurgence; all-female amateur leagues developed and are now found nationwide. Combining fitness and camaraderie with a style that could be described as Goth-punk meets pinup girl, the sport has found thousands of adherents who don helmets, wheels and fishnet stockings to battle it out with each other on the track, often as their kids cheer them on.

Roller derby hit the northshore with the formation of leagues in recent years, first in the Slidell area (Pearl River Roller Derby) in 2009, and then in the Mandeville-Covington area in 2011.

The Mandeville-Covington area league is the Northshore Roller Derby League, which is comprised, at the moment, of one team, the Lethal Ladies. The Pearl River league’s team is the Swamp Dolls. Many roller derby leagues have only one team, but leagues in more populous areas may have more, with an all-star team that represents the league in regional or national tournaments. In New Orleans, there is the Big Easy Roller Derby League with the Big Easy All Stars as the “A” team and the Crescent Wenches as the “B” team.

The Lethal Ladies in action. Photo courtesy Joel Treadwell, shotbyjoel.com.

Wait. That team’s named the “Crescent Wenches?” It’s all about the attitude, and one thing that’s developed over the years has been that skaters and teams adopt witty, pun-filled names that are often racy (or raunchy) and also have a hint of violence. Like “Crescent Wenches,” which works in the roller derby world on several levels—a play on the name of a tough steel tool, the crescent wrench; a geographical reference, the Crescent City where the team is based; and an element of femininity, albeit one with an un-ladylike connotation, to close out the joke.

Over-analysis aside, this means you might see teams from around the country named the “Trauma Queens,” the “Angels of NO Mercy,” “Babes of Wrath,” “Trampires” and the “Scream Puffz.”

Individual skaters come up with some great ones, too. Across the lake, we have nice young ladies like “Lake PUNCHatramp” (not to be confused with the retired “Pontchartrain BeAtch”), “Die-it Choke,” “Deb U Taunt,” “Coal Miner’s Slaughter” and “Fleur d’Lethal.”

Our Lethal Ladies on the northshore are led by president “.357 Madame,” and the team includes such sweethearts as “Lola Steam-Rola,” “Brawlberry Shortcake,” “Bruiza Palooza” and “Misfortune Cookie.”

Playing the game

Maria Lascola, known on the track as “Bella Lunatic,” the Lethal Ladies spokesperson, along with Shane Bard (“Pi Radical”), one of the team’s referees (or zebras, as they’re affectionately called), explains how they got started with the team and what it takes to play and put on a roller derby bout.

Lascola says she had wanted to play roller derby since she was a kid. A couple of years ago, she and some friends watched a roller derby bout, and that evolved into the idea of playing.

“One of my friends started researching and found that Baton Rouge had a ‘fresh meat’ [rookie] program coming up,” Lascola remembers. “The only rule was that you had to be able to stand up on your skates. So we went to a skating rink one day and tested ourselves—we stood up! So we showed up at Baton Rouge on Feb. 1, 2011, and started fresh meat training. I was terrible. I was holding onto the sides of the walls—I was terrible for a long time. It was hard to find somebody older than me or worse than me!”

They soon learned the Northshore Roller Derby League had formed and decided to get on board. “I heard there was a team five minutes from my house. Rather than driving an hour and back twice a week [to Baton Rouge], I transferred over and got involved in the organization,” Lascola says. She adds, “I think it was awesome being part of building a team instead of going onto something already established.”

Lascola says there are quite a few teams within easy driving distance that the Lethal Ladies could match up with. “You have the Big Easy Roller Girls in New Orleans; Cajun Rollergirls down in Houma; Red Stick Roller Derby in Baton Rouge; Acadiana Roller Girls in Lafayette; Pearl River Roller Derby, which is kind of Slidell and Picayune together; the Mississippi Roller Girls in Gulfport; and there are teams in Jackson, Hattiesburg and Columbus, Miss., and in Mobile and along the Florida Panhandle. There’s also a brand-new team in New Orleans, Crescent City Derby Devils, an up-and-coming team that’s getting established.”

Referee Bard says he got involved with the team through his spouse, Lora (“Misfortune Cookie”). He explains how the game is played. “There are 14 skaters on each team; five play at a time, four blockers and one jammer. Teams get one point for each opposing player their jammer laps, so the blockers are trying to help their jammer move forward while blocking the other team’s jammer,” he says.

Bouts are 60-minutes long and are divided into two 30-minute halves. Each half is divided into two-minute “jams.” Jams are the time the game is being played and points scored; in between jams are 30-second “line-ups,” which is the time when players are substituted and lined up for the next jam.

The rules are designed to keep the game as safe as possible while keeping the action going, so the chaos spectators might think they are seeing on the track is actually highly controlled. To ensure fairness and safety, penalties are assessed against players who violate rules such as cutting across the inside of the track boundary to get ahead of a player or blocking a player in the back. “If you touch someone above the neck—high blocking—it’s always a safety issue,” notes Bard.

“It’s not always easy to avoid, because you’ve got 6-foot-tall girls and you have 5-foot-2 girls,” adds Lascola. She notes that there are not many rules regarding who can play. “Women have to be 18 or over and pass a minimum skills test. There are no height or weight requirements; there is no upper age limit. Our oldest is 54, and I’m 49.”

Team members come from a variety of professions. “We have a bunch of nurses, about five right now. We have an environmental scientist, a girl who works for the Corps of Engineers, housewives, marketing people, everything.”

There are a few male leagues out there, Lascola says, but most are on the East and West coasts. Junior leagues are also sprouting up, and the Northshore Roller Derby League holds camps for junior skaters a few times a year that are becoming very popular. They also get the kids involved in the bouts, skating at half time and, she says, “For the national anthem, the kids hold the flag and skate around” before the game.

Kids’ skate camps are just one way the league is involved with the community. It’s a non-profit organization, and Lascola says, “What we make from the door and concession sales is either put into putting on another bout or it’s donated to charity. We probably gave away $3,500 in 2012.” The league has supported groups such as the St. Tammany Humane Society, Smiles International, the USO and Autism Speaks.

The team tries to participate in as many community activities as possible, with one of the most fun being the annual Running of the Bulls, the San Fermin en Nueva Orleans event. Each July, New Orleans stages its homage to the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain. Roller derby players from all over the world come to play the part of the bulls, sporting horned headgear and wielding whiffle bats to whack unlucky, or some might say lucky, runners as they crowd the streets downtown.

“It’s exhausting being a bull!” Lascola says. “Last year there were four or five hundred roller derby girls from around the United States and several other countries and somewhere between 12 and 15 thousand runners.” The run used to take place in the French Quarter, but it outgrew the narrow streets and now runs in the Warehouse and Convention Center area. “It was packed. It’s free; everyone was drinking beer and sangria.”

On a tamer note, the ladies have skated in the Running of the Reindeer, part of Old Mandeville’s Christmas celebration, and in the Olympia and Lyra Mardi Gras parades.

“People have the wrong image for roller derby, that there’s too much body showing—we wear fishnets—but all have tights on. That’s just the style that’s evolved. We pride ourselves on being proper in the community. We get involved to show that we’re a legit non-profit that’s here to do things for the community and have fun at the same time.”

The NSRDL is on the lookout for new recruits, non-skating volunteers and sponsors. Visit northshorerollerderby.com for more information and bouts schedule. Bouts run through November.

The post Northshore Roller Girls Rule appeared first on Inside Northside Magazine Online.

When vacant and crumbling plantation homes on the River Road north of New Orleans were being leveled to make way for progress in the mid-1900s, Gray plucked Evergreen Plantation in Edgard on the west bank of the Mississippi from that fate. The year was 1946.

Unmarried when her father, John Geddings Gray, died in 1921, she, not her brothers, took the reins of his oil and timber business. It was a remarkable move for the time, but she was a remarkable woman. Matilda Gray possessed a keen intelligence, a strong drive and confidence in her ability, say those who knew her.

View of Evergreen Plantation from the rear showing the formal boxwood garden.

To help her re-do her country estate, she turned to New Orleans architect Richard Koch, who was known for his restoration of historic Natchez properties and Oak Alley. Gray was one of several preservationists rescuing plantation homes from death by decay around that time. Others were the Crozats at Houmas House, the Stewarts at Oak Alley and the Judices at L’Hermitage, all on River Road.

When Gray chose Evergreen Plantation, she acquired not only a grand house in the Greek Revival tradition, but 37 other structures, mostly antebellum (built before the Civil War). Of key historic importance in the description of this historic property are the 22 slave cabins. No other plantation in the South can boast of this many. Author Richard Sexton calls them “a melancholy vestige of the institution of slavery.”

The cabins remain in their original, double-row configuration, and 82 live oak trees, estimated to be about 200 years old, shade the cabins. This allée of oaks is not in front of the house, as one might expect. Evergreen was well known for its formal garden encompassing the front lawn. The highly photographed oak allée is on the side, stretching back to the cane fields in a vanishing point. The trees were reportedly planted by a slave woman whose name has been lost to history, according to Mary Ann Sternberg in Along the River Road.

If the slave cabins give you pause, add one more statistic to Gray’s acquisition on River Road—2,263 acres of land with sugar cane fields, a swamp and even a piece of Lac des Allemands. Imagine your lot measuring about three miles deep!

The parlor on the main floor, with a portrait of an early Creole woman.

Because of the history of the house, the agricultural heritage and the slave cabins, Evergreen sits beside Mount Vernon and Gettysburg in having achieved the nation’s highest National Landmark historic designation. It is also on the National Register of Historic Places. But Evergreen was in need of a makeover, and Gray tackled it with the confidence of the CEO that she was.

When Gray acquired Evergreen, it had been sitting neglected and forlorn for about 14 years. Bought by Alfred and Edward Songy in 1894, it had been known previously as the Becnel Plantation for 100 years; the Songys named it Evergreen. Some 35 years later, hard times struck with mosaic disease attacking the cane and a record-setting flood swamping the fields. The Depression followed soon after. Farmers could not recover from that many lost crops, and many plantations were taken over by banks during this period, including Evergreen.

The Early Days

The story of Evergreen begins with the arrival of the Germans at the port of New Orleans in the 1700s. Ambroise Heidel (which became Haydel) and his five sons lived along the west bank of the Mississippi. The extended family eventually owned five miles of river frontage on the so-called German Coast. Ambroise’s son Christophe farmed the site of present-day Evergreen, where indigo was the predominant crop in the 1700s; later it was rice. Slaves did the field work and may have built the French Creole house, circa 1790, for Christophe and his wife, Charlotte Oubre. Christophe’s brother built Whitney Plantation next door.

