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The Louisiana Legislature considered naming the Horace Wilkinson bridge for both Norman E. Lant and Horace Wilkinson, Horace Wilkinson Jr and Horace Wilkinson III in 1968.
BY ROBIN MILLER Staff writer
Three Wilkinsons plus one Lant equals one Mississippi River bridge. That was the original equation for the $46 million, cantilever “New Mississippi River Bridge” after it opened to Interstate 10 traffic April 10, 1968.
Originally, the Louisiana State Legislature considered placing two names on the bridge that year, with one name representing three people and the other commemorating a single person In the end, only one name was placed on the bridge: Horace Wilkinson. Who was Norman E. Lant?
Still, Ernie Smithling is correct in pointing out that state lawmakers considered giving the bridge a double moniker.
“I once read where the bridge was going to be named for the three Horace Wilkinsons in West Baton Rouge Parish and a guy named Norman Lant ” the Walker resident said. “If this is true,
BY JOY HOLDEN Staff writer
Where there were once towering flames and blackened pews, a skeleton of steel and a wood frame now stand tall. For St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Baton Rouge, construction has never looked so hopeful.
Danny Heitman AT RANDOM
A crawfish boil reminds me why they’re so special
When my wife and I got married three decades ago, our rehearsal dinner was a backyard crawfish boil A small windfall of a spring wedding in Louisiana is that crawfish are in season. They were plentiful that year so we enjoyed our festive feast without breaking anyone’s bank. Serving boiled crawfish to our guests was also a natural icebreaker We had friends and relatives from many places in the wedding party, and not everyone had met. As we huddled over steaming mounds of mudbugs, it was impossible for anyone to stay strangers for long. Peeling crawfish, after all, isn’t for the bashful. The work of the table, joyously messy, nudged everyone to quickly hop in Amid the claws and tails and the quickly stained shirts and dresses our circle of celebrants quickly bonded
Our guest list included visitors from North Carolina; Minnesota; Chicago; Washington, D.C.; and Alaska. Not everyone had peeled crawfish before, but we paired the novices with the locals, and the rite of initiation for newcomers to Louisiana cuisine was part of the fun. I remember few details of our wedding, which passed in a blur, as nuptials for young couples seem to do. But that crawfish boil on the evening before our wedding has stayed with me.
The memory underlines for me the close connection between food, friendship and family that defines this corner
On Feb. 17, 2024, the original St. Luke’s Church building, Pope Hall and the church library were destroyed by a fire Today, there’s a bright future going up day by day
“It was a gutwrenching tragedy.
Everybody was just in shock and grieving, said the Rev Bryan Owen, rector at St. Luke’s “It was a tremendous loss and something that nobody had ever dreamed would happen. But in the immediate aftermath, everybody just really rallied and came together and it was extraordinary.
This spirit of resilience has continued two years later
Connie Caldwell, a member since 1985 and a co-chair of the church’s Capital Campaign Committee to rebuild, says the fellowship that has blossomed after the fire has been a blessing.
“We used to be a bunch of people who went to church together, and now we’re truly a family It has changed the fabric of this congregation,” Caldwell said Rising from the ashes
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church began in 1956 with a small group of worshippers who first met in a private home, then at Goodwood Elementary School and next in temporary buildings The first permanent building was completed in July 1964 at 8833 Goodwood Blvd., Baton Rouge.
The last service in the original church was on Ash Wednesday in 2024, and the church burned down three days later Amy Binck, a member of St. Luke’s and co-chair of the Capital Campaign Committee, is emotional when she remembers the last service her family had in the
church. But, today, the congregation is closer
“Before, we had multiple services I felt like I knew a lot of people, Binck said. “After the fire, I can say hands down, it’s like we’ve come together more. Now we have one service where you get to know people. Getting involved with the church in the middle of a crisis doesn’t compare.”
Owen says the immediate response to the fire was “remarkable” both from the church congregation and the surrounding community
For three months, the congregation met in the school gym for worship services until power was restored to the whole campus. Since then, the church has been meeting in Witter Hall, a multi-purpose building that also functions as the school cafeteria on weekdays.
