The Colonel Fall 2018

70

Celebrating years

the magazine of NICHOLLS STATE UNIVERSITY

COLONEL

THE

FALL 2018

ALUM BECOMES WORLD-RENOWNED HEART DOCTOR Page 36

NEW ORLEANS CEO HONORED AS TOP ALUM Page 48

PROFESSOR COMBINES PASSION FOR TWITTER AND GAR Page 30

The Big Picture

Who needs Lyft when you have Boots?

Nicholls First Dog Boots Clune patrols campus to help students on their way to class.

2 | Fall 2018 • The COLONEL • Nicholls State University

Nicholls State University • The COLONEL • Fall 2018 |

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the magazine of NICHOLLS STATE UNIVERSITY

COLONEL

THE

FEATURES A (prehistoric) Fish Tale Biology professor Dr. Solomon David is always talking about gar, whether he’s on Twitter or on the bayou.

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The Boy from Bourg Read how Dr. Craig Walker went from the Boy from Bourg to the Houma Heart Doctor.

On the Edge Nicholls State University professors are preparing the next wave of teachers, principals and counselors to deal with the growing mental health crisis in schools.

Fall 2018

ON THE COVER

Dr. Solomon David holds up a speckled gar caught on a summer research trip in Bayou Chevreuil.

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30 42

DEPARTMENTS 53

1 The Big Picture 4 A Letter from the President 5 Colonel Pride 46 Alumni House 22-23

5 6 6 7 8 9 10 12 13 13 14 16 20 20 21 22 24

One Team Member, One Pride Veteran Nurse Takes Over as Provost Growing Opportunities A True Calling Learning Through Service Defining Dyslexia Sugar Institute Wish Fulfilled Colonels Take Carnegie Going Out on Top Started From the Bayou, Now We're Here Colonels Abroad A Fresh Batch of Fun Hiking with God The Nicholls Ninja A Look Back on 70 Years of Colonel Pride Whatcha Got Cookin?

26 The Red Zone 26 Running Home 27 Alum, Former Coach

Gives Back 28 Jones Spikes Cancer 28 Meet New Coach

Van Vark 29 Sail Makes Student Leaders

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47 48 49 50 52 53 54 55

Married Team Honored by Federation Museum CEO Proud of Nicholls Graduate Pioneer in Digital Journalism Where Are They Now? Talkin' Bout My Generation Education with a Twist Raising the Bar In Memoriam

56 Campus Cornerstone 56 57 58 59

Meyer Proud to Support Nicholls Foundation Group Goes to France Donations Help Future Assumption Educators UCB Receives Corporate Mark of Honor

60 A Colonel of Truth Nicholls State University • The COLONEL • Fall 2018 |

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THE

FALL 2018

COLONEL the magazine of NICHOLLS STATE UNIVERSITY

University President Dr. Jay Clune (BS ’86) Executive Vice President for Alex Arceneaux Enrollment and External Affairs Director of Alumni Affairs Katherine Gianelloni (BS ’14) Director of Marketing Jerad David (BA ’00) and Communications

NICHOLLS FOUNDATION

Executive Director Jeremy Becker (BS ’95, MBA ’97) NICHOLLS FOUNDATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Chairman Donald T. “Boysie” Bollinger

President Christopher H. Riviere (BS ’78)

Vice President Daniels Duplantis (BS ’69)

Secretary/Treasurer Arlen “Benny” Cenac Jr. (BS ’79)

Board Members Hunt Downer (BS ’68) Alexis A. Duval (BS ’92) Hugh E. Hamilton R.E. “Bob” Miller (BA ’75) Pat Pitre (BS ’72) NICHOLLS ALUMNI FEDERATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS

President Paula Arcement Rome (BS ’02, MBA ’13)

President-Elect Archie Chaisson III (BS ’08)

Vice President - Alumni Relations Kristen Dumas Callais (BS ’10, MA ’11)

Vice President - Marketing Cody Blanchard (BS ’10)

Secretary Sheri Haydel Eschete (BS ’84)

Treasurer David Heltz (BS ’84)

Board Members Dr. Tammy Cheramie (BA ’90, MEd ’93) David Ford (BA ’12, MEd ’16) Larry Howell (BS ’72) Brooke Huddleston (MA ’99) Lisa Daigle Kliebert (BA ’06, BA ’10, MA ’12, Ed. Cert. ’14) Shane Kliebert (BS ’06, MEd ’14) Deanna Duet Lafont (BA ’02) Grant Ordoyne (BIS ’15) Jennifer Smith (BA ’09)