The two raised houses were similar, with wide galleries and short wooden columnettes on the upper-floor balcony. The raised living area was one-room deep and three-rooms wide, called “en suite,” meaning no center hall. One walked onto the front or back porch to enter another room. Beneath the living area was an open space among the brick support columns. A brick “floor” was laid underneath the house over sand, which provided drainage for the seasonal flooding. Sometimes referred to as a West Indies design, the Heidel house was a striking salmon color, originating from the plaster used on the bricks.

Christophe’s daughter, Magdelaine Heidel Becnel, inherited the plantation when he and his wife died in 1799, about 140 years before Matilda would own it. There, Magdelaine raised her eight children and her young, orphaned grandson, Pierre Clidamant Becnel, whose parents died of yellow fever.

“In that day, it was customary to marry your cousins, and four of Magdelaine’s children married four Heidel first cousins who lived next door at Whitney,” says Jane Boddie, director of Evergreen.

The Becnel Plantation

Magdelaine died in 1830, at the amazing age of 75, and Clidamant Becnel bought out the other heirs to his grandmother’s home. He had a great interest in architecture and traveled to Philadelphia for a year to study Greek Revival design, introduced in the early 1800s by Englishman Benjamin Latrobe, who designed the U.S. Custom House in New Orleans.

The slave cabins remain today in their original double-row configuration.

Clidamant didn’t build his dream house. Instead, he reconstructed the ancestral family home, giving it a stunning Greek Revival exterior while retaining the French Creole interior floor plan. Boddie suggests he may have received advice from Samuel Hermann, who built the Hermann-Grima House in the French Quarter and was married to Clidamant’s Aunt Marie.

The contract with the builder, John Carter from St. Charles Parish, still exists. It called for enclosing the open basement and adding three rooms, raising the existing floor two feet and raising the roof 31 inches. There was to be the appearance of a terrace or balcony on the roof, and “two winding stairs of grace and elegance.” The contract also noted that Carter and his two assistants would receive “bed, board and washing during execution of the work.” Carter’s pay was $1,800 at the start of the job and the same amount at completion.

Clidamant was quite the recycler. He stipulated in the contract, “Do the work in such a way as to prevent a useless waste of materials.” Approximately 300,000 bricks from Uncle Sam Plantation (dismantled because the levee was being moved) were ferried across the river for use in the reconstruction.

In Ghosts Along the Mississippi, Clarence Laughlin describes the striking front façade. “A pedimented portico appears to receive the two fine free-standing staircases that curve through the air to the second floor.” That pedimented portico is a defining Greek Revival detail.

Richard Lewis in his Vestiges of Grandeur, calls the sweeping double stairway on a Greek Revival house “an unusual aspect.” Because of it, Sam Wilson suggests in Louisiana History (Winter 1990) that the designer of the Beauregard Keyes house, with its similar stairs, might have been Clidamant Becnel’s architect. But he says, “It may have been Becnel himself who drew the nine plans mentioned in the contract, which have not been found.”

John Latrobe (Benjamin’s son) wrote, “The climate in the South requires all the shade that can be procured, and to obtain it, the body of the building is surrounded by galleries.” The gallery is eight feet wide. Clidamant encircled his home on three sides with massive Doric columns of plastered brick.

Ever wondered how they made those round brick columns? “They used pie-shaped bricks,” explains Boddie. “We have one of the old molds. The columns were open in the center, first covered with lime plaster and then coated with lime wash, as we still do now.”

Standing on the gallery, one can glance at the 18-inch stuccoed brick walls, original from the 1790 French house, and see how they are scored to resemble stone. The porch floors are pine and contain an interesting detail, a bowtie-shaped piece of wood that appears to attach the planks to each other. This architectural detail is also used in the loggia in the rear, which Gray enclosed to provide more living area.
(Gray also re-did—her favorite word—the kitchen in the former butler’s pantry and put bathrooms in the upstairs cabinets (cabinays), which were small rooms at the rear corners used for bathing the children or the help.)

The Evergreen house seen today is the creation of Clidamant, including the six dependencies, ordered and symmetrical in their placement. The two garçonnières were for teenage sons who were banished from the main house and allowed to have guests in their private quarters. Lewis writes, “They provided a modicum of privacy for unmarried male members of the family.” The two pigionniers, with interesting round windows, were considered status symbols by the French and used for raising pigeons and squab, delicacies on the dining room table.

Immediately behind the big house, facing the parterre garden, was a separate building housing the kitchen and a building for the house slaves, who needed to be in proximity to their jobs—cooking, cleaning, washing, ironing and caring for the children and the sick.

The architectural “piece de resistance” was the Greek Revival privy with four seats, two on either side of a dividing wall. It holds center stage behind the mansion and is just a short walk through the garden. Two famous writers commented on the extraordinarily beautiful outhouse. Clarence Laughlin wrote, “It tells us so gracefully of the height achieved in the art of living by the plantation culture.” Richard Sexton gets more to the point, describing the privy as a “diminutive 19th century temple…to human hygiene.”

Evergreen today has an unusual combination carriage house/stable/milking barn, because architect Richard Koch joined several of these service buildings into one during Gray’s restoration. The old sugar house (mill) is gone, along with many of the other buildings that served the sugar cane factory. Plantations were, indeed, factories, and their purpose was to produce a cash crop on a massive scale for the international market.

View of one of the pigeonniers, which were used for raising pigeons and squab for the dinner table.

Before the Civil War, processing cane was a long, arduous and dangerous task that began by cutting it with a machete. Cane juice squeezed from the stalks was boiled in huge, open cast-iron kettles, which are re-used today as fountains in home gardens. Great progress was made in the vacuum-pan processing of cane by Norbert Rillieux, a scientist and free person of color from New Orleans, who spent years working in Paris. (He was a cousin of the famous Impressionist painter Edgar Degas.)  Rillieux’s invention was called one of the greatest in chemical engineering. Be that as it may, when he visited a plantation to introduce his invention to the planter, he could not stay in the big house, nor could he stay in the slave quarters. Special arrangements had to be made because of his mixed race; Rillieux was a quadroon, one-quarter black.

It is said there was a building for everything on a plantation, which, in reality, was a self-contained and self-sustaining village. The plantation store was the mall of its day, and several old stores exist up and down River Road. Steamboats and packets often docked right over the levee, bringing everything from guests that might stay for one month to fine dresses for the mistress of the house to machinery for the mill.

In redesigning the family home, Clidamant fell into bankruptcy in 1835. He no doubt filled the mansion with antiques from New York and Europe. He would have had to buy slaves, as they did not transfer with the land. Whatever the causes, he was forced to sell to his cousin, Lezin Becnel, who graciously allowed Clidamant and his wife, Desiree Brou, to continue to live in the house. When Clidamant died in 1854 without children, the house was bought back by Lezin and was owned by Becnels until it was sold in 1894 to the two Songy brothers. For 100 years, the place had been called The Becnel Plantation, but the Songys named it Evergreen.

The Songy Years

Four interesting stories have surfaced from the Songy era. Sternberg writes in Along the Mississippi that Evergreen may have had a ghost. A young teacher and frequent guest at the plantation died unexpectedly. Soon after, the piano began to play with no one seated at the keyboard.

Although the River Road planters founded a college at Manresa, the young people were often sent off to school. One young Songy prayed that something would happen so she wouldn’t have to go away to school. About that time, the Songys lost their home. Decades later, this elderly woman told Boddie that she still had regrets about what she did.

Another descendant, Sylvia Songy Davis (Alfred was her great-grandfather) says, “We always heard the buyers wanted all the family to live together.” That makes sense, because several residential buildings on the property date to the Songy era, including the one housing the Evergreen museum and ticket office. Davis also recalls that as a child, when guests were in town, her father would ask Matilda Gray if he could take them to see the house. “She always said yes. I think she understood the connection the family still had for Evergreen and felt empathy for them,” Davis says.

Amazingly, though the Songys lost the property in 1930, descendants of that family still manage and work the cane fields today. “It is leased to them, but I talk to the farmers every day,” says Boddie, whose other title is president of Evergreen.

Two Matildas

Matilda Geddings Gray died in 1971. She had no children, no nephews and only one niece—Matilda Gray Stream, her brother’s daughter, who was named after her.

And so enters the third woman to take the reins of Evergreen. Gray almost “adopted” her niece, doting on her from birth, says Boddie. “When she was born, Gray gave the parents of her heir an antique Biedermeier cradle, which is on display in an Evergreen cabinet.”

Gray groomed her namesake to one day manage and care for her many acquisitions, including the plantation and dozens of l’objets d’art. In her extensive collection, she had 59 rare and original pieces, including three of the famous Fabergé Eggs, from the House of Fabergé, which catered to the family of the Russian Czar. Pieces from Gray’s Fabergé collection are on display on a rotating basis at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Gray filled Evergreen with large portraits of Creoles painted in the mid-1800s. A “wide angle” portrait of Evergreen with all of its ancillary buildings by New Orleans artist Boyd Cruise hangs in a downstairs bedroom at the plantation.

For more than 40 years, Matilda Stream’s life has focused on the world that her aunt left her. Evergreen remained a private home for 60 years for the two Matildas until Stream opened it for tours in 1998.
Like her aunt, Stream is a world traveler and counts royalty as friends. Boddie says, “She is an ambassador for Louisiana and its culture. There is a mystique about Louisiana culture. They both took it with them wherever they moved.”

Evergreen Today

Today, Evergreen Plantation is an active archaeological site. A recent dig in the area of the slave cabins by a state archaeologist involved volunteers from St. John High School and also area citizens. Boddie wants “to involve the local community in the life of the plantation and its history.” A little museum is part of the plantation operation, with rooms dedicated to each era—the Heidels, Becnels, Songys and Gray/Stream.

“We are dependent on agriculture,” Boddie admits. “With 400 acres in cane production, I am always thinking of the weather in terms of the cane. We start planting in July and harvest through December. We never would have been here, nor be here today without cane.” She adds, “But we put the same piece of property to work in other ways, by leasing hunting rights and leasing the batture on the other side of the levee, which in front of Evergreen is the widest in this area.”

The movie industry is also a source of revenue. Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Django Unchained are two movies that were recently filmed at Evergreen. Tours are another slice of the economic pie.

It could be said there is a fourth woman guiding Evergreen through time and history, and that is Boddie, who has been at Stream’s side since she decorated the house in the late ’60s. “She asked if I could continue to work for her, and I said I could,” recalls Boddie, now more than 40 years later. “I run Evergreen for her. This place is my life.”

