Crawfish Kingpin Cook-off on Saturday
The Walker Kiwanis Club’s Crawfish Kingpin Cook-off is Saturday at the Livingston Parish Fairgrounds.
The event, which starts at 10:30 a.m., includes the best crawfish cooks around competing, vendors, entertainment and funs for the children.
Class of ’76 reunion planned
If you’re an alum of the Denham Springs Class of 1976 — my class — your help is needed to organize the upcoming reunion The event is planned for June 13 at Forrest Grove in Denham Springs.
Darlene Denstorff AROUND LIVINGSTON
To volunteer or share your information with the organizers, email daleh76DS@gmail.com.
Boil & Berries Crawfish Cook-off coming to Springfield
Boil & Berries Crawfish Cook-off fundraiser is coming to Springfield from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 18 at Fayard Field Bracelets for the event are $20 for adults and $10 for children. Kids 3 and under are free. You’ll get to sample from all the crawfish pots and strawberry desserts.
The day includes crawfish cook-off, strawberry dessert bake-off, strawberry patch contest, Hungarian treats and cultural performances, strawberry-eating contest for kids, music, vendors and inflatables.
Fayard Field is at 32127 Church St., Springfield.
All proceeds benefit the Árpádhon Hungarian Settlement Cultural Association to help preserve our Hungarian heritage If interested in participating in crawfish cook-off or dessert bake-off, call (225) 278-3770 or (985) 974-6883. If interested in being a vendor call (225) 9558239.
District 5-5A softball, ready for next chapter
French Settlement pitcher reaches milestone
With high school softball set to conclude its regular season next week, it’s worth taking a moment to acknowledge how well District 5-5A has performed this season. For most of the season, the district’s top four schools have been rated in the top 10 of the LHSAA’s Division I nonselect power rankings, and there is a good chance that Walker, St. Amant and East Ascension will finish in the top five. Walker is set to finish at the top of the rankings and in district, and its been a fun ride. Just ask Wildcats coach Hali Westmoreland.
“Everyone jokes that our district is the SEC of (Class) 5A softball, and I genuinely enjoy it because it’s great softball,” Westmoreland said last week. “You have to show up and be ready to compete. There are no days you can take off.” Walker and St. Amant are at the top of the district standings each with two losses, but Walker handed the Gators both of their setbacks. East Ascension, Live Oak and Dutchtown have also had their moments this season with big wins over teams that currently sit higher than their current place in the standings. Part of the highly competitive nature of the district comes from the familiarity that athletes in Livingston and Ascension parishes have with each other It doesn’t hurt to have good coaching, either “The room for error is so small in our district, especially when you get to round two,” Westmoreland said of the district’s round-robin schedule.
Student pilots:
BY CLAIRE GRUNEWALD Staff writer
On a February afternoon, Luke Hetherwick took off flying in a Cessna 172 Skyhawk over the Mississippi River as Kaiten Campo manned the air traffic control station to ensure a safe flight. “I’m currently at 1,500, and we’ve established two-
STAFF PHOTOS BY JOHN BALLANCE
Rhonda Landry-Poché, a fourth-generation strawberry farmer, shows a wooden hand carrier that was used to pick strawberries.
PHOTOS BY JAVIER GALLEGOS
AVIATION
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senior, providing them with some pilot training for free.
Students use certified flight simulators, watch training videos and hear from guest speakers, all to prepare for the Federal Aviation Administration written exam.
The 2-year-old program essentially is ground school training, which is one of the required steps to get a pilot’s license, as the prospective pilots learn about navigation and flight regulations.
A lot of flight schools don’t offer in-person ground school instruction anymore, mainly shifting it online, said Live Oak aviation teacher Aaron Heuvel.
“That’s where Live Oak kind of stepped in and Livingston Parish stepped in you could get the same training online by yourself if you paid for it, but we’re doing it in a classroom setting and letting them get hands on with the simulator and they’re getting it for free,” Heuvel said.