The hall is right next to where the new church is being built, so parishioners can see the progress on their way to worship Inside Witter Hall, there’s the repaired steeple cross from the original church and an altar that was brought to St Luke’s from St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Houma. Other local churches donated hymnals, Books of Common Prayer and vestments. Owen’s liturgical vestments were destroyed in the fire, so Caldwell
has been crafting new vestments by hand. She says the next big project will be creating the needlepoint kneelers for the new church, which will be done by a team of knitters.
For the next generation
In the summer of 2025, Caldwell and Binck dug into the history of St. Luke’s and its presence in the Tara and Broadmoor neighborhoods to create the Capital Campaign Committee.
Binck, a former pediatric critical care nurse practitioner, participated in capital campaigns for Episcopal School of Baton Rouge, and Caldwell had fundraising experience with Cancer Services of Greater Baton Rouge and the Baton Rouge General Foundation. They hired a fundraising consultant, Maurice Seaton, to help guide the strategy In the fall, Seaton facilitated a feasibility study with the St Luke members to get an idea of what they wanted in their new church and come up with a realistic financial goal. “We asked our parishioners to participate and give feedback on the building plans,” Binck said. “And then we tested for an amount that we were trying to figure out. What can we successfully raise?”
Once the results were compiled, the committee set a primary goal of $3 million and a stretch goal of $3.5 million. They chose a theme: “Honoring our past. Building our future.”
“We are taking the pieces of what St Luke’s was and why it was so special, but bringing it into the future and the next generations,” Binck said.
Since January, Binck and Caldwell have met with parishioners to ask for donations. Everyone who was asked to help rebuild the church has said yes.
“I was so touched by the reactions of the members when we started. Everybody had thought about what they wanted to do. There’s nobody that I asked to make a gift that said no. Everybody was ready and willing and able,” Caldwell said.
$2,315,200 and counting
The Capital Campaign kicked off its public stretch of fundraising on March 21 — led by the Right Rev Shannon Rogers Duckworth, the bishop of Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana The event allowed guests to view the construction progress without the protective netting along the fence, and they were able to sign columns that will be permanently installed at the church entrance.
To date, the campaign committee has raised $2,315,200, with an additional $1 million contributed from the church’s fire fund. They are almost to their goal, and they still have six weeks left. Funds will support construction of a new church building, a redesigned Pope Hall and significant exterior improvements to the campus. The proposed church will seat approximately 350 people and include expanded gathering areas and a chapel. The redesigned Pope Hall will provide nearly 4,000 square feet of flexible space for fellowship and parish events.
“It is a symbol of your faith, of your relationship with God,” Binck said of the church, “and I think that’s why it has transcended denominations. We’ve had churches of all different faiths support our rebuild. People can relate to how painful that is, whether it’s your church or not.”
Continued from page 1G
who was Norman Lant?” Norman E. Lant served as the chief engineer for the Highways Department, designing most of the then5,000 bridges that spanned Louisiana’s waterways.
And Horace Wilkinson?
That was the name shared by a patriarch, his son and grandson, all of whom were Port Allen businessmen who collectively served 54 years in the Louisiana Legislature.
However, in the months leading to the bridge’s opening, a legislative tugof-war played out as to how the bridge would be named. None of this mattered much to Baton Rougeans who referred to it — and still know it today — as the “New Bridge,” the “Old Bridge” being the U.S. 190 crossing.
Fifty-five years later and it’s still “new.” But that might change with the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development’s plans to relieve Baton Rouge’s interstate traffic by constructing another bridge connecting La. 1 south of Plaquemine and La. 30 near St. Gabriel.
Continued from page 1G
‘We’re resilient and faithful’ Architectural firm Hoffpauir Studios and general contractor Donahue Favret will oversee the design and construction of the new St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. Steve Jackson, a Baton
Rouge architect, is the chair of the building committee.
Owen noted that the new church building will have a more sacred exterior as the building before was intended to be a parish hall Now, he says they have a chance
Lant died on Sept. 27, 1967, which legally qualified him to be the bridge’s namesake since state law prohibited state buildings and bridges being named for living persons. The Wilkinsons also qualified.