The post Evergreen Plantation appeared first on Inside Northside Magazine Online.

This West Indies Conch house features porches to catch the breeze.

In early March, we were excited to hear that Southwest Airlines had added a non-stop flight directly into Key West from New Orleans. Though making the drive from Miami has its sights to behold, the Overseas Highway adds quite a bit of complication to a great weekend trip like one to the Conch Republic. In less than two hours, we were sitting on the deck of a friend’s beautiful sport fishing yacht having a cocktail.
The harbor where we were docked was filled with names of familiar home ports—Destin, Venice, even Covington! We were perched on the southernmost tip of Florida in a place that felt like a true mix of the French Quarter and the Caribbean.

The word, “key” comes from the Spanish term “cayo” or “little island.” There are more than 800 coral islands in the string heading south from below the Everglades towards Cuba, with Key West being the last. In fact, Key West is actually closer to Cuba than it is to Miami, which may have something to do with the laid-back attitude of locals and visitors alike when they sit soaking up the breezes.

On the northshore, we use the term come-heres to denote those of us born elsewhere who call this home. In Key West, we would be called freshwater Conch, even after being in residence for seven years. I like the sound of that. It honors the original Bahamian settlers and those born in the Keys, but celebrates newly minted converts to island life.

A great way to enjoy the compact hamlet is to walk, and that is exactly what we did. The island is approximately four miles long and just over one mile wide. From the harbor, we strolled Caroline Street up to Simonton and across the island to have a cocktail at Louie’s Backyard, a bar situated on a prime piece of Atlantic oceanfront. From there, we passed the infamous southernmost buoy where too many tourists waited in line for a photo op. The signs point to Cuba, a mere 90 miles away, and vendors sell coconuts you drink from with a straw. We took Whitehead Street west past the Hemingway Home and the Lighthouse, stopping for brunch at the Six-toed Cat Café. We finished our walking tour with a shopping stroll down Duval Street. On foot, you can’t help but take in all of the unique wonders and great people-watching the island offers. We were passed every now and then by Conch Trains ferrying Midwesterners to points of interest, but we never hopped on. I imagine it would be like riding in one of New Orleans’ horse-drawn carriages or on our new double-decker tour bus. It could be an interesting way to gather tales to tell, but you wouldn’t want to miss the experience of being on foot in either city.

Duval becomes the heart of Key West nightlife after dark. Again, I am reminded of home with a feeling of Bourbon Street, perhaps a bit cleaner and with better lighting. Renowned for having more bars per capita than anywhere else in the United States, Key West has a little something for everyone. There’s a Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville and a Fat Tuesday’s, both of which make you feel right at home. There is an Irish bar, a sports bar, a biker bar—you name it. There’s even a clothing-optional bar that we decided to skip. Some of the best-known watering holes include Sloppy Joe’s Bar, a Hemingway favorite, and the Green Parrot housed in a building from the 1890s. The Hogsbreath Saloon served up some great oysters on the half shell and the Schooner Wharf Bar on the docks had an eclectic line-up of musicians, some of whom were great and some that made us very thirsty! We never lasted until 4 a.m., but there are many who do!

The rich waters that surround Key West draw fishing enthusiasts today much as they have for nearly 200 years. Today, the waters are rich in barracuda, sailfish, yellow and blackfin tuna, dolphin, bonefish, mackerel, snapper and grouper. Charter boats of all kinds fill the marina, ready to take visitors deep-sea fishing in the blue waters, snorkeling on the reefs, even diving for lobster! Perhaps you will spend the evening feasting on your very own catch of the day!

Until it was named an endangered species in the mid-’60s, the sea turtle provided the island with a thriving industry. It is interesting to note that the first can of prepared turtle soup was produced in 1895, and that the meat was used for burgers, steaks and chowders. Another catch whose popularity caused its demise as an industry was the sponging trade. Small boats plied the waters and bights (natural pools created by a bend or curve in the shoreline) of Key West and took much of the sponge of the time to market.

The first industry to challenge the mariner tradition that guided Key West fortunes was the cigar industry. Transplanted from neighboring Cuba, it began with an initial factory established in 1831, but by the late 19th century, there were 166 factories and thousands of employees hard at work hand-rolling cigars, many of them escaping unrest in Cuba and making this their new home. The enormous growth of the industry required affordable housing for these employees and a building boom ensued.

The ready availability of wood made it the natural choice for home construction in Key West during the second half of the 1800s. As an added benefit, the wood could withstand high winds and humidity much better than plaster, which would crack and decay in the tropical environment. Simple native cottages are often called Conch houses, but architectural styles in Key West run the gamut from Victorian to Revival and from West Indian to Queen Anne. They are, however, generally presented in smaller, simpler versions than seen elsewhere in Florida and beyond. Many of the homes were built by ship carpenters and captains who used the forms familiar to them in the construction of their homes. There are shotguns and center-hall cottages so familiar to New Orleans and generous porches and hinged shutters from the Bahamas. Decorative cupolas, turrets, dormers and widow’s walks adorn homes of all styles, and fretwork is found on rooflines, fences, porches and pergolas, illustrating the personality and whimsy that speaks loudly everywhere you turn.

The treacherous underwater landscape of the Keys created a wrecker’s paradise between Havana and Key West. Former New England seafarers jumped at the opportunity of salvaging ships that sank on the coral reefs. When a law was passed requiring all ships wrecked in American waters to be brought to the nearest U.S. port, the industry grew, reaching a peak in 1855. A court was established on the island to determine a value for the rescued cargo. Many stately homes of the period were built with salvaged lumber and furnished with top-quality cargo raised from the surrounding waters.

The courts were not the first government presence on the island. When Florida was ceded to the United States in 1822, the Navy established a base on the island to curb an outbreak of piracy that threatened the growing economy. During the Civil War, the Union troops that held Fort Zachary Taylor at Key West and Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas were able to deter the movement of Confederate blockade runners through the channel to the Gulf of Mexico. Their presence had a powerful impact on the outcome of the war, despite the Southern sympathies held by most residents of the Keys.

Today, the complex at Fort Zachary Taylor has a host of amenities in addition to its historic roots. The beautiful surrounding park offers one of the best sunset views on the island. The other very popular, and crowded, locale for catching the sunset is Mallory Square at the foot of Duval Street—complete with roaming roosters and sword-swallowing entertainers.

Another “must see” spot in Key West is the Hemingway Home, occupied by the novelist and his wife Pauline from 1931-39. It is ground-zero for the island’s population of polydactyl (six-toed) cats. Originally built by “wrecker” Asa Tift in 1851, it had fallen into disrepair and was extensively remodeled by Pauline while Hemingway spent his days fishing with friends and writing in the pool house out back.

The Key West community is compact.
It is an easy stroll at sunset from Mallory Square to dinner on Duval.

There is something almost revered about independence in Key West. It is an accepting culture that indulges creativity in many forms. In fact, Key West seceded from the United States as recently as 1982. The Conch Republic, as the secessionists called the newly formed country, was created as a tongue-in-cheek reaction to a very real threat to tourism. The Border Patrol set up a road block on U.S. 1 just south of Florida City to search vehicles traveling to and from Key West for drugs and illegal immigrants. After repeated protests and pleas to officials went unheeded, organizers decided that if theirs would be treated as foreign soil, they might as well become a foreign nation. The rebellion declared war, which lasted for one minute before they surrendered and applied for foreign aid! The Conch Republic has become a well- accepted moniker, and the rebellion is celebrated annually with a lot of fanfare.

The mingling of history, personality, architecture and a real laissez les bon temps rouler philosophy defines the community of Key West. No wonder we felt so at home. We enjoyed good food, new friends, great storytelling and a total escape in America’s southernmost city.

The post Visit Key West appeared first on Inside Northside Magazine Online.

Coach Roberts’ holistic approach translated to a 5-2 record in the Southland Conference. Photos courtesy: Randy Bergeron, Southeastern Louisiana University

“It’s having a group of men take the field as a team versus having a group of boys do so,” he says. “What is a man? It’s not your age or whether you’re married or have children or a career. It’s being accountable to yourself, your family, and, in our case, your football family. Men win football games.”

Roberts and his coaching staff strive to instill the right attitude, trustworthiness, accountability and a respect for responsibility in their players. In his 2012 inaugural season at Southeastern, this holistic approach translated into a 5-2 record in Southland Conference action, which marked the most wins in conference play since 1978.

Roberts’ overall record is 52 wins and 22 losses (Gulf South Conference: 29-7 and Southland Conference: 5-2). Prior to coming to Hammond, he led his Delta State teams to two NCAA Super Region II titles, including an appearance in the 2010 NCAA Division II National Championship game and the 2011 semifinals, plus Coach of the Year praise and many other impressive accomplishments.

Although he has plenty of reasons to brag, Roberts remains relatively modest. Some in the community have even called him reserved (although his coaching staff and players say otherwise—at least when he’s in the locker room or on the sidelines). On the corner of his desk sits a well-worn Coach’s Bible with Psalm 101 bookmarked. It reads, “I will live with integrity of heart in my house.”

“If you go out there and do everything wrong but still win, you’re not doing a service to your players, coaches or fans,” Roberts says. “One of the best parts of being a coach is when a former player calls five or 10 years after graduation and tells me about his wife and kids, and by the way, he just got a big promotion, too. That’s when you know you’re doing something right.”

It makes sense that a man who grew up at the base of a Sequoia Forest mountain in the Central Valley region of California would teach players that they can stand tall no matter what the scoreboard says as long as they’ve played to the best of their abilities. “It’s the part of California where there are more cowboy hats than surfboards,” Roberts says, while donning a crisp Lions button-up and sturdy leather boots.

Roberts came to Louisiana from California via Tennessee—where he met his wife, Didi, and played linebacker for the University of Tennessee-Martin—and Mississippi, where he was defensive coordinator and head coach of Delta State. He says that, while Louisiana and California are both “football states,” there’s a definite difference between the two. “Football in the South is more of a way of life than just a game. I have absolutely no complaints about the great people or the food here, either!”

Roberts begins his second year as head football coach at Southeastern this fall, looking to build on the excitement of the Lions’ most successful season in the Southland Conference since the school joined the league in 2005.

In Roberts’ first victory in Hammond, Southeastern rallied from a 14-point deficit to gain a 25-24 win over nationally ranked McNeese State. In addition to that win, the Lions scored victories over Northwestern State and Nicholls State, marking the first-ever sweep of the school’s in-state rivals in a season.