The program offers two counterparts: an introductory class and more advanced class. The program is led by Heuvel, a Live Oak alumnus who has been a pilot for over a decade.
The aviation classes have consistently expanded over the past two years. In August, the program received the in-classroom air traffic control station. Now, it has future plans to partner with the Louisiana Air National Guard to bring in an aircraft for students to learn basic mechanical skills.
Many of the students who take the class do so without an interest in an aviation career and leave the class the same way But for students like Hetherwick and Campo, being in the program has altered their plans.
“I wanted to be a pilot the second I walked in here,” said Hetherwick, who originally planned to go into aerospace engineering. “It’s changed the course of my future.”
Reaching new heights
Hetherwick recently enrolled in a flight school out of Louisiana Regional Airport in Gonzales, where he will have to fly a minimum of 40 hours to get his license
He said it has been easier and faster for him to pick up information at the school due to the ground instruction he has received at Live Oak. His flight instructor said it is “so much easier” to instruct him because of the class, Hetherwick said.
“Now I’m on the road to becoming a private pilot within the end of this school year,” the 17-year-old said. Hetherwick is the only student currently enrolled at a local flight school, but some
explored career options at smaller places, like at Baton Rouge’s Mosquito Abatement and Rodent Control, which is down the street from Baton Rouge Metro. It has opportunities for aviation careers, for example, it’s transitioning to helicopter operations for an eco-friendly option of dispersing mosquito control products, said Glen Wilkinson, aircraft operations manager
“Most people don’t know about our aerial program,” he told the students.
other students want to do the same while at Live Oak, Heuvel said.
Campo, who is about to graduate, plans to get a job at Baton Rouge Metro Airport to save money to pursue becoming an air traffic controller
“I wanted to go into (the pilot field) for the longest time, but in this class, I figured out that I have a big thing for doing air traffic control,” Campo said.
In March, Heuvel and 11 of his students went on a field trip to the Baton Rouge airport to learn about aviation careers and look at aircraft used commercially and privately
When Tara Tessier an air service coordinator, asked how many students in the group had been to Baton Rouge Metro, only a few hands raised in the air
For a majority of students on the trip “this is their first exposure to an airport,” Huevel said. Along with touring the commercial airport, students also
The students were able to show off their knowledge of aircraft parts to Wilkinson while looking at British Islander planes and a helicopter in the hangar
Students like Cole Reynerson asked Wilkinson if the helicopter’s blades were made out of aluminum and how much the price tag was for the Heliwagon, an advanced landing pad under the helicopter
The opportunity for the students to learn about aviation in this way is unique, Heuvel said.
Live Oak is the only nonselect public school, a classification that excludes charter or magnet schools, to offer this type of program he said. Heuvel said he aims to have his class become a feeder program for students wanting to go to the aviation school at Louisiana Tech University Ultimately, he hopes programs like this continue to grow throughout the state.
“It’s still expanding. It’s still so new here,” Heuvel said.
“We’re making it accessible.
STAFF PHOTOS BY JAVIER GALLEGOS
Live Oak High School’s aviation class ask questions to the Aircraft Rescue Fire Fighting officers during a field trip to Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport on March 25.
Student Lance Wu records a plane maneuvering around the tarmac during the Live Oak High School’s aviation class field trip to Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport.
Glen Wilkinson, Aircraft Operations manager, center, examines the tail rotor with Hayden McKay, left, and other students during the Live Oak High School’s aviation class field trip to Mosquito Abatement & Rodent Control.
Tara Tessier, Air Service coordinator facing the camera, begins her tour of the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport for Live Oak High School’s aviation class on March 25.
Live Oak High aviation students line up to poke their heads inside the cockpit of an Airbus H125 helicopter during a field trip to Mosquito Abatement & Rodent Control on March 25.