Business Admin. Chapter Pres. Margo Oncale Badeaux (AS ’84, BS ’11, MBA ’14)

Education Chapter Pres. Sara Dempster (BS ’13, MEd ’15)

Culinary Chapter Pres. Hillary Scott Charpentier (BS ’15, MEd ’17) THE COLONEL EDITORIAL STAFF

Editor Jacob Batte

Art Director Jerad David (BA ’00)

Photojournalist Misty Leigh McElroy (BA ’03)

Contributors Victor Billiot • Shaun Breaux • Cullen Diebold • Eric Diggs • Dr. John Doucet (BS ’84) • Sharon Doucet (BA ’78) • Katherine Loupe • Cain Madden • Jenna Quick • Courtney Richard (BIS ’13) • LaToya Roberts • Jared Shanklin

The Colonel is the official publication of Nicholls State University and is published twice a year by the Nicholls Foundation, Nicholls Alumni Federation and Nicholls Office of University Marketing and Communications. We welcome your story ideas, suggestions, alumni news and feedback.

Contact The Colonel at: P.O. Box 2033 • Thibodaux, LA 70310 Phone: 985.448.4141 • Email:thecolonel@nicholls.edu

Dr. Jay Clune walks among students during commencement this spring, his first as president.

Moving Forward, Looking Back Dear Nicholls Alumni and Friends, What is an investiture? Merriam-Webster defines it as “the act of establishing in office or ratifying.” But what does it mean? As I prepare for my investiture, I find myself reflecting on how I got to where I am today.

I’m glad that my investiture coincides with Nicholls’ 70th birthday. Instead of focusing on me, I would prefer we use these opportunities to promote the incredible work that our students and faculty are doing. That’s why the profits from my Investiture Gala are going to the Bridge to Independence program and to the Nicholls Greenhouse renovation project. I also want to celebrate the accomplishments of those who came before us. We have tied these two themes together for a weeklong celebration beginning with an Alumni Jazz Brunch and the opening of a 70th Birthday exhibit in the archives at Ellender Memorial Library and ending with Family Day. To me, an investiture is a celebration of academic possibility. We’re often referred to as Harvard on the Bayou. Well, one of our graduates, Daniel Drennan, has parlayed his hard work, military experience and inquisitive nature into an opportunity at the oldest university in the United States. He will work in a premier research lab while pursuing a graduate degree. I encourage you to read his story on pg. 14. I promise you will be impressed.

While not every student has the opportunity to go to Harvard, our students still make an impact on our community. For example, on pg. 8, you can read about how students in our art department have created some of the most recognizable banners, logos and designs in the Houma-Thibodaux region.

Examples include the logo for the Bayou Country Children’s Museum, banners for the 200th anniversary at St. Joseph’s Co-Cathedral and logos for Thibodaux Main Street farmers market and Thibodeauxville.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t say how excited I am to have Dr. Sue Westbrook as provost and Vice President of academic affairs. She has smoothly transitioned into her role, and I know she’ll do a great job.

I hope to see you all around campus.

With Colonel Pride,

Nicholls State University does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, disability, or age in its programs and activities. The following person(s) has/have been designated to handle inquiries regarding the non-discrimination policies: Dr. Michele Caruso, Dean of Students (985) 448-4041.

Fall 2018 2018 • The • The COLONEL COLONEL • Nicholls • Nicholls State State University University 4 | Spring

Dr. Jay Clune President, Nicholls State University

TEAM MEMBER

DIRECTOR OF COMPLIANCE AND ETHICAL DEVELOPMENT

PRIDE COLONEL SINCE 1998 Dr. Tommy Ponson You're coming up on your 20th anniversary working at Nicholls. What have those years been like for you?

You never know what to expect. You really don’t know how intelligent our students are until you have a conversation with them. That’s the most rewarding part to me is to be able to sit down with them and pick their brains. Also, the people here, the atmosphere and the level of commitment you see on a day-to-day basis. It’s a family here.

You've worn many hats during your two decades at Nicholls, most recently as Greek Life Coordinator. What did that time mean to you?

I’ve always said that our Greeks are different from the Greeks that you read about in the news. Most of our organizations have received national awards from their chapter. We’re very fortunate to have the type of students that we have. For the most part, they’re typical college-age students who know how to have fun, but in a safe way. They look out for one another, and make sure everyone is safe. Our students are into community service and philanthropy. They know what they need to both have a good time and be prepared for whenever they leave this place.

You were an Omega Psi Phi as an undergrad. What benefits of Greek life did you experience in college?

Actually, I’m still reaping the benefits today. Because the connections are near and far. It’s a network of friends that you make and brothers that you meet that mean you will never, ever, be alone. You will never be stranded, your family will always be taken care of.