He also has a knack for helping catapult several talented student-athletes into the NFL. He coached Pittsburgh Steeler corner Ricardo Colclough and Cleveland Browns wide receiver L.J. Castile. And by the time this article is published, former Lions cornerback Robert Alford may have been chosen in this year’s NFL Draft.

“When Coach Roberts and his staff came in, they emphasized the importance of being family-oriented and showed that they cared about the players,” says Alford, who recently participated in the Senior Bowl and had an impressive showing at the NFL Combine. “As a coach, he taught me a lot of things about pass coverage to prepare me to play at the next level. He and the entire coaching staff expect and take nothing less than 150 percent from you.”

“I can’t control how talented the other team is or how well prepared the other team is,” Roberts says. “I can and must, however, control how well we’re prepared. That’s my job.” It’s a responsibility Roberts takes seriously, and his coaching staff shares his ideals and vision for Lions football.

“We play serious football,” said linebacker coach Karl Scott. “And we like to have fun while doing so.” One example is a recent fast and furious marshmallow toss, part of the team’s Gridiron Games semester-long competition among teams of 10 players each. Scott explains that the teams earn points throughout each semester for things like visiting local nursing homes and reading to elementary school children.

The marshmallow toss, in which each player has one chance to catch a marshmallow in his mouth that is thrown by a teammate, and an end-of-semester dodge ball game are examples of other point-earning possibilities. What makes the competitions even more appealing to the players is that the winning teams in both the toss and dodge ball contests get to then take on the coaching staff to declare domination and earn bragging rights. Who won the coaches vs. winning players team marshmallow toss playoff this semester? With the help of a stellar marshmallow mouth catch by Roberts, the coaches can now lay claim to the marshmallow toss champion title.

Running backs coach E.K. Franks says Roberts’ use of activities like the Gridiron Games concept, which help the players to get to know each other and buildstremendous camaraderie for the team, is just one example of what makes Roberts such an excellent coach. “He is the real thing,” Franks says. “I’ve had the privilege of coaching under Bill Snyder at Kansas State, Barry Alvarez at the University of Wisconsin and Brett Bielema at the University of Arkansas. They are all highly respected as coaches. However, I truly feel working under Coach Roberts is the highest honor and experience I’ll have in my coaching career.”

With a lighthearted quip, defensive coordinator Pete Golding adds that Roberts is a fairly good prankster. “He keeps us laughing. And he’s a horrible golfer, too.”

All joking aside, where does Roberts see the Lions five years from now? He has no doubt Southeastern will be a premier program. “We’ll be a top-10 team, competing for a national championship,” he says without hesitation.

Roberts wants to make sure the northshore knows there is high-quality football in Hammond at Southeastern. “When you come out to support the Lions, I guarantee you will see an exciting brand of football, and,” he adds, “you’ll be backing a winner.”

In order for the team’s success to continue, Roberts says he plans to recruit as many local players as possible who fit the needs of the team. “We’re going to go after the ones we want. However, I’m not one to say that if we don’t get our first choices, we’ll take someone simply because they’re local. We’ll go anywhere in the country to get the players we want—the ones who have the ability and the mindset to be a part of the Lions football family.”

One of those players Roberts wanted is quarterback Brian Bennett, who came to Southeastern from the Pacific Northwest. He traded in his Oregon duck feathers and headed south to become a Southeastern Lion. “When I was considering a transfer, I had a lot of people say really good things about Coach Roberts,” Bennett says. “Now that I’m here, I can say they all were true. Coach is a winner. He’s a leader. And, he’s a teacher. We have some really great things going on here. It’s exciting.”

Linebacker Cqulin Hubert, who transferred from Texas Tech, agreed. “He is our family. Thanks to Coach Roberts, we have fun, but we also get business done.”

Roberts adheres to the belief that it’s not about whether you win or lose; it’s how you play the game. Perhaps it’s this balanced approach to football that continues to increase the numbers in his win column. Whatever it is, we like it! GO LIONS!

Season tickets for Lions football start as low as $90. Family Pride Packs of four tickets to a game are only $45. Call 549-5466 or 1-866-LION-TIX or go to lionsports.net for tickets or tailgating information.

The post Coaching Winners: Southeastern Lions’ Ron Roberts appeared first on Inside Northside Magazine Online.

Goodwyne makes sure his watercolors—most with nautical themes—find good homes not only by painting beautiful images, but also by doing all he can to make them very affordable. His prices are often met with surprise by gallery owners, especially since his works are sold complete with mat, frame and glass.

It’s not that he’s not proud of his work; he is, but Goodwyne maintains his humility. “None of us paint a masterpiece. We paint something nice and when somebody likes it, that’s good. Now paint another one.”

IN’s March/April 2013 cover by John Goodwyne.

Now 78 years old, Goodwyne’s only been painting for 12 years in this go-round in life. He painted for 10 years starting when he was 25, but let it go when he went into business as a builder. “When I first started painting, if I sold 10 pictures in 10 years, I sold plenty,” he says.

Goodwyne and his wife, Lynn, raised two children on the West Bank of New Orleans, in Algiers. He had a few other hobbies then. At times, he’s kept horses and cattle at his farm in Picayune and showed dogs, Weimaraners and an English Pointer.

Goodwyne was already retired for almost 16 years and he says, “I used to watch this guy Bob Ross paint all the time on TV,” referring to the popular PBS star. Eventually, he recalls, “I said, ‘I’m going to go back to painting.’ I started using Ross’s technique, and I loved it because you could complete oil paintings quickly. Then Lynn persuaded me to do watercolors, and I fell in love with that.”

Goodwyne still owns the first watercolor he painted. “I won’t sell it because it taught me a valuable lesson.” He entered the painting into a senior show held by the West Bank Art Guild, an organization he helped create back in the 1960s during his first iteration as an artist.

“I had painted it just like I was painting a photograph,” he says. “I put it in the show. There was one by a guy named LeBlanc that I looked at from a couple of feet away, and I didn’t like it. After the judging, we came back in and the one I hated won best of show. So I went back to it, looking at it closely again, and said to myself, ‘What the hell was the judge thinking?’ I walked about 15 feet away, turned around, looked again, and then I saw he was the best in show. The movement in that picture changed the way I paint.”

What Goodwyne learned from that experience was to paint loose, something he has to remind himself to do every time he picks up a brush. He has to, because his paintings do, in fact, contain a lot of detail. That’s supplied by the first step in his process—making a detailed, and not loose at all, sketch of the central scene and objects, usually boats, houses and/or lighthouses, he’s going to paint.

“I never paint the same day I sketch. I’ll look at it for a day or so and decide what I want. I sketch in great detail. Then I still have to tell myself ‘stay loose’ as soon as I pick up that paintbrush, because I still want to paint a photograph. That’s not painting. Get a camera for that,” Goodwyne says

He describes his style as “realistic impressionism.” It’s not a contradiction. “I want it to be realistic, but I want that impressionism in there so people can do their own thinking about how it really looks to them.” Painting loose gives a picture motion, and as he tells students in the workshops he’s given over the years, movement is the best thing they can create in their pictures.

One workshop student pointed something out to Goodwyne that he hadn’t realized. “She said, ‘Mr. John, you don’t really paint.’ I asked her what she was talking about, and she said, ‘Have you ever noticed that painters make strokes? I never see you stroke. You just push the paint around with your brush. I said, ‘You’re right. I never go back into a section once I put the pigment down.’”

Painting on an inclined board that’s almost flat, rather than an easel, lets Goodwyne control how much the paint will dribble down and mix with neighboring colors. When it’s just right, he levels the board and breaks out a hair dryer. “If I don’t dry it quickly, I’ll get ripples in the paper, and once they’re dry, those ripples are staying.”

What he’s become known for are his watercolors executed on nautical charts, like the one hanging in his studio of a lighthouse—in Boston Harbor, one of the first in the country—on a chart of Boston Harbor. These present their own challenges. “It’s not watercolor paper; it’s paper like the magazine is made of,” Goodwyne says. This coated paper will begin to bubble when paint is applied, and the hair dryer again comes to the rescue. He stops painting and dries the paper several times during the process.

Cover artist John Goodwyne.

Those embellished charts and matted watercolors come to the buyer in rustic frames that Goodwyne makes himself, an exercise of his frugal nature and love of making things.

“Spending so much money on frames used to eat me up. I said, ‘I gotta start making my own frames.’ Plus, I learned how to do something, and it keeps me busy,” he says. “My frames come from old fence boards. When I had the farm, I had about 700 or 800 fence boards that were made of cedar or redwood.” He collected the boards throughout his old neighborhood on the West Bank. Neighbors would tip him off to homeowners putting in new fences, and he’d collect the old boards.

Goodwyne and Lynn have lived on the northshore for seven years. He had an idea, way back when, to retire to Wyoming. The West is a favorite topic for him. “I got to be a cowboy on my own farm in Mississippi.” He has two Frederick Remington bronzes, and remembers a visit to the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyo.

“After I sold the building business, I thought maybe we could move up there and when it got too cold, we would come back to the farm in Mississippi. Lynn didn’t want to do that, and we moved to the northshore because our daughter lives up here and our son was going to move here as well. He’s in Tennessee now, though,” Goodwyne says.

Other than some pesky geese that have adopted the ponds in their neighborhood near Bush, the couple is enjoying it.

“It’s peaceful to me,” Goodwyne says.

John Goodwyne’s work is available at the Three Rivers Gallery, 333 E. Boston St.; Abita Gallery, Gifts and Framing in Abita Springs; and by calling him at 886-9059.

The post Staying Loose: Cover Artist John Goodwyne appeared first on Inside Northside Magazine Online.

For two years, Ballard served as a member of the Louisiana Board of Regents, which oversees all of the public higher education systems in the state—the University of Louisiana, Southern University and the Louisiana Community and Technical College systems. Also under the Board of Regents purview is the state’s higher education flagship system, the Louisiana State University System. In July 2012, Gov. Bobby Jindal appointed Ballard to the LSU Board of Supervisors.

Ballard was eager to help, first when appointed to the Board of Regents and with his subsequent appointment to the LSU Board of Supervisors. “Higher education is something I truly think is a major priority for our state,” he says. “I was tired of seeing Louisiana at the bottom. I was born here; I was raised here; I came back here to raise my family and run our business.”

