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M o n d ay, M ay 12, 2025
GROWING BIODIVERSITY
Moncus Park conservation efforts help to improve Lafayette
$2.00X
Rural La. families have few options for school grants More than a third of parishes have no local providers BY PATRICK WALL and JEFF ADELSON Staff writers
STAFF PHOTOS By LESLIE WESTBROOK
Giant coneflowers bloom at Moncus Park in Lafayette on April 30. Park improvements over the past few years have allowed people, wildlife and vegetation to take advantage of the green space in a variety of ways. BY JOANNA BROWN | Staff writer
As Moncus Park has taken shape over the past three years, visitors can see how staff have planned infrastructure and grounds improvements that allow people, wildlife and vegetation to take advantage of the green space in a variety of ways. Parking lots, play structures, pavilions and fencing are primarily clustered near the front of the property, where the 100-acre park meets the busy roar of Johnston Street. The further back you go, the fewer man-made elements there are. The paths eventually give way to a plain of grass that leads to the Vermilion River. According to conservation director Abbie Acosta, the park’s design is the result of intentional sustainability planning. “The closer you get to Johnston, the more active and Abbie Acosta, conservation director for Moncus Park, hardscaped you’ll see,” Acosta said. “You have the farmers market all the way in the front, which brings a lot talks about one of several hiking trails at the park in of people, so we do a lot of mulching and soil protection Lafayette on April 30. there to protect the oaks. Then you have the playgrounds and restrooms, then the buffer of our Blakewood trees.” Farm” movement that eventually led to the creation of The Blakewood Heritage Oaks sit in a cluster in front of Moncus Park. The largest oak in the grouping is around the First Horizon Amphitheater and are named after Uni- 200 years old and measures 75 inches across the trunk. versity of Louisiana at Lafayette geosciences professor ä See MONCUS PARK, page 5A Griff Blakewood, who helped lead the “Save the Horse
Despite cuts, Whitney Plantation sticks to mission plantation store. Fundraising On a muggy afternoon, she and John Blokker, director of continues to tell historic preservation and faat the 250-acre plantastory of Black history cilities tion, stepped inside the store,
BY JENNA ROSS | Staff writer
WALLACE — The Whitney Plantation tells the story of slavery, one building at a time. A church, a cabin, a jail. Soon, if executive director Ashley Rogers has h e r w a y, t h r o u g h t h e
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which operated until 1975. They moved left to right, front and back, discussing the repairs in progress and the work left to be done. The floors had been sanded, the holes patched.
ä See PLANTATION, page 5A
Visitors learn about the enslaved people who were brought to the Whitney Plantation in Wallace on April 30. STAFF PHOTO By SOPHIA GERMER
Jacqueline McCardie wants badly to put her grandson in a new school. The public elementary that 11-year-old Jah’Derrick attends is crowded and outdated, and the baby-faced fourth grader says he gets bullied. But McCardie, 62, is a single guardian on a fixed income, so her only real option is the local public school in Winnfield, the small town in north-central Louisiana where they live. A new state program called LA GATOR was designed to give families more choices by providing grants to pay for private education. But even if McCardie received a grant, she isn’t sure where she’d spend it: There are no private schools in Winn Parish — or in four of the six surrounding parishes — that are participating in LA GATOR. “There’s no opportunities here,” she said. The state Legislature established the tax-funded grant program last year, adding Louisiana to a growing roster of Republican-led states that use public money to subsidize private schooling. Proponents, including Gov. Jeff Landry and President Donald Trump, call it “education freedom.” But in many rural parts of Louisiana, few private options exist. Sixteen of Louisiana’s 64 parishes do not have a single private school that signed up to enroll students full-time through LA GATOR, and another 18 parishes have just one, according to an analysis by The Times-Picayune and The Advocate. About 20% of rural residents live in one of the parishes without participating schools.
ä See FAMILIES, page 4A
Car insurance bills set for Senate hearing Contentious measures may face tough path
BY TYLER BRIDGES | Staff writer Car insurance bills favored by business interests that blew through the state House will likely face a tougher path when they get their first hearing in the Senate this week. The Senate has typically been more aligned with trial lawyers, Henry who pin the blame for Louisiana’s high rates on insurance companies. In something of a surprise, Senate President Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, said in an interview that at least some of the pro-industry bills
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ä See INSURANCE, page 3A
100TH yEAR, NO. 316