Teacher Aaron Heuvel shows student Ethan Pertuis around the cockpit of an islander airplane during the Live Oak High School’s aviation class field trip to Mosquito Abatement & Rodent Control.
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“This is our 100th year just a lot of history I just hope that we can carry on and be able to do this for many years,” she said. “The strawberry industry is a dwindling industry and that breaks my heart.”
Louisiana’s Berry Belt
Louisiana’s strawberry industry goes back to the 1800s, when many people moved to Louisiana for its warm weather and rich soil, perfect for strawberry farms. The industry thrived in the Florida Parishes due to its proximity to the railroad and the influx of Hungarian and Italian immigrants into the area.
The success of growing the state fruit earned the southeast part of the state the nickname: “Louisiana’s Berry Belt.” The strawberry industry, mainly in Livingston and Tangipahoa parishes, peaked around 1931, just a few years after the LandryPoché farm was established.
That year, there were approximately 14,500 acres in production, according to Clark Robertson, an assistant county agent with the LSU AgCenter in Livingston. By 1988, that number had dropped to a little more than 900 acres
Last year, Louisiana had 49 strawberry producers growing on a reported 193 acres total, the majority being in Livingston, Tangipahoa and St. Tammany parishes, Robertson said. He estimates those numbers to be on par for this season as well. Depending on the weather, the season typically runs from February to early May
Surviving changing times
Landry-Poché, with the help of her husband, Dar-
Workers harvest strawberries at Landry-Poche Strawberry Farm, which specializes in growing and harvesting strawberries, in the small town of Springfield
ryl, took over the farm 20 years ago In the past two decades, the pair and their farm have gone through many changes in the industry Poché said the price of farming the strawberries has risen, and he knows a couple of farmers who have gotten out of the industry in the past few years.
“Unfortunately, it’s just a dying business,” Poché said. “We’ve been fortunate; we’ve had some bad years, but we’ve had some good years, too I don’t like to really talk about the bad stuff; I like to talk about the good stuff.”
Before they took over Landry-Poché’s father was growing 35,000 plants, but he had no outside sales. So then, when the pair began operating, they looked to sell to grocery stores and upped their production.
For several years, they increased to 250,000 plants due to the demand from grocery stores. Then the 2016 flood shut down their business for the entire season and destroyed one of the houses where their workers lived. So, after that, they scaled down to
growing about half as many plants.
“I’m to a size now where I’m happy because I can supply my stores. I can supply to people that come up here, and it really balances out,” he said.
Poché said it’s hard to find local residents who will farm, and the farm relies on migrant workers who come to the country on H-2A temporary agri-
culture visas.
He did note that while there have been recent issues in the crawfish industry due to a shortage of foreign workers, their farm has not had similar challenges. Those who work at crawfish processing plants would fall under H-2B visas for seasonal manufacturing, and those have a federal cap, while H-2A visas do not have a cap.
‘It takes a village’
If you go to the LandryPoché farm, it’s more than likely that the people manning the counter or aiding the field trips are all related to each other in some way
Darryl Poche said his son, Jonathan Poché, began growing vegetables on the farm a couple years ago and sells them at farmers markets.
“Hopefully they’ll take it over one day and we’ll work on keeping things going,” Darryl Poché said while pointing out his son and two grandchildren on the farm
Thursday Mark Landry, Landry-Poché’s brother, also helps on the farm with the manual labor and, like his brotherin-law, was crowned the Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival King in 2013
“As a family, we work together. It takes a village,” he said.
Landry emphasized how important it is for the family to come together and care for the farm.
“We have been able to keep it going for 100 years. It’s about the tradition of what we are doing, not about the money,” he said.
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STAFF PHOTOS BY JOHN BALLANCE
Emmet Adams, 2, of Denham Springs, enjoys a strawberry right off the plant at the Landry-Poché Strawberry Farm in Springfield
Rhonda Landry-Poché and Darryl Poché are celebrating 100 years of the Landry-Poché Strawberry Farm, which was established in 1926 by Landry-Poché’s great-grandfather Santos Bazile.