That first appointment exposed Ballard to the big picture of higher education in the state. “I learned a lot on the Board of Regents; I was on many sub-committees, including finance and education. That taught me a lot about policy, how policy is set and implemented into the systems,” Ballard says. He notes examples of policy issues the regents dealt with: ways of increasing transferability of credits between schools in the different systems, reducing the duplication of courses among schools and developing curricula that better fit the needs of Louisiana employers.

“I feel we made some tough decisions that undoubtedly will make us a better education system,” says Ballard. “We’re raising the bar so that when you take something at Delgado or Eunice or SUNO, it can transfer. We don’t need the waste. Most people are struggling to afford to go to school anyway. It would be horrible to have to pay to go, take an English or math class and it won’t even transfer.”

It’s a completely different experience for Ballard since starting on the LSU Board of Supervisors, which operates the Louisiana State University System. “In that capacity, it’s more about taking the policy and managing it,” he says. “It’s very much hands-on, managing the chancellors and the presidents and the provosts, managing the budgets that are given down by the Board of Regents and the legislature. I believe that as goes the flagship school of any state, so goes the rest. We have to get the flagship right. Your general has to be leading correctly for the others to follow correctly.”

Members of the Board of Supervisors are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the senate for a six-year term. There are two from each U.S. congressional district. Ballard and New Orleans attorney Stanley Jacobs (who happens to be a Covington High graduate featured in our story on page 32) represent the 1st Congressional District. One at-large member and one student member are appointed as well.

While the LSU system is one cog in the entire state higher education complex, it encompasses a statewide network of schools, hospitals and research centers, each presenting unique management challenges, especially during these turbulent political and economic times. “Right now [December 2012] we are in the middle of hiring a new chancellor of LSU’s main campus and are in the process of combining the president of the system and the chancellor at LSU into one position, which not only saves money and streamlines operations, but gives everyone the opportunity to be on one playing field. In that, we will create a new management system,” says Ballard.

Louisiana’s public health system operates under the Louisiana State University System, with hospitals in New Orleans, Amite, Bogalusa, Baton Rouge, Shreveport, Amite and Lake Charles. It is facing significant budget shortfalls. “It’s a big challenge and an awesome responsibility that we take very seriously,” Ballard says. “My step-mother was president of Charity Hospital, a pediatrician at Tulane for 43 years. My brother and sister did their residencies at Charity. I grew up understanding the Charity system, the value it has to our city, to our state—and that’s not going anywhere.”

Public-private partnerships, such as the one recently announced for the new teaching hospital in New Orleans, are one means of reforming the system for the better, says Ballard, with the supervisors looking to other teaching facilities as examples. “Ultimately, we, the Board of Supervisors and LSU, need to concentrate on the students and education. We don’t need to concentrate on managing hospitals. That’s not what we do best. Harvard does not own a medical center; they have a medical school and partner with other systems.”

Ballard says that state taxpayers will still own the properties under the LSU banner, but they will be leased. He says, “Whether it be to Children’s or Ochsner, Touro or HCA, we would provide the [medical] residents,” he says. “What this would ultimately do is allow our residents to see more patients. The more patients they see, the better training they get, the more hands-on experience they have—and therefore they become better doctors. It’s like anything in life. Practice makes perfect.” Additionally, Ballard says, “In my opinion, it will create more jobs. From an indigent care perspective, Charity is still there, but it will be a system used everywhere else, and the Medicaid dollars will follow the patient.”

While budget shortfalls may be driving the LSU health system’s reform, Ballard says, “We shouldn’t have to wait until times like this to make smart decisions. There are efficiencies we should always look at, across the board, whether it be in education or health care.” What’s really needed, he adds, is a major constitutional change.

“In our state, and this is the Cliff-notes version, the state constitution does not allow anything to be cut if there’s a contract involved,” he says. “The only things that aren’t contractual are health care and education. That’s insane. We sit on an island by ourselves with that policy. It needs to make sense. It needs to be tweaked. Education and health care don’t need to be the only things—they should be the last things—that we should cut for our citizens, the people who actually pay the bills.”

The post Another Side Of: Scott Ballard appeared first on Inside Northside Magazine Online.

Inside Northside presents Hot Husbands 2013! For the sixth time, northshore women have responded to our call for Hot Husband nominations, and this year’s selections do not disappoint. The heartfelt letters written by their wives really showcase what makes these mean truly hot–their dedication to their jobs, their families and our community. As in past years, because there are so many responses, we could not include all submissions. Here, we present edited selections from the chosen letters. We are honored to send a belated Valentine to the men who are the fortunate subjects of these love letters.

Ben Haindel
Submitted by Courtney Haindel

Ben Haindel

When we got married four years ago, Ben inherited not just me, but my two little girls–then ages 3 and 8–and we now have a third daughter together. A lot of men would be overwhelmed with all that estrogen in the house … I mean, at any given moment it’s likely that one of the four of us is crying about something. But Ben doesn’t miss a beat. He is the constant, steady, firm, loving and stable presence in a house full of drama and hormones. Not a day goes by that Ben doesn’t do something for me—a note tucked away in a secret place telling me I’m beautiful, a fresh Sonic Diet Coke delivered to my desk at work—and he does it all with a huge smile and a kiss on my forehead.

He’s the same way with our girls. Ben throws the softball, fixes hair, gets sippy cups of milk, wipes little hineys, says night-time prayers, encourages good grades, coaches soccer, invites his daughters out for a snowball, reads books and watches an inordinate amount of dance performances, clapping for each one like it’s the first.

Even after all he gives at home, Ben goes to work and enriches the lives of teenagers as a teacher at Northlake Christian School and director of Camp Northlake. One of my favorite things about Ben is his appreciative heart. He knows that God has blessed him greatly, and he’s happy to give credit where credit is due.

Dan Buras
Submitted by Kelley Buras

Dan Buras

I feel truly blessed to be married to my husband of 19 years. I can honestly say that Dan is the most dedicated father and family man I have ever known. Although he runs his own law firm in Mandeville and is also in the Navy Reserve, he has never missed a sporting event or a school function. In fact, Dan often finds himself up until the wee hours of the morning finishing his work because he spent the afternoon on a school field trip, the evening at football practice and the night helping any of our four children with a school project, homework or studying for a test. He never seems to run out of energy, and no matter how tired he may be, Dan is always there for us if we need something. He shows the same dedication when it comes to his friends and will do whatever it takes to help someone in need.

Dan is an awesome role model, not only for our children, but for everyone who knows him, because he holds integrity in such high regard, and he consistently speaks words of encouragement to those around him. He is a rock of stability, and the word “can’t” isn’t in his vocabulary.

To sum it up, some of the reasons why I think Dan is the hottest husband on the northshore is that he is funny, sexy, charming, faithful, honest to a fault, loyal, exciting and intelligent—and those characteristics definitely make him HOT!

Eric Boegel
Submitted by Tasha Boegel

Eric Boegel

My husband is HOT inside and out. For starters, he is willing to offer anyone a helping hand, even strangers. After Hurricane Katrina, Eric picked up three strangers, drove them to Hammond and gave them $60. That was all the money he had.

Born and raised in New Orleans, my husband has been a resident of St. Tammany for more than 20 years. He and his father own a successful construction business. Every customer has nothing but words of praise for him. He and his father make customers/friends for life.

Eric is a perfectionist, not only in his work but in his relationships and parenting. We have four beautiful children. We met in college and dated briefly. I moved on, married and had two children. I later divorced, and Eric and I reunited at the Wooden Boat Festival in 2000. He melted my heart when he connected with my then babies.

My husband takes pride in his family, his work and his relationships. He always keeps his promises. When times get tough, he pulls me close and assures me with patient words. “We are going to get through this,” he says. And we always do, because of his hard work, perfectionism, patience and persistence.

Eric is perfect to me. His friends named him “Easy” because he is always so relaxed. Anything goes for him. He makes things happen with ease and simplicity and maintains perfection on the inside and out. That is why he’s hot!

Garett Schlink
Submitted by Tracey Schlink

Garett Schlink

My husband has devoted his life to our family. We have been married for more than 10 years now, and after two children, several stressful job changes and a severe health blow, our love is stronger than ever.

Garett developed back pain 13 years ago. He suffered depression, weight loss and constant pain. At one point, he mentioned taking his own life. It was excruciating to watch a young man who was once filled with inner and outer strength and pure compassion for life practically wither away. The hardest blow was when he told me that he did not want children because he would never be able to play with them. This was devastating—anyone that met Garett could see his love for children.

After several years, countless back procedures and a huge financial strain, Garett has learned to live life in pain. Now we are blessed with two beautiful children that bring him joy every day.

Garett has been a godsend to me. Despite the pain when sitting for any extended time, he drives several hours a day for work and never complains. He frequently works more than 50 hours a week to provide for our family. He will never realize how much he has taught us about life, faith and love. His compassion and thoughtfulness for other people set an example for everyone. My children have a hero sleeping under their roof every night. I will forever be grateful that he chose me to be his wife!

Jason Brooks
Submitted by Capri Brooks

Jason Brooks

Jason and I met in 2001 while working for Lifeway Christian Ministries at Centrifuge Camp and were married eight months later. I feel so blessed to have married a man who surpassed all my dreams.

Everyone who meets Jason falls in love with him. He is kind, compassionate and always puts others first. He has a great sense of humor. Jason is smart, yet always willing to learn new things.

Jason serves as a local music minister, often working nights and weekends, but he loves what he does. He has amazing musical abilities, yet remains completely humble. He sees these gifts as an opportunity to serve God and serve others.

My husband never ceases to astound me with his continual love and support. He calls, texts or emails me every morning, and does other sweet things: a gift, date night or just a sweet note. He recently sent me an e-vite for a fun day in New Orleans. He always knows just what to say or do to make things brighter when I’ve had a bad day. No matter what my weight, if I have on no makeup or if I haven’t washed my hair in three days, he can make me feel like the most beautiful girl in the world. His unconditional love and support mean the world to me.

There are some things in life that cannot be described in words, no matter how hard you try. Jason and I call those “wow moments.” He is my wow moment!

Kirk Benson
Submitted by Melissa Benson

Kirk Benson

Kirk is not the kind of guy you would expect to see acting on stage, but that is where I met him. We auditioned for the same production at Slidell Little Theatre and both won parts. We became friends, learned that we had much in common and began dating. We have continued acting together, logging more than 20 shows since then. Sharing a hobby and a passion with your husband is HOT!

Kirk and I designed a budget for our family that works. He is very creative and open minded, so being his financial partner is rewarding and fun. Never having to fight over money is HOT!

