THE ST.TAMMANY
TAMMANY TO-DO: BAYOU JAM IN SLIDELL
ADVOCATE
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THURSDAY MARCH 19, 2015 H
COVINGTON • FOLSOM • LACOMBE • MADISONVILLE • MANDEVILLE • SLIDELL
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THENEWORLEANSADVOCATE.COM
Volunteers to help clean up bayou
Sharon Edwards TAMMANY TIMES SEDWARDS@THEADVOCATE.COM
Open the door, take the tour
It’s National Boys & Girls Club Week, and the Covington and Slidell clubs invite the public to “Open the Door and Take the Tour.” Both clubs are part of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Southeast Louisiana, and includes the two St. Tammany units as well as a West Bank club and NFL Youth Education Town in New Orleans. Clubs are open during after-school hours and in the summer to children and teens between the ages of 6 and 18. Membership dues are kept low so families can afford to participate. COVINGTON: The Covington unit’s open house will be from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday at 919 N. Columbia St. Jessica Beck has been unit d irector of the Covington club since July 2013. Board members will give tours, and Mayor Pat Cooper will give a proclamation of Boys & Girls Club Week in Covington. She also encourages parents and others who want to know more about the club to schedule a tour between 3:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Monday through March 27. For information, call (985) 327-7634. SLIDELL: The Slidell unit will host its open house from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday, March 26 at 705 Dewey Drive in Slidell. It will serves as the East St. Tammany Chamber of Commerce After Hours social networking event. The public and business community are invited to attend and visit the Slidell club. Nate Moore has served as the Slidell club director since September 2014. For information, call (985) 6433464. Boys & Girls Clubs of Southeast Louisiana serve more than 4,000 Boys & Girls Clubs across America and on U.S. military installations. The weeklong celebration calls attention to the important role Boys & Girls Clubs play in the support and success of nearly 4 million young people each year. “At the heart of our organization is a desire to positively influence the lives of young people in the communities we serve,” said Keila Stovall, chief executive officer of Boys & Girls Clubs of Southeast Louisiana. “Boys & Girls Club Week is a great time to see how we impact the lives of young people through programs aimed to promote academic success, a healthy lifestyle and good character.” The community is asked to get involved and help their local club make a difference in the lives of the young people it serves. Registration is also available for the summer camp program that runs June 1 to July 24. There is an early registration discount of $50 until April 15. Applications are available at the clubs and online at www.bgcsela. org/summer. Sharon Edwards is community news editor of The New Orleans Advocate.
Advocate staff report Zane Galbert, of Slidell, works at the U.S. Coast Guard station in Gulfport, Mississippi, and likes nothing better on his days off than to kayak on local bayous. A few years ago, he began noticing all the trash accumulating in Bayou Bonfouca and decided, “I’m going to do something for myself and something good for the community.” He decided to go out early one morning with a few trash bags to pick it up. Nine hours later, he was still hauling in trash. The second year, he was joined Photo provided by ZANE GALBERT by his cousin and a friend. They Bubby Vinson, of Slidell, pulls in trash collected spent three hours each and picked in 2014 during a bayou cleanup by using a second up even more trash. boat. This year, Keep Slidell Beautiful
has partnered with Galbert for the third annual Bayou Clean Up, from 8 a.m. to noon Saturday, March 28. The public is invited to bring their flatboats, canoes, pirogues and kayaks to the boat launch at Heritage Park to help clean up trash in Bayou Bonfouca. The small boats are perfect for getting close to the shore to get the trash that accumulates there, Galbert said. If there are tree limbs down or other obstructions, “it creates a bottleneck. That’s where you find all kinds of crazy stuff.” Keep Slidell Beautiful will supply trash bags and “grabbers” so people can reach the trash in the water without using their hands. KSB also will supply pizza and drinks and haul away the trash brought back
Rolling in the
GREEN
Advocate file photo
Tom Collins, a duke in the OldeTown Slidell Association’s 39th annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade, tosses favors to the crowd as the parade rolls down the streets on Sunday in Slidell.
Queen Peggy Cromer waves to the crowd.
T
he Olde Association
toasted the 2015 St.
Patrick’s Day court at Slidell City Hall rolled Sunday.
Carley Estep, of Mendenhall, Miss., holds her daughter Matilda during the ‘No Plain Janes’ contest at the 2014 Jane Austen Literary Festival. This year’s costume contest is at 10 a.m. Saturday. Contestants should arrive 15 minutes early to register.
Austen devotees to honor novelist
Advocate staff report
Towne Slidell
before the parade
to the boat launch. Other local businesses are supplying drinks, sandwiches, fruit and other snacks, he said. Members of the Coast Guard Auxiliary also will be there for boating safety, he said. Boats using Bayou Bonfouca are asked to keep their wake to a minimum during the cleanup. Galbert hopes this year if there are more people, they can get more trash in less time, per person. “Even if 10 or five show up, that’s better than one,” he said. Boats can also launch from the Slidell Elks Lodge to clean up on Bayou Liberty. For information, email sgalbert@ yahoo.com or find the event on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ events/1391429277826309.
Advocate staff photos by ELIOT KAMENITZ
Cabbages are handed out as the Olde Town Slidell Association’s 39th annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade rolls on Sunday.
State Rep. Greg Cromer was grand marshal and Peggy Cromer was queen. The dukes were Tom Collins, state Rep. Kevin Pearson, Thomas Reeves and Eddie Reso; maids were Kathleen DesHotel, Nancy Pearson, Brandee Santini and Tanya Witchen. Alex Felder was an honorary duke. His mother, Shawn
Devotees of the English novelist Jane Austen can gather Saturday and Sunday in Historic Old Mandeville to celebrate Austen’s writings and activities common to the regency era in which Austen lived and wrote about. The focus of the eighth annual Jane Austen Literary Festival is on Austen and her enduring novels. Her third one, “Mansfield Park,” is the centerpiece for this year’s festival. Events are staged at four venues. A wide variety of literary topics will be explored, and there will be letter writing, lectures, a movie, poetry readings and vintage dancing throughout the weekend. The festival attracts locals as well äSee AUSTEN, page 2G
Bates Felder, was a maid in the first Slidell St. Patrick’s Day Parade in 1976. His aunt Angelique Bates was a maid in 1982. His great-uncle “Sleepy” Leon André Saraille was grand marshal in 1983.
Trees are in bloom and spirits are high as fair A float rider tosses beads to the crowd during the Olde weather returns just in time for paradegoers to Town Slidell Association’s 39th annual St. Patrick’s Day clamor for a variety of throws during the St. PatParade on Sunday. rick’s Day Parade on Sunday in Slidell.
It’s time to play ball in St. Tammany Thousands of boys and girls across St. Tammany Parish will soon register for baseball and softball seasons. These sports are an annual spring ritual, as much as REC & Easter eggs, crawLEISURE fish boils and paying ANDREW taxes. CANULETTE Here’s a quick scan across the parish at what’s happening in some of the north shore’s biggest recreation districts. äSee BALL, page 2G