Then, in April 1968, J.E. Jumonville Sr., of Ventress, who was a then state senator-elect for the 13th Senatorial District, announced that he would introduce a bill to name the bridge for the Wilkinsons when he entered office that May
New and old have names
While the “Old Bridge” was named for Louisiana’s legendary governor-turnedsenator Huey P. Long, the “New Bridge” brings the story back to the legislative battle.
Earlier in 1968, members of the East Baton Rouge Parish legislative delegation proposed that the bridge be named for Lant. Though he didn’t design the “New Bridge,” he did, indeed, design most of the bridges throughout the state, including the Huey P. Long “Old Bridge.”
of the world, something I think about each spring in the days before Easter Lent and seafood point us to the idea that sharing food across from each other can ground us spiritually, too
The 13th District later would become the 17th District, which included West Baton Rouge Parish, where the Wilkinson family lived. Jumonville held the office for eight years before being succeeded by his son J.E. Jumonville Jr., who served until 1993.
A case for both
An April 12, 1968, article in Baton Rouge’s State-Times quoted a family member in support of Jumonville saying, “the Wilkinson family are direct descendants of Gen. James Wilkinson, cogovernor of the Louisiana Territory with William C.C. Claiborne.”
“Lant came to Louisiana in 1922,” the article continued. “He was a native of Indiana. Lant set up the first
to fulfill a dream that the church’s founders had.
“It is going to be unmistakably a church to anyone who sees it, even if they don’t know the denomination,” Owen said. “It will rise up much higher than than what
bridge section in the State Department of Highways, then rose to fame during the road-building heyday of Huey P. Long.”
The article added that Lant retired from the Highways Department in 1955 but was recalled to the department in 1957, where, as an urban engineer, he had a hand in designing the state’s most modern highways.
Lant and all three Wilkinsons are buried in Baton Rouge’s Rose Lawn Memorial Park. Though other bridge names were floated — including Col. Elias Beauregard, who laid out the Baton Rouge’s Beauregard Town, and Port Allen namesake and former Gov Henry Watkins Allen Lant and the Wilkinsons remained the main contenders. Then came June, when a compromise was struck for a hyphenated solution the Wilkinson-Lant Bridge.
McKeithen weighs in The senate passed the bill, but that wouldn’t be the last of it.
“John McKeithen was the governor and I remember well being at Poplar Grove, our home, and seeing his car drive up in the driveway,” said Ann Wilkinson, greatgranddaughter of Horace
we had before. It’s going to have a very different presence in the community It’s going to really speak into the city in a different way.”
The goal is to be in the new church by Christmas, but the congregation is prepared for that deadline to be pushed to the Epiphany season of 2027.
“Tragedy really shows the character of people, and what it really reaffirmed for us is we’re resilient and faithful,” Owen said. “We
Wilkinson Sr and niece of Horace Wilkinson III.
Ann Wilkinson is now president of Poplar Grove Planting Co. in Port Allen, succeeding the three Horace Wilkinsons each of whom presided over the company
“Gov McKeithen came by to tell my father that he was going to support the name ‘Horace Wilkinson’ for the bridge,” Ann Wilkinson said.
“He just wanted my dad to know that.”
Ann Wilkinson was a senior at University High School at the time, having to cross the river by way of either the “Old Bridge” or the city of Baton Rouge ferry to get there.
“They didn’t open the bridge until the month before I graduated from high school,” she said, laughing.
Still, she remembers paying attention to the legislative bridge discussions at the time, and McKeithen stayed true to his word to her father
“The Senate went along with Gov McKeithen and the House today and named the $46 million Mississippi River Bridge here the Horace Wilkinson Bridge, deleting the name of Norman E. Lant,” reporter Jack Lord wrote in the July 10, 1968, edition of State-Times.
could feel the presence of God with us, and we knew that we were going to be okay from the get go. Two years later, and I can look out my office window at the skeleton of the church. Before you know it, they’ll be putting the roof on.” For more information about St. Luke Episcopal’s campaign, visit givingsites. com/honoringbuilding. Email Joy Holden at joy holden@theadvocate.com.