Kirk and I have a blended family with six children. Nothing warms my heart more than witnessing the love and care he shows for my children. They love and respect him, too, because he treats them as if they are his own. He is fair with them and communicates openly. He helps them learn, encourages them, builds tree houses and reminds them to turn off lights. Having a family guy for a husband is HOT!

Kirk spent 20 years as a U.S Naval officer, is now retired from that career and still works for the U.S. Navy. He has exceeded every goal he set for himself and has forged meaningful and productive relationships with his colleagues. In addition, he still looks incredibly handsome in his naval uniform … now that’s HOT!

My marriage to Kirk has been my dream role in life.

Laurence Hansen
Submitted by Sherri Hansen

Laurence Hansen

My husband is a fully dedicated man–dedicated to me, his children, his family and his country.

A retired naval helicopter pilot with five tours of duty in Iraq, Larry serves his community as an emergency medical services helicopter pilot, providing medical evacuations and hospital transfers for severely ill and injured people. His calm and reassuring demeanor, coupled with military training and attention to detail, make him a great match for working through medical emergencies—and great when handling our household of four boys ages 7, 5, 4 and 4 months!

We own two small businesses, including our newest, Culinary Kids. Larry is the resident technology expert as well as the all-around handyman. Our second son has celiac disease, and Larry does all he can to provide a place where children and adults can enjoy the art of cooking without the hassle of dietary concerns.

Larry helps coach the kids’ soccer, basketball and football teams and is active in Cub Scouts as well. He fits it all in with midnight diaper changes, visits to see his aging parents in California and a job with eight-hour shifts. He is a true humanitarian and a good old American family man—and he’s adorable to boot!

I truly admire my husband’s ability to teach our boys to be strong, kind and curious. I pray that each one of them turns out to be just like him when they grow up … what a blessing he is to all of us!

Nick Knauf
Submitted by Tricia Knauf

Nick Knauf

Nick and I met in the Army and have been married since 1966. We have a son, Rick; two grandsons, Nicolas, 21, and Nathan, 15; and two granddaughters, Emily, 19, and Lily, 16. Sky, our “adopted” granddaughter, is 18. She came to us when she was about 4 months old and is still in our life today. We lost our daughter, Brandi, in an accident in 1990.

Nick was and is a salesman. He owned his own company, which sold business machines and ATMs, but retired about a year ago and is loving it! We have a great time traveling in our motor home making new friends and visiting old ones. Nick loves card games, especially Texas Hold ‘Em. A few years ago, we presented Marriage Encounter Weekends to couples for the Archdiocese of New Orleans. This was great for our own relationship.

We may be in our 60s, but we still care for newborn babies in our home who are in the process of being adopted. There’s nothing sweeter than watching that man holding those tiny babies in his big burly arms.
Nick is very easygoing and thoughtful. Some days he brings me flowers for no reason, and he gives the best hugs—ask anyone! Yes, I love him, but I also like him. He’s one of my best friends. We’ve been married for almost 47 years, and I still see Nick as my blue-eyed, handsome, sexy man and look forward to spending many more years with him.

Noel Haro
Submitted by Kelly Haro

Noel Haro

My husband is by far one of the greatest men I know! The term “hottest husband” incorporates so many of his qualities. He is caring, helpful, smart, handy, loving, funny and sexy, just to name a few.

A savvy businessman, Noel has owned his successful audio/video company, Complete Audio Video, since 2004. He goes above and beyond for his customers and is highly recommended by his loyal clientele.

Noel is an exemplary father and stepfather. Our blended family includes his two sons, Mason, 11, and Jackson, 8, and my two children, Christian, 14, and Cheney, 12. Our schedules are complicated, yet my husband never complains! He makes sure he spends time with all of the children and plans exciting things for us to maximize the fun during our family time. Noel also helps with the cooking, cleaning and laundry. I never have to ask; he is always one step ahead of me!

I teach second grade, and without Noel’s support I don’t know how I’d get through the year. In August, he helps set up my classroom desks and computers, and after helping me, he does the same for my colleagues. Noel grade papers weekly and lends a much-needed ear. He is loved by so many at my school, and shows he cares by doing special things “just because.” The day before we got out for the holidays, four dozen chocolate-covered strawberries were delivered to school with a note from him saying, “To the best teachers around! Merry Christmas!”

The post Hot Husbands 2013 appeared first on Inside Northside Magazine Online.

Louisianans—the people of the New Orleans area in particular—have a reputation for raising the celebratory consumption of any and all alcoholic beverages to an art form. One distilled spirit, however, has a unique connection to the state—rum.

Regulations regarding rum require that it be made of sugar cane products—sugar, syrup or molasses, the thick, dark and sweet liquid left after sugar crystals have been removed from sugar cane juice. Given that the state’s 400,000 or so acres of sugar cane produced almost a million and a half tons of sugar and nearly 70 million gallons of molasses in 2011, it’s a wonder that the state is not awash in rum. The question is, “Where’s the rum, Louisiana?”

The answer is that it’s here, and there’s more coming your way, along with some vodka and absinthe for lagniappe. A distillery in New Orleans has produced rum for almost 20 years, and distilleries in Thibodaux, Lacasine and Lafayette began production within the past year.

Author Wayne Curtis wrote the book on rum, well, at least one really good book about rum, called And A Bottle of Rum, A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails. “One of the things I talk about is whiskey being the distilled essence of beer, brandy the distilled essence of wine and rum the distilled by-product of industrial waste. When you crystallize sugar, you make molasses; molasses isn’t that valuable, and it’s harder to ship than the dried sugar. Molasses in the early days was thrown away. The French would just dump it into the ocean; there was no market for it; but most sugar planters figured out they could take the molasses and convert it to rum and sell it.”

Celebration Distillation’s headquarters.

Curtis says that although rum was probably first distilled by the Spanish or Portuguese colonists in South America in the 1600s, the island of Barbados gave birth to modern rum production after the British established sugar plantations there.

The more time that sugar cane has to grow, the more sugar accumulates in its juice and the easier it is to extract in crystal form. Crops do best in the tropics, like in the Caribbean, where cane can grow for 12 to 18 months or more.

With a shorter growing season due to annual frosts (sugar cane cannot survive a freeze), juice from Louisiana sugar cane was difficult to concentrate and crystallize. Then, in 1795, Étienne de Boré devised a successful method to granulate sugar from cane grown on his plantation upriver from New Orleans, which is now Audubon Park, and sugar cane plantions boomed in Louisiana afterwards.

“A lot of these early West Indies sugar manufacturers made rum,” says Curtis. “There’s no doubt that happened outside New Orleans on the sugar plantations as well.” As in modern times, though, he says it doesn’t seem there were ever large quantities of rum produced in the state. “In my research I see references all the time to tafia and aguardiente [both crudely produced spirits; aguardiente translates to ‘fire water’] and rum coming from the sugar plantations, but it never really took off, like it did in the Caribbean, as a major export product. It seems to have been largely consumed locally, and I don’t see it as a significant enterprise coming out of Louisiana.”

Rum Revivalist

Rum is produced in industrial amounts in the Caribbean, with Bacardi’s Puerto Rico plant pouring out more than 100,000 gallons daily. Barbados, Jamaica, Haiti and the Virgin Islands are also home to some top producers.

About 20 years ago, artist James Michalopoulos, an American rum revivalist, established the first distillery to produce rum in the United States since the 1970s. His New Orleans-based Celebration Distillation produces Old New Orleans brand rums in four varieties: Crystal, Amber, Cajun Spice and a 10-year-old reserve rum that is available only at the distillery.

When something fascinates Michalopoulos, he runs with it. This particular fascination began in Europe, where he was a guest of one of his patrons in Switzerland. “One day, after a meal, she served a digestif, which she had made from fruit from their own backyard,” Michalopoulos remembers. “I just was taken by how close to the earth they were and how wonderful the things they were eating were.”

He was fortunate to observe when a travelling still master came to the village with a still mounted on the back of a truck. After the harvest, farmers would make a mash and ferment their excess fruit, which the master would distill into fruit brandies, or eau de vies. “That’s how my friend would make that step from a wine to a concentrated alcohol,” Michalopoulos says. “It was very impressive to see that.”

A traveling still in Switzerland, which inspired James Michalopoulos to start up Celebration Distillation.

Many of his friend’s recipes for liqueurs and cordials came from America, and that fascinated Michalopoulos. “People just don’t make those things anymore. I became very interested in it, and thought that maybe I would become a winemaker. After thinking about it, and doing some studying, I became convinced of the difficulty of growing grapes in Louisiana. It wasn’t a great leap to see that the state was filled with sugar cane, and that it made a lot of sense to go in that direction. We had so much sugar cane; I could give a try at making some rum,” he says.

A long process of recipe experimentation, permitting and construction ensued. Michalopoulos says, “There are a lot of hurdles to get over to open a distillery. Not the least of them was a long legal process, a lot of things that are hangovers from the Prohibition era. We had to be very careful and watch all our p’s and q’s. I had a lot of legal help to get us through it all, and also some good engineering talent. We were very persistent and patient and managed to pull it off, one step after another.”

While he has some new products from Celebration Distillation on the horizon, the latest addition is a low-alcohol sparkling beverage called Gingeroo. “We love the way our rum tastes with ginger ale,” Michalopoulos says. They experimented with ginger ale and ginger beer recipes before coming up with Gingeroo. “We were ready to go with it before Katrina, but that knocked us out for a while. We went back to it and spent a couple of years refining the recipe and slowly wound our way into production. Now, we’re selling it over the entire state.”

Starting from scratch

Celebration Distillation is the oldest continuously operating rum producer in the United States, but in 2012, four more distillery operations were licensed in Louisiana. Three—Donner-Peltier Distillers in Thibodaux, Louisiana Spirits in Lacassine and Rank Wildcat in Lafayette—are producing rum from Louisiana sugar cane products. The fourth, Atelier Vie in New Orleans, is refining sugar cane alcohol and processing it to produce vodka and absinthe.

The Donner-Peltier distillery is the result of an idea that came to a group of friends in Thibodaux, a town surrounded by sugar cane and is home to one of the state’s 11 sugar mills.

Jennifer and Henry Peltier, distiller John Couchot, and Tom and Becky Donner take a break from a busy day bottling their product.

Tom and Beth Donner, along with friends Henry and Jennifer Peltier, might be the last people you’d expect to find brewing up hootch. “I’m a neurosurgeon, Henry’s a pediatrician, Beth and Jennifer are both professional women—Jennifer ran Henry’s practice and Beth has an MBA,” says Tom, adding, “And we have zero experience in distilling.”