What does Colonel Pride mean to you?

Pride is something deeper than love. Whatever you have pride in and pride for, that means that deep in your heart, no matter what, that pride is still there. No matter what mood you’re in or what you’re feeling, Nicholls State University will brighten your day, make you smile and lift you up because you have that pride.

Nicholls State University • The COLONEL • Fall 2018 |

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Colonel Pride Veteran Nurse Takes Over as Provost

F

or most members of the Nicholls campus, the new provost and vice president for academic affairs won’t be a new face. After all, Dr. Sue Westbrook has worked on the Nicholls campus since the 1970s, the last 14 years as the dean of the College of Nursing and Allied Health.

“Nicholls has been a part of my personal and professional life for decades, which is why it is important to me that we create an environment where all students have the opportunity to be successful,” she says.

The Raceland native earned

her undergraduate degree in nursing from Northwestern State University. She then worked in the industry for three years before joining the Nicholls faculty in 1973 as an instructor of nursing.

She added a masters in psychological counseling from Nicholls in 1978 and a doctorate of nursing science from the LSU Health Sciences Center in 1999.

In 2004, she was named the dean of the College of Nursing and Allied Health.

She has also served on the State Board of Nursing and was named one of The Great 100 Nurses of

Growing Opportunities T

ucked away in a hall behind the kitchen classrooms in the Lanny D. Ledet Building are a group of Nicholls students tending three tall gardens.

Known as Tower Gardens, the vertical, aeroponic structures, represent both an opportunity for students with disabilities and the value of community partnership.

Tending to these gardens are the students from the Nicholls Bridge to Independence Program. Bridge to Independence assists students with intellectual disabilities or autism spectrum disorder with job and social skills. While they are not culinary majors, they share a goal with their peers in the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute to one day work in the food industry.

“Our students love it because they were here from the very beginning. We came over every

day and helped put them together,” says Tara Martin, director of the Bridge to Independence Program.

“Some of our students are taking food sanitation classes over here because they want to work in food prep or a bakery. They love food.

This is something that is very special to them.”

Using a donation from local nonprofit Blessed by Downs, Nicholls purchased three tower gardens with plans to add more.

Some of the herbs grown will be used in goods sold at The Bakery at the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute.

“This gives our students a connection to another department on campus and the chance for an internship,” Martin says.

Each Tower Garden holds plants in slots that run up and down the tower. A self-misting system

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and overhanging lamps provide the nutrients needed for the assortment of herbs and spices to blossom.

Bridge students help to collect the ingredients, herbs and spices when they are ready to be used in the kitchens and plant new varieties.

This spring, Bridge students planted cilantro, lavender, thyme, spinach, tomato, basil and parsley.

There are already plans to add more tower gardens in the future and add more vegetables to the rotation.

“It’s a lot of fun to work with the students from the Bridge to Independence program,” says Chef John Kozar, who teaches a food sanitation course for Bridge students. “They’re passionate about the things they do and they bring a freshness to the program.”

– Jacob Batte

Louisiana in 2016.

Westbrook recognizes the challenges of working in higher education, especially when it comes to funding. That said, Nicholls can improve itself academically without an increase in the amount of money it spends, she says.

“My goals are to increase our student success and retention by increasing faculty development in high-impact teaching practices, maintain the university’s accreditation, increase diversity and inclusion and increase faculty and staff morale and compensation,” she says. – Jacob Batte

G

rief turned Father Mitch Semar to Jesus.

The new priest for St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church at Nicholls State University was close to having a shot at making the ‘92 Summer Olympics as part of the men’s gymnastics team.

But with three years until the Olympics, Semar blew out his knee.

Two months later, his aunt, who he describes as a second mom, died from cancer.

“Emotionally, I was shot as a teenager,” he says. “My identity was wrapped up around my gymnastics career, and I had never dealt with grief before, so I didn’t know where to turn to.”

Struggling to deal with his emotions, he was approached by the youth director of his church about going to a Catholic retreat. He and his family went to mass every Sunday but he was a casual Catholic at that point in his life. Still, he agreed, and it was there that his life would change forever.

“This guy comes to talk to us, and he’s this epitome of masculinity,” Semar says. “He rode over to the retreat from McNeese State University on a horse.

“He spoke about his family and he started crying. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, big boys do cry.’ I didn’t know how to deal with all this stuff in my life. So I pulled him aside, he talked to me, I poured my heart out, and that’s when I began this real, personal relationship with Jesus that I had never had before.”