Claiborne Elementary students visit the Landry-Poche Strawberry Farm in Springfield.
Library book club make April selections, plan meetings
Community news report
The Livingston Parish Library’s book club selections for April have been announced. The selection features an array of titles including fiction, gripping mysteries or thought-provoking nonfiction.
Library branches host book clubs for adults ages 18 and older These clubs offer
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Livingston schools kindergarten registration
Livingston Parish Public Schools is accepting online registrations for incoming kindergarten students for the 2026-27 school year
A child must be 5 years old on or before Sept. 30 to register for kindergarten. Online registration is available at www.lpsb. org/parent_resources/ registration_info/register_for_kindergarten_2026-2027. Currently enrolled PreK students are automatically rolled over and do not need to register
More information about the registration process, visit www.lpsb.org/parent_resources/registration_info.
Pre-K application open in Livingston Parish Livingston Parish Public Schools is accepting applications for pre-kindergarten enrollment for the 2026-27 school year across the district.
A child must be 4 years old on or before Sept. 30 to qualify Round 1 of the online Pre-K application period runs through May 1. The online application can be accessed at applytolppsearlychild.schoolmint.com.
Anyone needing assistance completing the online application can visit district staff members on April 17 at the Livingston Parish Public Schools Professional Development Center, at 17457 Wes McLin Road, Suite F. Staff members will be available with laptops to assist from 8 a.m to 3:30 p.m. that day Parents or guardians who attend this help session should bring copies of the required documents. More information about the application process is available as www.lppsearlychildhood com or on Facebook at Livingston Parish Early Childhood.
Send news and events for Livingston and Tangipahoa parishes to livingston@theadvocate. com by 4 p.m. Friday or call (225) 388-0731.
an opportunity to connect with fellow reading enthusiasts and share insights on the selected titles. The selections include: Sunny Side Up Book Club
10 a.m., Tuesday, April 14, at the Watson Branch: “The Promise of Jesse Woods” by Chris Fabry Matt Plumley moves to West Virginia and falls in love with an Appalachian girl, Jesse Woods, but she ends their relation-
ship after he joins her in a rescue that causes a death. Years later, Matt returns to find out the truth about that night. Box of Chocolates Book Club
2 p.m., Thursday, April 16, at the Denham SpringsWalker Branch: “The Vanishing Half” by Brit Bennett. In this tale spanning from the 1940s to the 1990s, twin sisters Stella and Desiree confront their past and
divergent lives shaped by race, family ties, and identity after fleeing their tumultuous Louisiana hometown.
single dad from the nursery school group in this funny, feel-good novel.
Main Branch Book Club
ASB Book Club 10 a.m., Monday April 27, at the Albany-Springfield Branch: “How To Age Disgracefully” by Clare Pooley To save their local London community center, a group of eclectic seniors and their empty-nester social leader team up with a 17-year-old
Amant’s 6-4
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“Everybody knows everybody, everybody knows each other’s tendencies and coaching styles, but the girls also know each other. They’ve played either with each other or against each other since they were little kids.”
Now in her ninth season coaching the Wildcats, Westmoreland has been a big part of Walker’s softball program. The Wildcats are poised to enter the playoffs with their highest ranking during that time. Westmoreland said its all about the athletes.
“The beautiful part of our district is watching all of these girls grow up, and seeing them develop,” she said. “Its great softball, and it’s a privilege to be a part of it.”
French Settlement’s Mallory Miles sets career mark
French Settlement’s softball team recently improved to 14-2 on the season with a 2-1 win over Pearl River Currently rated as the No. 3 team in Division III nonselect, the Lions’ win was keyed by the pitching of Malloy Miles, who recorded 17 strikeouts.