They started tossing the idea of a distillery around a few years ago and began learning everything they could about the business, visiting many of the craft distilleries that have popped up all over the country. The interest in distilling that has grown exponentially in the last decade is a natural offshoot of the home- and craft-brewing movements, although home distillation of beverage alcohol in any amount is illegal without the proper federal and state permits.

Donner-Peltier’s owners made up for their lack of distillery experience by hiring John Couchot, who was the master distiller at Rogue Ales in Oregon for six and a half years. He got his start in home brewing. “I’ve been brewing for 27 years and distilling for 10 years. I also have a degree in chemistry and worked in the pharmaceutical business for 10 years. I got tired of traveling,” Couchot says. When the Thibodaux group asked him to join them, he jumped at the chance.

“I love Louisiana,” Couchot says. “I’ve always wanted to move to Louisiana. When Jennifer sent an email at three in the morning asking, ‘Is Louisiana too far?,’ I replied within about two minutes. My wife and I flew down the next weekend; they offered the job, and we decided to take it.”

Cochout’s experience includes producing a variety of whiskeys, gins and rums at Rogue Ales. The Donner-Peltier team knew they wanted to use local sugar cane products to make rum, and also vodka. Henry Peltier wondered if you could make rum out of another abundant Louisiana product—rice.

After some experimentation (Couchot’s uniform shirt labels him as “Master Distiller/Mad Scientist”), they came up with a formula that worked very well. Couchot says that they first cook the rice with natural enzymes, which convert the grain’s starches to sugars, then cool the mix down, add yeast and let the fermentation magic begin.

“We didn’t know what it was going to taste like until we ran it through the still. I was getting off work late that day and came in; everybody’s eyes were this big because the vodka was really good,” Tom says.
The company’s large still apparatus gives off an almost intimidating steampunk vibe, but it’s a precise, complex machine that does, in fact, run off steam. Rectifying plates in the still’s two columns allows for almost infinite adjustment to the character of the vapors being captured. By law, vodka has to be produced at 190 proof (95 percent pure ethanol), requiring several runs through the still to achieve that level of purity.

“With this still, you can bypass a lot of its complexity if you want to make other products,” Henry says. “It gives you that flexibility.” The company’s rum, Rougaroux, for example, is produced at a much lower proof than 190 and maintains more of the flavor characteristics produced when the blackstrap molasses and raw sugar mixture (called “wash”) is fermented. They produce Rougaroux (from Cajun werewolf legend) in two varieties—a clear, 101-proof variety they call Sugarshine, and an 80-proof amber rum.

The distiller’s art

Whether it’s a “hard liquor”—distilled spirits such as whiskey, tequila, vodka, brandy, gin or rum—or the “softer” wine or beer, all beverage alcohol is made when tiny yeast cells feed on sugars present in the drink’s raw ingredients (known as fermentation). With wine and beer, once the yeast is done, you basically have your final product, which can be anywhere from 5 to 14 percent alcohol. For the hard stuff, the distilled spirits, there are some extra steps involved that take that small amount of alcohol and raise it to a much higher strength.

While there’s a lot of science behind the distillation process, there’s also art. With Old New Orleans rum, that’s a literal statement, as each label bears a unique Michalopoulos painting visible through the clear glass. The distiller’s art is also one in which Michalopoulos is well-versed; it lies in two areas. The first is making sure the flavors you want are the ones captured in the distillation process; some of the many compounds produced during fermentation may be undesirable. The second area is blending rums from several different barrels to produce the 3- and 10-year-old versions of Old New Orleans rum.

Distillation is the relatively simple process of heating a fermented liquid and capturing and condensing the vapors that are released. Different substances vaporize at different temperatures, and alcohol can be separated from water because it boils at a lower temperature. Since this happens in a continuous process for each batch, the distiller has to know which vapors to capture at which point in the process. The first to condense out are called “heads,” the second the “heart” or “center cut,” and the last vapors are called “tails.” The heads are usually discarded; the heart is the most desirable portion. While the tails may contain some heavier compounds that add character and flavor, especially with aging, Michalopoulos says, for the most part, tails are not included in the center cut but are added to the next batch, as they contain more ethanol that can be extracted.

“That’s where the art of distillation comes in. The flavor profile is affected by where you take your cut,” says Michalopoulos. “Heads, tails, center cut. This is one of a number of different things that gives any distilled product its character. How the cut is made and how those rums are treated after the distillation process account for the differences in rums.”

More New Orleans flavor

Brennan Steele and Skylar Rosenblum prepare a batch of Toulouse Red at Atelier Vie.

Unlike the Louisiana rum distillers, Atelier Vie in New Orleans doesn’t start with fermentation. In a unique operation, alcohol made in Louisiana from sugar cane is used to make vodka and absinthe. Owner Jedd Haas, distiller Jascha Jacobson, “bean hunter” Skylar Rosenbloom (who’s quick to point out he’s a St. Paul’s guy) and brand ambassador Brennan Steele work on a smaller scale in the converted American Beauty egg-packing facility under the Broad Street overpass in Mid City.

While the folks in Thibodaux are making rum with sugar cane grown in fields right outside their front door, the guys at Atelier Vie are reviving a New Orleans tradition by becoming the city’s first absinthe producer in 100 years, using herbs from the northshore and Metairie.

“There’s this long connection between New Orleans and absinthe—the Old Absinthe House, the French absinthe being imported and the number of absinthe manufacturers in New Orleans back then. It seemed like a great thing to start with,” says Haas.

Toulouse Red is the company’s first absinthe offering. It’s unusual, as it’s bright red, rather than clear or the green color you’d expect. “We follow the traditional method,” Haas explains. “It’s a three-day process that starts with a hot infusion of high-proof alcohol and herbs.” The key flavoring ingredients of absinthe are anise and fennel seeds and grand wormwood leaves. Rosenbloom says, “We’re currently working with High Tail Farms in Tangipahoa and Vintage Garden Farms in Metairie so we can locally source our herbs. They’re growing much of what we need from seeds. It may be a year before there’s an actual harvest. The seeds have been planted—literally.”

After the steeped herb and alcohol mixture is distilled, they do an additional infusion with a natural coloring agent—hibiscus flowers—which turns it red. They hope to soon offer classic green and clear Swiss versions of the absinthe as well.

Their vodka is called Buck 25, and it’s touted as “125 Proof ‘Professional Infusion Grade’” vodka. The high-proof sugar cane alcohol they buy is filtered twice through a six-foot activated-carbon filter and then through a pharmaceutical-grade particle filter, which makes “it something entirely different coming out than going in,” Haas says. It’s diluted to 125 proof, which would be a potent drink if taken straight.

“We see Buck 25 as a secret ingredient for bartenders and chefs,” says Rosenblum. He explains that rather than buy flavored vodkas, professionals, or even home cooks and mixologists, can make however much of whatever flavor vodka they wish. “We’d much rather give everyone the power to control what they want. You’ll get much better flavor out of fresh fruits and fresh vegetables and spices. You might need two ounces of vanilla-flavored vodka, but why buy a whole bottle? You take the Buck 25 and make a little infusion, just as much as you need.”

Local bars are busy experimenting with Atelier Vie’s products, with bartenders concocting red absinthe cocktails and using the Buck 25 to make bitters and other infusions. One idea was to infuse the vodka with celery and pickled beans to give Bloody Marys an extra kick.

Acadiana

With sugar cane production all over South Louisiana, it wasn’t too long before folks in Cajun country decided it was time to make some rum as well.

Rank Wildcat is a small, self-described “grass roots” operation in Broussard, right outside of Lafayette. They have a homemade pot still they’ve christened “Lulu” after a pot-bellied pig owned by one of the distillery’s founders, David Meaux. He and Cole LeBlanc obtained the necessary licenses in early 2012 and have been making a light rum called Sweet Crude, which is distributed in the Lafayette area.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Louisiana Spirits, down I-10 from Lafayette in Lacassine, La. Aiming for a June opening, owners Tim Litel, Skip Cortese and Trey Litel are putting the finishing touches on a $5 million facility, with the distillery, a visitor’s center and gift shop; the site incorporates a 100-year-old farmhouse moved from Iowa, La. Louisiana Spirit’s Bayou Rum will be distributed throughout the state starting in June or July.

The facility is a highly visible attraction on the Interstate, and Trey Litel says it will be a boon for tourism in the area, as travelers to and from Houston and New Orleans and the Alabama and Florida beaches looking for something interesting to do can stop in. Tourists will be able to see how their rum is made and learn about Cajun culture and the sugar cane industry. The adults in the group, of course, will be able to sample and purchase the distillery’s Bayou Rum.

Raise a toast!

In the end, all of our spirited producers want nothing more than for everyone to be their guests; the goal they all share is to make something that they would be proud to serve anyone who comes into their homes. That starts with their toughest critics—themselves.

“What drives me is making something that I love to drink and that we are proud to make,” says Michalopoulos. “I love the challenge of the craft, and the thought of making the best rum in the world is thrilling to me.”

So let’s raise a toast to those working hard to raise our spirits in Louisiana!

Distillery Information

Our featured Louisiana distillers’ products are available at most local retailers. Their facilities may be open for tours and/or bottle sales on premises. Please call or check their websites for visiting information and for new products as they become available.

Celebration Distillation, maker of Old New Orleans Rum, is located at 2815 Frenchmen St. in New Orleans. Call (504) 945-9400 or visit oldneworleansrum.com for information and tour availability.

Donner-Peltier Distillers, maker of Roogaroux rums and Oryza vodka, is located at 1635 St. Patrick Hwy. in Thibodaux. Call (985) 446-0002 or visit dp-distillers.com for more information.

Atelier Vie is located at 1001 S. Broad St. in New Orleans. They are open only at limited times for bottle sales of Buck 25 vodka and Toulouse Red absinthe.Check ateliervie.com for dates and times.

Starting with its opening date in June, you can visit Louisiana Spirits at 20909 S. Frontage Rd. in Lacassine (take exit 48 on I-10, about 57 miles west of Lafayette). Go to bayourum.com for their latest information.

Rank Wildcat Spirits’ Sweet Crude rum is available in the Acadiana region and may become available statewide. Check their website, rankwildcat.com, for the nearest vendor.

The post Still Life: Louisiana Distillers appeared first on Inside Northside Magazine Online.