A variety of legislators praised Lant in the story, but their final vote honored the Wilkinson family, alone. Yet it was an honor that went unnoticed for years. “And you know it’s interesting, because there never was a ‘Horace Wilkinson’ sign put up on the bridge,” Ann Wilkinson said. That is, until 2010, when she received a call from former Baton Rouge MayorPresident Sharon Weston Broome, who was then Speaker Pro Tempore of the Louisiana House of Representatives.
“She said, ‘We need to get a name on the bridge,’” Ann Wilkinson said. “She and Rep. Regina Barrow introduced a measure — it wasn’t a bill to put the name on the bridge.” Today, “Horace Wilkinson” signs are placed on the railings in both directions.
“So, 42 years after it opened, the name was finally on the bridge,” Ann Wilkinson said.
Do you have a question about something in Louisiana that’s got you curious? Email your question to curiouslouisiana@ theadvocate.com. Include your name, phone number and the city where you live.
All of this came to mind the other day as I chatted with my friend Jamie at the office where we work together Talk in Louisiana inevitably leads to the topic of food, and before long, we were trading stories about families and crawfish boils, including the one before my wedding. “We should have a crawfish boil here,” Jamie added, almost as an afterthought. The idea quickly took shape, and in no time, our staff had planned a boiled crawfish lunch on the office porch. The day of the luncheon was unseasonably cold, with low clouds occasionally pierced by a hint of sun. I worried we’d be too cold as we dined in the open, but I took heart in the idea that brisk temps can sharpen the pleasure of a warm outdoor meal. The coffee and eggs I’d enjoyed on brisk campouts with my son taught me this is so. Luckily, the day brightened, and the crawfish, fresh from the pot, kept us toasty Relishing our main course, I learned all over again that while steak or trout might be a meal, boiled crawfish are a project Peeling them with others is a kind of culinary quilting bee, the sharing of effort and skill a gift of the experience. Maybe, I thought to myself, our office crawfish lunch should become a tradition.
Email Danny Heitman at danny@dannyheitman.com.
Colorful shrubs are a quick road trip away
BY CHERÉ COEN
Contributing writer
It’s that time of year when the South emerges from winter in vibrant explosions of pink, magenta, salmon and white. In other words azalea time!
The season typically runs from early March through late May, with peak blooming in April.
While our neighborhoods burst forth with these glorious shrubs in the genus Rhododendron, there are sites throughout the Deep South that merit a trip to view amazing collections of color
Below are four places near Louisiana and one in the state to see azaleas.
East Texas
Nacogdoches, a scenic drive west of its sister city Natchitoches, has been designated the Garden Capital of Texas with 25 miles of self-guided driving routes through its Azalea Trail. The route takes visitors through town and the Ruby M. Mize Azalea Garden on the campus of Stephen F. Austin State University, where more than 7,000 azaleas grow along Lanana Creek
The routes are divided into three trails named for different azaleas: Southern Indica Trail, Evergreen Azalea Trail and The Fashion Azalea Trail each trail beginning at the Charles Bright Visitor Center on Main Street in downtown Nacogdoches.
Trail maps are available at the Visitor Center or from the Azalea Trail website at nacogdochesazaleas.com.
Bellingrath Gardens & Home Theodore, Alabama
The 65-acre gardens located outside Mobile and 20 miles from Dauphin Island are a must-visit in the spring when more than 250,000 azaleas come into bloom
The flowering spectacle is one of the gardens’ most prized events. Bellingrath Gardens & Home was established when Walter Bellingrath, a Mobile bottler of Coca-Cola, purchased the site
above the Fowl River for a family retreat. The gardens opened to the public on April 7, 1932. In the mid-1930s, his wife, Bessie Bellingrath, planted the azaleas around their 15-room home, and it grew from there.