An Ole Miss commitment, Miles has been in the circle for French Settlement since she was an eighth-grader, and surpassed 800 strikeouts for her career in the win over Pearl River Now a junior,
Miles will have one more season to add to her total.
Email Charles Salzer at livingston@ theadvocate.com.
10:30 a.m., Tuesday, April 28 at the Main Branch in Livingston: “One Italian Summer” by Rebecca Serle. After her mother Carol’s death, Katy is devastated and unsure how to navigate their planned trip to Positano, but upon arrival, she encounters a youthful and vi-
brant version of her mother South Branch Bookies 5:30 p.m., Thursday, April 30, at the South Branch: “The Daughter’s Tale” by Armando Lucas Correa. A tale of love and redemption based on the 1944 OradourSur-Glane massacre follows an octogenarian’s receipt of a cache of letters, written by her mother during World War II, that uncover decades of secrets.
Nurse practitioner joins pain management clinic
Community news report
Nurse practitioner Megan Baldassaro has joined North Oaks Pain Management Clinic in Hammond.
from them while building meaningful relationships and seeing their improvements along the way,” she said.
Earlier this month, she began treating new and existing patients ages 18 and older
Baldassaro will work with interventional pain management physician Jared Rochelle, who specializes in helping patients find lasting relief from chronic pain through nonopioid treatments. These conditions include chronic back and neck pain, neuropathy pain caused by nerve damage, and pain from injury, cancer or other illnesses.
Baldassaro’s approach to patient care is centered on listening first, a news release said. She works to understand each patient’s needs, explains safe and effective treatment options in a simple way, and creates care plans to improve both daily activities and overall quality of life.
“I enjoy helping patients regain pieces of their lives that pain has taken away
Baldassaro earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and her master’s degree in nursing with a family nurse practitioner concentration from Nicholls State University in Thibodaux. She is certified as a family nurse practitioner by the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners. She is also professionally affiliated with the Louisiana Association of Nurse Practitioners. Nurse practitioners are nationally certified, statelicensed medical professionals who can practice independently while working in close collaboration with their supervising physician. North Oaks Pain Management Clinic is at 15795 Paul Vega, MD, Drive, Building 3, Suite 200 in Hammond. Clinic hours of operation are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays. To learn more, visit northoaks.org/baldassaro.
Author Ann Marie Jameson releases book
Community news report
Author and Louisiana native Ann Marie Jameson’s newest book in her fictional “Willow Rose” series was recently released. The book, “Wine and Roses,” is the fifth book in the series set in Natchitoches.
Jameson first entered the world of book publishing back in 2003 when she self-published a children’s book, “Why Do I Have to be Born Last?” Soon after its release, she got sidelined from writing as she devoted her time to caring for her elderly parents.
Her third book, “Petite Rose,” was released in 2019. Her fourth, “Coming Up Roses,” was released in 2020, and now, her fifth book, “Wine and Roses,” has been released. Between her fourth and fifth book, Jameson also released a spin-off book of her series in 2023 titled “Lilly’s Redemption.”
In 2016, she returned to writing, but this time as a novelist with her first novel, “A Bed of Roses.” Jameson continued writing for the next 10 years as she went on to develop her five-book series anchored by “A Bed of Roses.”
In 2017, her second book, “Belle Rose,” was released.
All six books feature many of the same characters that Jameson’s fans have grown to love while reading her books over the years. Jameson is holding numerous book-signing events across the state during the next several months. Organizations or businesses that would be interested in hosting Jameson for an event can email authoramjameson@gmail.com. All of her books can be found on Amazon amazon. com/author/annmariejameson.
PHOTO BY PATRICK DENNIS
Walker’s head coach Hali Westmoreland encourages her players in the first inning of St.
win over Walker High in a 5-5A softball game Tuesday in Walker
PHOTO BY MICHAEL BACIGALUPI
French Settlement High pitcher Malloy Miles looks in as she prepares to pitch.
Baldassaro
Jameson