Though he first began thinking about priesthood shortly after that retreat, he wouldn’t enroll in seminary until he was 33 years old. Along the way, he enrolled in college but transferred five times and changed his major four times,

A True Calling only to end up at the first school – McNeese State University – and the first major – public relations. He had even tried, unsuccessfully, to be a monk.

“Being in the ministry that I’m in now I understand the confusion that college students are going through,” he says. “They’ll say, 'I think I’m going to switch my major, but I’m afraid my parents are going to kill me.' I always tell them, 'They won’t. Trust me.'”

Semar says that, through it all, he knew in the back of his mind that he wanted to be a priest.

Even before he decided to become a priest, Semar has always been drawn to youth ministry.

“That’s where my heart is, it’s where I’ve experienced joy,” he says. “I’ve just felt alive in youth ministry.”

He got involved in Life Teen, an international program aimed at working with Catholic teenagers, and began helping train youth directors and corporate members on how to get the program started.

“I love young people, I love this world and I love the gift that the youth are,” he says.

Then one day, while hanging out with a friend, the friend told Semar that he hadn’t been to confession in 20 years.

“I can’t explain what happened other than a moment of grace, but everything inside of me started to burn with this desire to absolve him of his sins,” he says. ‘That was it, I called up my friend who was a vocation director and said, 'I’m ready to go.'”

After serving at churches in Houma and Thibodaux, Semar was ecstatic to be able to work with the youth again, this time on the Nicholls campus.

“Faith at Nicholls is exploding.

This year we have 150 incoming freshman signed up for Colonel Catholics already. They inspire me,” he says. “Our students are looking for truth. They’re looking for an authentic expression of faith lived out in a tangible way. They want to make a difference in the world and live out their faith.”

Though his gymnastics career was effectively over 19 years ago, Semar says the lessons he

learned, such as hard work, determination and setting goals, have stuck with him today.

“In gymnastics, you as an individual can get a gold medal but at the same time you’re also in a team competition, so you’re working hard to get the medal for everyone else, too,” he says.

“I feel that now in my own life.

Yes, I want to get to heaven, but I also want to bring a whole lot of people with me.” – Jacob Batte

Nicholls State University • The COLONEL • Fall 2018 | 7

Colonel Pride

Learning Through Service

E

very Sunday in 2017, Joey Blake attended mass at St. Joseph’s CoCathedral in Thibodaux with a smile.

Banners and prints celebrating the church's 200th anniversary were designed by Blake while he was a student at Nicholls. Having grown up in the church, he was excited when the opportunity came up to work with them through a Nicholls Department of Art service learning project.

“It was really personal,” says Blake, who now works for Lamar Billboards in Baton Rouge. “It was more than a grade to me, it was giving back to this community that I was a part of. I could go to mass on Sundays and say, to myself, that I did that.”

That’s just one of dozens of examples of design work in the community produced by Nicholls art

students. Trisha Rabalais, associate professor of art and coordinator of the service learning projects, had done something similar while in grad school at the University of Houston. She took those ideas and implemented them at Nicholls.

More than a decade ago, she recruited her father, who is with the South Louisiana Wildfowl Carvers, to be their first client.

“Service learning can be put into any class where the objectives of that project meet the objectives of that class,” Rabalais says. “If you tell me you need a book, well in Typography II, we do design a book. Instead of creating a made up book, we’ll create a real one.”

Since then, students have worked on designs for the Thibodaux Main Street Farmers Market, the Bayou Country Children's Museum, the BREC BMX Raceway and the Arnaudville NUNU Collective,

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among others. Across the campus, they’ve created designs for Nicholls Student Advising & Mentoring, Colonels Retention of Winners Network and student projects in the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute.

“Service learning gave us this opportunity to work within real parameters, to work with real clients and to work and give back to the community in a way that our designers could understand,” Rabalais says.

A key component, says art department head Ross Jahnke, is that each community partner is a nonprofit.

“If a for-profit organization needs a design, they should hire a firm that employs one of our alumni and pay for it,” he says with a smile. “But these entities, like the university, they don’t have the budget to pay for this, but they

have the need for an identity.”

Each project begins with research and speaking with the client. In the case of the St. Joseph’s Co-Cathedral, the class read up on the history of the church and met with the priest, who explained the symbolism surrounding the cathedral.

“I think that’s actually the biggest lesson of the whole experience,” says Blake, who also worked on a redesign for the downtown festival, Thibodeauxville. “No matter how much you think you know something, research it anyway. I had been attending the church my entire life but I learned things I never knew before. If I hadn’t put in that effort, I would have missed out.”

