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S u n d ay, J u ly 12, 2026
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Some in La. bet the farm on raw milk, despite concerns
NIL era comes to high school sports Louisiana lawmakers, coaches want safeguards put in place BY ALYSE PFEIL Staff writer
STAFF PHOTOS By CHRIS GRANGER
Cassie Sinagra, center, maneuvers through the shoppers gathered in the Sinagra Family Dairy in Amite as she tries to keep the refrigerator stocked on June 29. BY JENNA ROSS Staff writer
Two gallons, four. Six gallons, eight. The store at Sinagra Family Dairy in Amite had just opened at 2 p.m., but a half-hour later, the cooler was close to empty. One shelf, in particular. “Mom, can you grab a few more gallons of raw milk?” Miles Sinagra called from behind the register. Just days before, the Louisiana Health Department reported that 11 people got sick after drinking unpasteurized milk from three operations. Two were hospitalized. The department did not name the operations and still hasn’t. Still, at this Tangipahoa Parish dairy farm 90 minutes north of New Orleans, customers were clamoring for raw milk. Low-temperature pasteurized milk, too. One father grabbed four gallons
Jay ‘Sandwich’ Stevenson milks cows on the line at Sinagra Family Dairy near Amite on June 29. of chocolate milk, not just for his two daughters. “As crazy as it sounds,” Josh Simonsen said, getting close, “if I go out and mow for a few hours, I’ll come in and grab a big glass.” Raw milk outsold the others on this recent Monday af-
ternoon, as it does most days when the farm opens this bright little store on the land where Miles’ father, Darrell Sinagra, has been raising and milking cows since 1997. The family has bet the farm on this model — selling less-processed milk direct
to consumers. Since the state legalized the sale of raw milk in 2024, to a chorus of mooing legislators, some of that milk has been raw. There’s risk to that, said Miles, 26. “I’m not going to shy away from that. It’s like eating a raw oyster. We’re in Louisiana, big raw oyster state. … Now do we do everything we can to mitigate that, to decrease that risk as much as possible? Absolutely.” As raw milk has become an elixir of the Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, movement, some small family farms have seen it as a rare lifeline in a difficult industry dominated by largescale operators. But scientists have warned against skipping pasteurization. Raw milk is hundreds of times more likely to contain
ä See RAW MILK, page 6A
Now that student athletes are allowed to cash in on their talent and make money off endorsement deals, teenagers in high school are increasingly being drawn into the big business of sports, and coaches are raising concerns that young athletes and their families could be taken advantage of. Some elite high school students are now getting offers for marketing deals to use their name, image and likeness, or NIL, similar to college players. The young athletes are being approached by people — including friends and family members — who put themselves forward as sports agents but don’t have any experience in the industry, said J.T. Curtis Jr., football coach at John Curtis Christian School in River Ridge. “They might mean well, but they’re just not qualified to do well,” he said. “They’re not qualified professionally to be an Curtis agent.” Curtis, who is Louisiana’s all-time winningest high school coach, said he started to see the problem crop up in high school sports several years ago, but in the past two to three years it’s gotten “significantly worse.” To counter the risks to students, Louisiana lawmakers this year began putting up guardrails. That includes mandatory registrations, background checks and training for sports agents. “There’s just no real regulation that protects the athlete, and that’s what we’re trying to do at this point,” said Curtis, who served on Louisiana’s NIL Task Force and advocated for new laws. Louisiana law now acknowledges that high school athletes have a right to profit from their personal brands. That right was originally enshrined in state law for college athletes in 2021,
ä See NIL, page 6A
Live oak trees are clustered around the common area at Couret Farms, a traditional neighborhood development in north Lafayette Parish. Events under the oaks are common, according to neighborhood residents. STAFF PHOTO By JOANNA BROWN
WEATHER HIGH 88 LOW 76 PAGE 6B
Subdivision developer preserves live oaks Lafayette builders weigh keeping trees in new projects
street trees are a modest height, and crews are still filling out the edges of the subdivision with new streets and residences. But even though the development is new, there is a sense of rootedness at Couret Farms, located off BY JOANNA BROWN West Pont Des Mouton Road. SideStaff writer walks connect residential streets The Couret Farms neighborhood to Lafayette Renaissance Charter in north Lafayette has an unmis- Academy, and the landscape offers takably new air about it — the ä See OAKS, page 7A homes are freshly constructed, the
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102ND yEAR, NO. 12