Habitat for Humanity-St. Tammany West
Last featured: September-October 2010

Habitat for Humanity works in partnership with local people in need to build and renovate decent, affordable housing. The houses are then sold to qualifying families at no profit and with no interest charged, allowing many to enjoy the pride and dignity of home ownership. Habitat for Humanity St. Tammany West was formed in 1981, the first affiliate in Louisiana and the 10th in the nation. Since then, the group has built more than 200 homes, most of these since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The most recent accomplishment of Habitat for Humanity St. Tammany West is the completion of 10 new homes in The Groves at Mile Branch located north of Covington. The first of its kind in St. Tammany Parish, the development has 92 apartments and 35 single-family lots. Following the completion of the 10 homes, Habitat held a special ceremony for the families who occupy them and many of the volunteers who helped to build the houses.

“It’s a unique development,” says Jeffery St. Romain, Habitat’s president/CEO. “The architecture of the apartments and houses matches, and so do the colors. It’s a very well-planned community.”

A common misconception about Habitat for Humanity is that homeowners do not hold jobs. Putting this misconception to rest, Jeffery says, “All our homeowners must have an income. They are working people, retired or disabled.” One such example is of a home completed for an elderly retired couple last spring. The couple had been living in a 40-year-old trailer that did not meet all their needs, including large enough hallways and an accessible bathroom for the man, who is in a wheelchair. “We built them a home that is ADA accessible,” says Jeffery. “That is the kind of thing we get to do.”

Habitat for Humanity St. Tammany West is one of four recipients of this year’s St. Tammany Home Builders Association House Raffle. The raffle is June 1, 2013. For more information, visit habitatstw.org or raisingtheroof.net.

The Richard Murphy Hospice Foundation
Featured: August-September 2005

The Richard Murphy Hospice Foundation in Hammond provides funding for hospice care for patients who do not have the means to pay. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina delayed the Foundation’s plans to open the Richard Murphy Hospice House, but the house is now open, caring for three patients at a time.

The Hospice House is unique because it is not supported by a medical facility, does not receive any state or federal funding or reimbursement for insurance and offers its services at no cost to the patient or their families. The Foundation raises the money to run and maintain the house, including paying for a certified medical staff. “We provide the 24-hour staffing,” says Patricia Westmoreland, the Foundation’s executive director. “The patients receive the same care they would if they were at home and receiving hospice care there.”

Located on South Chestnut Street in Hammond, the house offers three suites with private bathrooms and rooms for families to stay with their loved ones. A living room, dining room and kitchen are also available. More than 230 patients have been served since the Hospice House opened.

Patients are referred to the Hospice House if they have been diagnosed as terminally ill—six months or less to live—and do not have an adequate home environment for home-based hospice. The house administrator and the hospice team determine whether the patient is an appropriate placement.

“The Hospice House has blessed so many lives,” says Patricia. “We knew there was a need for a place for patients who did not have caregivers or the right situation to stay at home, but we never realized the positive impact on the patients and families. They are so grateful. The house has touched so many lives in the community, and continued support from the community has made this dream a reality.”

The Foundation’s largest fundraiser, its annual Foundation Gala, is Saturday, April 27, 2013, from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m., at the Pennington Center of Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond. For more information, visit richardmurphyhospice.com.

CASA
Featured: June-July 2005

The Youth Service Bureau in St. Tammany and Washington parishes serves at-risk youth and their families. YSB’s Court Appointed Special Advocates program trains and supervises volunteers from the community to be a voice in court for abused and neglected children and to help judges find them safe, permanent homes.

Inside Northside featured CASA two months before Hurricane Katrina. Following the storm, CASA’s headquarters had to be rebuilt. Since then, CASA has provided more than 300 volunteers who serve more than 1,200 children. “We’ve come back just as big as before,” says Mary Slazer, CASA director. “In a typical month, our program supervises an average of 85 advocates serving about 150 children.”
Generally, advocates spend about eight to 10 hours a month on their cases. They visit the children at least once a month and attend court hearings about once every six months. Volunteers are given close, on-going supervision and participate in bi-monthly in-service trainings.

Training opportunities for volunteers have increased to three times a year. These sessions are geared toward working professionals, and it is possible to become a certified advocate while working full time. After an initial screening, trainees complete a 42-hour program, with continuous education conducted by judges, social service workers, medical and mental health professionals, and attorneys, as well as the YSB staff and other CASA volunteers.

“It’s really a privilege and a joy to advocate for a child in foster care,” says Mary. “Many of our CASA volunteers say this is absolutely the most rewarding volunteer work they have ever done, and the judges presiding over these difficult cases always express their appreciation for our volunteers’ unique perspective.”

April is Child Abuse Prevention month. To request a blue ribbon to wear in support, call 649-4092. Mark your calendar for Youth Service Bureau’s popular Chef Soirée on Sunday, March 17, at Bogue Falaya Park in Covington. Tickets are available at ysbworks.com.

STARC
Featured May-June 2006

STARC stands for “Services, Training, Advocacy, Resources and Community Connections for a lifetime for individuals with disABILITIES.” Organized in 1972, STARC celebrated 40 years of service last year. “Much of STARC’s success is due to the caring, compassionate, generous-hearted people in our community, as well as clubs, organizations and local, parish and state officials who are committed advocates and supporters,” says Dianne Baham, director.

When it first opened, STARC served three children in a donated space. Today, 394 employees serve more than 1,250 individuals in 14 different programs. Through STARC’s Work Training Program and Supported Employment Program individuals learn specific areas of work and earn a paycheck. “It helps them become contributing members of our society,” says Dianne.

Other programs include the STARC Elderly Service, which helps people ages 60 and older with basic housekeeping and personal care assistance; an inclusive childcare program, Noah’s Arc; in-home services; residential services; and STARC’s Commercial Linen Service, a complete rental and laundry facility. “We launder bed linens, table linens and also rent and deliver a variety of items to the public,” says Dianne. “Our services are affordable, dependable and professional.”

There are many ways to become involved with STARC, including volunteering; hiring a STARC work crew to provide services; donating cell phones, Mardi Gras beads and picture frames; and by becoming an annual support member. Dianne says, “I have been blessed to be a part of STARC’s work and ministry in this community for 39 of the 40 years that STARC has been in existence. What a joy, what a blessing!”
Despite recent budget cuts, five in an 18-month period, STARC continues to serve its families. “We may have to do things differently, but STARC’s commitment is for life,” says Dianne.

STARC offers tours on its West Campus in Mandeville from 8:30-9:30 a.m. every Wednesday and Friday morning through the end of April. Call 641-0197. Visit STARC’s web site at starcla.org and on Facebook. Also, mark your calendar for STARC’s Jazz on the Bayou fundraiser March 23-24. Order tickets by March 15. jazzonthebayou@aol.com.

St. Tammany Humane Society
Featured: March-April 2009

Now in its 61st year, the St. Tammany Humane Society, Louisiana’s largest not-for-profit, no-kill animal welfare organization, offers veterinary care, fostering and adoption services.

Two new programs offer additional benefits. Since February 2010, the mobile adoption campaign, Waggin’ Wheels, has secured homes for more than 200 dogs in the Northeast and transported them there in 10 trips. These dogs otherwise would have been euthanized or lived a shelter life until adopted. “It has been a very successful program,” says Victoria Kreeger, the society’s executive director. “We work with six organizations in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. About 15-20 dogs go on a trip; when a generous pilot offers, the animals are able to fly.”

Through the society’s foster program, families can foster puppies or kittens for a certain amount of time to teach them all the things they need to know. The program also allows potential adopters to foster their selected dog or cat for a week. “This is helpful for families that already have pets,” says Vicki. “You have to know that your new puppy or kitten will get along with other animals. It’s good to see how it will all work.”

While the society’s staff and number of volunteers have grown over the years, the size of its facility, built in the 1950s, has remained relatively the same. Space is definitely limited. Vicki says. “We have been able to redo some parts of the building, like adding a cat patio. On a sunny day, they love to go out there.” Plans include a larger facility.

The St. Tammany Humane Society holds many events and fundraisers throughout the year, including Unleashed, Yappy Hour, Fine Wine for Canines, an Ugly Christmas Sweater Competition and a Poker Run in the summer. The society’s biggest event of the year, Woofstock, is a day for anyone in St. Tammany to bring their dogs in for low-cost vaccines. There are also multiple competitions, including a costume contest for animals and humans!

For more information, visit sthumane.org or call 892-7387. Mark your calendar for the 24th annual Woofstock on Sunday, April 7.

JoJo’s Hope
Featured: July-August 2008

JoJo’s Hope is a non-profit organization that teaches special-needs children how to swim.

Robby Fritscher, JoJo’s Hope creator, says his life changed when his 3-year-old nephew, Joseph “JoJo” Fritscher, drowned in 1998. Robby pursued a career in swimming instruction and started JoJo’s Hope in 2001. In 2005, Robby became an aquatics instructor at Franco’s Athletic Club in Mandeville and brought JoJo’s Hope to the northshore.

Today, Robby is the aquatics director at Franco’s and JoJo’s Hope has seen much growth, including a 25 percent increase in enrollment and a 15 percent increase in the number of volunteers. Among its other accolades, JoJo’s Hope has seen its Special Olympics participation double, has sent the youngest swim team to the Special Olympics and has had one of its swimmers, Emily Hinrich, go to the state swimming championships twice.

Swimmers at JoJo’s Hope attend an average of four U.S. swim meets a year. One of its swimmers represented Louisiana at the 2011 Zone Swim Championships. These are not special-needs swim meets; JoJo’s Hope swimmers compete against what Robby calls “typical” swimmers. The kids compete in all strokes. “Before, we were limited in the number of events we could enter,” says Robby. “But now we can teach kids multiple strokes.”

Bobby Fritscher, JoJo’s Hope; Victoria Kreeger, St. Tammany Humane Society; Mary Slazer, CASA; and Dianne Baham, STARC.

Two years ago, the organization obtained a lift that gives wheelchair-bound swimmers the ability to get into the Franco’s pool. Improvements such as this and the ongoing work of JoJo’s Hope are made possible by people who donate to the program, like 11-year-old Audrey Miller from Ruston, La. She was at a swim meet as swimmers from JoJo’s Hope. Each year, in lieu of gifts for her birthday and Christmas, Audrey asks her friends and family to donate to JoJo’s Hope. So far, she has donated $8,500.

Robby’s current goal is to see the number of year-round swimmers rise on the northshore. “We just want to get more kids swimming. Right now, we only have one kid that swims year-round. The No. 1 goal is to get more people in the pool.”

To find out more about JoJo’s Hope, visit jojoshope.org.

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