After research, the group begins sketching out multiple drafts, all the while receiving feedback from the client. Once a design is approved, then it’s a matter of applying it to the project. In some cases, it’s flyers,

posters, banners and flags. Others a simple print.

Katherine Loupe and Celeste Bourgeois were part of a fourstudent team that designed a cookbook for the St. John’s Episcopal Church women’s group.

In that class, the students broke the book into four sections to layout, while also presenting competing designs for the cover.

“It was truly a team project,” says Loupe, whose design was chosen for the cover. “We had to work on it together, figure out what font we wanted to use and how we wanted to lay it out.

From there, it was going back and forth to make sure our work was cohesive.”

While students get pieces for their portfolio that they can use to land jobs or internships after graduation, they cited the experience of going back-andforth with their clients as the most insightful part of the program.

Blake says he’s taken many of the lessons he learned on his two projects and used them at Lamar.

“Most of your projects in class live in that little bubble, and they may never be seen outside of that,” Blake says. “These projects are a real world application. You have to deal with an actual plan, not just a teacher giving you a grade. The client doesn’t care about grading you, they just want the best design they can get."

“It’s so much different than class work. You start to get personally involved,” Bourgeois says. “When you meet face-to-face with clients, it cements that this is really for them. This is something that they will use in their daily lives and you have to focus on their needs. It’s a motivating factor for us.”

– Jacob Batte

L

ocated on the Nicholls State University campus is an office that every day changes lives, offers guidance and provides hope.

The Louisiana Center for Dyslexia and Related Learning Disorders is the only dyslexiarelated program in the state. The Center offers teacher training, support to Nicholls students who suffer from dyslexia and assessments for people of all ages.

In 2017, the Center was rated among the top 10 values for college students with dyslexia by BestValueSchools.com.

“Nicholls is a good value to begin with, and our students are getting the help they need to be prepared for the real world,” says Karen Chauvin, Center director. “Students from all over the state and the region are choosing to come to Nicholls because they can see the success that our students are having.”

In 2017-2018, the program set a fall semester enrollment record with 146 students and followed that up with a spring enrollment record with 132 students. More than one-third of Nicholls students in the program carry a 3.0 GPA or higher.

Dyslexia, which affects between 3 to 7 percent of the global population, is a disorder that impacts an individual’s ability to read, write, spell and pronounce words despite normal intelligence. To the point, dyslexia and similar learning disorders affect the student’s ability to process information.

When reading, they’ll mix up words, letters and numbers, or skip over them altogether.

“When I’m driving down the highway, for instance, instead of seeing an exit for Cheyenne, I’ll process Charlotte,” says senior English major Austin Wendt. “I’ll have to do a double take and start over.”

Wendt, a Baton Rouge native, was diagnosed with dyslexia, dysgraphia - which affects his ability to write - and dyscalculia - which affects his ability to make mathematical calculations - in the third grade.

To maintain his good grades, Wendt says he has to start on assignments far in advance of his peers.

“A lot of that relies on me having effective time management skills and using the available resources, like the Dyslexia Center,” he says.

It was the Dyslexia Center that drew Wendt to Nicholls. He had previously looked all over the country, including schools as far away as Boston.

“Nicholls is a great community and a great college campus and the Dyslexia Center has been a great asset because of the services offered,” Wendt says. “I’ve never been a great student in math, but the center has helped me work step-by-step through the problems. My writing pretty much sucked when I came to Nicholls. But being able to work with my professors, I’ve passed all of my English classes with A's. That’s all attributed to the Dyslexia Center and the caliber of professors we have here at Nicholls.”

Thibodaux native Abbie Degruise wasn’t diagnosed with dyslexia until her freshman year at Nicholls. She had no clue that her academic struggles were tied to the disorder.

“I just thought I wasn’t studying hard enough,” she says. “It’s very frustrating, but with the help of the Dyslexia Center, it makes it easier because there are so many resources available.”

Degruise says she constantly uses specialized tutors and the testing center to aid her with her school work.

“The Dyslexia Center gave me that confidence and that push to exceed my goals,” she says. “Before I was always down on myself, and I didn’t think I had it in me to make the grades and grab other people’s attention. It gave me the confidence to really shoot for the stars.” – Jacob Batte Nicholls State University • The COLONEL • Fall 2018 |

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Colonel Pride

People come from across the globe to attend the Cane Sugar Refiners’ Institute and the Raw Cane Sugar Manufacturers’ Institute. The two two-week short courses are filled with intense, day-long discussions led by expert professors on timely topics covering every aspect of sugar production. The program is supported by industry giants, such as the Sugar Industry Technologists, the American Sugarcane League, the USDA, Audubon Sugar Institute and John Deere. Throughout the program, participants visit farms, mills, refineries and factories to get real world experience. At the end of the course, students receive a certificate of completion.