Visitors may tour the home as well as the gardens, statues and
water features plus enjoy special events throughout the year In April, the following events are scheduled:
n April 8: Lunch & Learn
“The Hidden Tape: Frank Woodard on the Man Behind the Gardens” n April 11: Preview party for
the Gulf Coast Chinese Lantern Festival
n April 15: Viewing the summer sky
n April 16-June 21: 2026 Gulf Coast Chinese Lantern Festival
n April 29: Garden walk and talk with horticulture experts.
Garvan Woodland Gardens
Hot Springs, Arkansas
First come the thousands of tulips and daffodils on the 210-acre botanical garden of the University of Arkansas. Next come the azaleas. If you’re lucky, you might experience both.
Located on the shores of Lake Hamilton, the garden is 45 minutes southwest of Little Rock. The space includes miles of trails meandering over several ecosystems with streams, fountains, statuary and breathtaking views of the lake throughout.
To check azalea — and other flower — bloom times, visit Garvan’s Facebook page at facebook. com/garvangardens.
PROVIDED PHOTO
Callaway Gardens
Pine Mountain, Georgia
Not only do thousands of azaleas bloom throughout the 2,500 acres at Callaway, but tulips, dogwoods and seasonal annuals as well.
Through May 10, Callaway features its annual Spring Festival with a variety of special events in addition to visitors enjoying its curated bloom trails.
Look for food and wine tastings, live artist demonstrations, music performances and more. Signature events include Symphony on the Sand, a lakeside concert under the stars, Easter brunch and Mother’s Day brunch.
For more information, visit www.callawaygardens.com.
Close to Home
Lafayette and Kisatchie
In the 1930s, Lafayette developed an Azalea Trail, a 20-mile route that begins at the Visitor Center on Evangeline Thruway and skirts through town. Along the way, visitors enjoy city landmarks, homes, historical sites and places to pause to enjoy Lafayette’s culinary scene.
Fun fact: The predominant azalea variety in Lafayette is the Formosa azalea, christened the “General Lafayette, LA,” which blooms in colors of lavender and fuchsia.
According to Lafayette Travel, some of the bushes are over 50 years old.
Self-guided trail maps may be downloaded from the tourism website at lafayettetravel.com/ plan/trip-ideas-itineraries/azaleatrail or print copies picked up at state welcome centers.
If you’d rather go wild, the Kisatchie National Forest in the central region of Louisiana, in Rapides Parish, is home to the Wild Azalea Trail in the forest’s Evangeline Unit.
Hikers wanting to view these azaleas in the wild — the state’s only native variety — may start the 31 miles of trail at the trailhead at the Town Hall in Woodworth.
For more information, visit explorelouisiana.com/bike/trail/ wild-azalea-trail.
Members of the GFWC Lagniappe Women’s Club held their monthly meeting on March 16 in conjunction with the GFWC LA District 6 annual convention. Shown are, GFCW Lagniappe Women’s Club president Cathie Ryan, left, and Montez Love
work spans multiple platforms, including appearances in Hulu’s “Murdaugh: Death in the Family” and projects connected to NBCUniversal and Wolf Entertainment. His growing body of work reflects a commitment to performance-driven storytelling across both visual and audio mediums. Bartlett, a bilateral amputee, began his career in broadcasting. His background in technical production informs a layered approach to performance, bridging both creative and structural aspects of storytelling. In addition to acting, Bartlett serves as head of creative development at Studio b.Vox, where he focuses on voiceover and narrative development across emerging media platforms.
The Voice Arts Awards, presented annually by the Society of Voice Arts and Sciences, recognize excellence across voiceover performance, production and storytelling
WBR Garden & Civic Club
The WBR Garden & Civic Club met at the Ag Center in Port Allen on March 10 Gathered are, from left, club President Kim Callegan, hostesses Betty Landry, Laurie Roche, Wendy Wilcombe, Lorry Trotter and Mary Neisler Not pictured is Chris Chustz. West Side Women’s Club
Members of the West Side Women’s Club met March 19 at Cane Sugar Toffee Company, Donaldsonville. Members enjoyed lunch and a toffee cooking demonstration. Shown are, from left, Dorene Mayeux, chair; Lewis Savioe, owner; and Theresa Altazan. Not pictured is Crystal Ewing