40 Sweet Ye

1,800 participants since 1978 58 countries 16 U.S. states 50 refineries 35 mills 30 companies 10 | Fall 2018 • The COLONEL • Nicholls State University

ars of Sugar Institutes

Nicholls State University • The COLONEL • Fall 2018 |

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Colonel Pride

Wish Fulfilled

T

Brennan receives a key to the city from Thibodaux Mayor Tommy Eschete.

he counter was a jumble of pots, pans, different types of sugars, dyes, flour, cinnamon and all the implements used to put the cake together. Despite the clutter, Joshua Brennan was focusing on the oven in anticipation of something he’d be experiencing for the first time.

“I’d never had a king cake before,” says Brennan, 15. “It was good. I liked learning how to bake such a thing.

Baking can be such a mess to create one thing, but to see it come out beautiful is nice.”

Born with a congenital heart disease, he lives with a pacemaker. He has recently become a heart transplant candidate, which is when the Make-AWish Foundation stepped in. He was able to visit Thibodaux on a trip that combined his two loves: firefighting and cooking.

The example of the king cake is why Brennan chose the New Orleans area, as he wanted to broaden his skills as a chef.

Brennan prepares a pasta dish at the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute.

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“There is a lot of culture in the food, and it is different from everywhere else,” Brennan says. “It’s fun. It’s upbeat.”

The firefighting aspect? Well, Brennan was made an honorary member of the Pawling Volunteer Fire Department in New York about two years ago because he often showed up to events ready to “work harder than a lot of the people who call themselves grown men,” says his father Tom Brennan, who is a volunteer firefighter at that station.

With Make-A-Wish, Brennan’s family was connected with New Orleans Fire Department Capt. Ron Beaulieu, and for the cooking portion of the wish, Beaulieu reached out to Chef Nathan Richard, the executive chef of Cavan, Nicholls State University culinary professor and Thibodaux Volunteer Firefighter.

“You don’t have a heart if you can’t help a kid out, or anyone going through this,” Chef Richard says. “It is a natural thing to do to help someone out that needs it, and for us, to meet a brother fireman.”

Brennan’s wish was to meet firefighters as well as chefs, and then cook for the fire department. After meeting Richard, who also cooked a steak for the teen, and learning about what the executive chef does in the kitchen, Brennan had the opportunity to cook for many fire chiefs in the area.

“It was definitely exciting, but also a little nerve racking,” Brennan says.

“But I wanted to get the pressure of cooking for a large group of people. I thought it was better to go bigger.”

The menu was also big and thus a challenge. It included fried chicken, macaroni salad, collard greens, cornbread biscuits and for desert, he made the king cake.

“Everyone was very patient, which gave me hope to finish and I did,” Brennan says. “Everyone enjoyed my food. It was definitely fun.”

In between touring around New Orleans in various fire trucks, Brennan’s next stop was in Thibodaux, at the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute. He was able to meet Nicholls President Dr. Jay Clune, Director of Athletics Matt Roan and several members of the culinary institute.

“That was fun. It was good to see what happens in the school,” Brennan says. “I learned a lot about the food culture that is in New Orleans, what it takes to be a good chef and the pressure that comes with that type of environment of cooking.”

Brennan says he does plan to be a chef when he grows up and had been planning to attend a two-year program until he visited Nicholls.

“I would love to go there,” Brennan says. “With the different divisions that are there and the education that is given, as well, it would help me succeed.”

Tom says the family is strongly considering moving to New Orleans to help Joshua go to school at Nicholls.

“The two-year programs teach the basics of the kitchen, but Nicholls is able to give a more well rounded business perspective in addition to everything else,” Tom says. “We were really impressed with the school and the campus was pretty and the people were friendly.”

Even if that isn’t able to happen, Brennan says he is thankful for all Richard, the New Orleans Fire Department and Nicholls did for him.

“I was in New Orleans to enjoy myself, and it was amazing.”

– Cain Madden

Colonels Take Carnegie

O

nce upon a time, senior Emma Prejean had written off singing as something she’d never be able to do. But within a decade of when she first tried to pick up music, Prejean found herself on the stage of the most famous venue in the world — Carnegie Hall.

With its renaissance revival architecture and five levels of seating with room for more than 2,800 spectators, the Isaac Stern Auditorium has drawn some of the most prestigious musical acts.

The likes of Tchaikovsky, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Booker T. Washington, Mark Twain and The Beatles are among the “Ghosts of Carnegie Hall.”

“It’s kind of crazy to tell people about all of those famous people having been on that stage, and

now me, little old me from south Louisiana,” Prejean says.

Prejean was one of several Nicholls students, faculty members and alumni to be invited to Midamerica Productions’ 35th Anniversary Season at Carnegie Hall, as part of the Nicholls Concert Choir.

The May 26 concert featured four parts including two conductors, Mark Hayes and Allen Robert Petker directing their own pieces, and now retired Nicholls State University professor Dr. Kenneth Klaus conducting a Mozart piece. Prejean says the rare opportunity of working with a living composer was an experience she will not forget.

“I talked to Allan Robert Petker, and he was really nice,” Prejean says. “It was cool to see how they

The Nicholls Concert Choir performed at Carnegie Hall in May, led by retiring professor of music, Dr. Kenneth Klaus.

worked and how they rewrote their pieces to do what they wanted to do on the spot.”

But for the students, just being there was not something they ever anticipated. Senior Serdave Duncan had planned to stay in Thibodaux, but then Prejean, who had originally talked him into joining the choir, surprised him with a ticket.

“For me, it was an experience of a lifetime,” Duncan says. “It was not really a place I was planning to go, Carnegie Hall or New York.

So, just to be able to go was pretty

amazing for me.”

Prejean, who had considered stepping away from music in high school, joined the choir after taking Dr. Klaus' voice class.

The experience inspired her to want to be a music instructor after college. And when the classics come up in class, she’ll have her Carnegie Hall experience to draw upon.

“Nicholls has meant a lot,” Prejean says. “I’ve made so many friends and had so many amazing experiences and musical opportunities like this.” – Cain Madden

That love for students and the university, he always found a way to give students what they needed.”

For Nicholls students like instrumental senior Emma Prejean, that night in Carnegie Hall was the last time the long-time professor would have a chance to impact the next generation.

“That was really emotional,” Prejean says. “It was Doc’s last concert. When he walked off, I was crying."

Though Dr. Klaus says he knocked off most of the items on his checklist during his career, he did forget to do one thing.

“You can see it behind me in this picture (at right), there is a brass rail,” Dr. Klaus says. “They don’t polish it because of all of the great

conductors who have touched it.

My wife asked me after if I touched it, and I had not. I don’t know why, but I just didn’t think of it during the moment.” – Cain Madden

Going Out on Top

N

icholls professor of music Dr. Kenneth Klaus is putting down his baton after one final performance in Carnegie Hall.

“You literally cannot conduct at a more famous place,” Dr. Klaus says.

“I came off of the stage and it was thrilling. I said it was a good time to retire.

When he first arrived on the campus in the 1980s, 25 music majors were in the program. Over the years, it has steadily grown to approximately 80 last fall.

“I loved my students dearly,” Dr. Klaus says. “It has also been special to keep up with many of them and see the special things they have been able to do with their careers.”

Instrumental senior and Concert

Choir member Serdave Duncan says he enjoyed several things about “Doc’s” classes, one of them being the extra knowledge he’d pepper into lessons.

“Say in choir we were performing a piece on Mozart, he’d have information about Mozart’s life that he’d talk about,” Duncan says. “I am a fan of history, so I love little bits of information like that.”

Many of his students have gone on to lead area K-12 bands. One such student is his son, Michael Klaus, who teaches music at St. Bernadette Catholic Elementary School.

“As far as dad’s career, he showed what it means to be a faithful servant,” he says. “He fought the good fight, through budget cuts.

Nicholls State University • The COLONEL • Fall 2018 |

13

Colonel Pride

Started From the Bayou, “Dan is such a humble guy but I wish all of my veterans were more like Dan. I would love to have 100 Dans here,” says Gilberto Burbante, coordinator of veterans services at Nicholls. “Need tutoring? Dan is your guy. Need a tire change on the weekend? Dan is your guy.”

Growing Up

A

decade ago, Daniel Drennan joined the Army with a 9th grade education. Today, you’ll find him in a research facility at Harvard University.

Along the way of this education-based rags to riches tale, our protagonist does a tour in the Middle East and graduates with two degrees in five years from Nicholls State University.

But to this man, he doesn’t want much of the credit.

Those who know him say that is quintessential Dan Drennan.

Hard work and God-given ability earn him something special and he credits everyone else.

He credits his first boss James Falgoust at Earles and Associates for setting him straight. He credits Dr. Balaji Ramachandran for getting him to Nicholls. And he credits former Nicholls President Dr. Bruce Murphy for giving him the opportunity to go to Harvard.

“He didn’t know much and he was an immature kid at first who showed up late and was a horrible driver,” says James Falgoust, Drennan’s boss at Earles and Associates. “But he always worked hard and I could see him begin to grow to love the work. He would work 10 hours and give you 12 hours worth of work.”

A more mature Drennan joined the Army at 18 years old.

His enlistment included a tour in the Kandahar Province in Afghanistan and earning his GED. When he left the Army in 2012, he recalled a chance meeting with Dr. Ramachandran years before when the Nicholls geomatics program

14 | Fall 2018 • The COLONEL • Nicholls State University

director recruited him to study at the Thibodaux university. Drennan decided to take him up on it.

“He did promise me then that if he ever returns to school after his military service, he will give the Geomatics program a chance.

He kept his promise and was very enthusiastic of our Geomatics program,” Dr. Ramachandran says. “In 20 years of my teaching in various capacities, I would rank him as one of the most dedicated students who always worked on his shortcomings and excelled in them.”

Enemy, Thy Name is Math Drennan knew he wanted to get a degree in geomatics and become a surveyor, but two roadblocks stood in his way: calculus and physics.

To earn a geomatics degree requires the successful completion of two courses in subjects that required an advanced understanding of math, which Drennan, at that time didn’t have.

In fact, he hated math. He dropped out of high school because of math.

When he earned his GED, he “learned just enough math to pass.”

After just getting by Calculus I and Physics I, Drennan decided to face his problems head on. He spent three hours each day on Khan Academy, the free online educational resource, working his

way up from third grade math to the end.

That spring, he passed Calculus II with an A and Physics II with a B. “I knew math was my weak point, so I figured I would attack my weakest area as hard as I could,” he says.

Facing a scheduling issue – he needed to remain full-time to keep his GI Bill educational benefits but had completed his electives and couldn’t advance in Geomatics fast enough to earn 12 hours a semester – Dan decided that he would take his newfound love for Math and turn it into a second major.

“I took seven classes one semester and six classes every other semester,” he says. “I never dropped a class in school, never failed a class and never made a D. That was my way of being exceptional.”

Making a Good Impression For Drennan, the Fall of 2016 proved to be a turning point in his life. Scheduled to take seven classes, or 21 hours per week, his weekends were also packed with work, helping Earles and Associates deal with the aftermath of the Baton Rouge 100-year floods.

Weekdays he was in class from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Then he would work on homework in the library until they closed, where he would

Now We're Here go home and do more until after midnight. Then, on the weekends he drove up to Gonzales to do flood surveys. He passed every class with an A or B. “That was the hardest semester of my life and it was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done,” he says. “Seeing flooded houses every day, it was transformative and depressing. I wish I could have been more involved than I was but it was the best I could do to help that community.”

As the semester wrapped up, Burbante reached out to Drennan about an opportunity during commencement. Dr. Kit Parker, a Lt. Col. in the Army Reserves and the Tarr Family Professor of Bioengineering and Applied Physics at Harvard University, was coming to Thibodaux to give the commencement speech, and Nicholls needed someone to drive him around.

Then Nicholls president Dr. Bruce Murphy had commissioned and taught Dr. Parker in the Army. After meeting with Dan, Dr. Murphy says he felt the two would connect.

“I thought it would be pretty cool to talk with someone who was working at that level academically,” Drennan says. “I had watched some of his TED Talks on math models on experiments and I wanted to talk to him about how he designed

those experiments.”

To Drennan, this was just an opportunity to interact with someone at a level that he couldn’t attain. That’s why he was shocked that before they had even entered Lafourche Parish that Dr. Parker encouraged him to apply to his summer internship program.

“I had told him about the semester I had just gone through and that had impressed him,” Drennan says.

He applied and, to his surprise, was accepted. He spent the summer in Boston studying Kevlar, but his research didn’t produce any defensible results.

“I hadn’t planned on contacting them for anything because I didn’t think they would write a good reference letter,” he says. “I think I worked on that research for 50-60 hours per week and didn’t get a result. I really beat myself up over it.”

Drennan shakes hands with U.S. Rep. Garret Graves during a drone demonstration at the Nicholls Farm.

was impressed enough to bring him back. And Dr. Parker is a nononsense kind of guy. If Dan hadn't performed well, he wouldn’t ask him back.”

In that phone call, Dr. Parker told him they were impressed with his work ethic and his unique perspective, given his surveying and From Hard Work to Harvard math background. He convinced Drennan to take a visit back to campus and talk about it in person.

That next spring, while he was Drennan was convinced. This tutoring another student in math, time, he’ll manage the lab and its Drennan received a call from a familiar number. It was Dr. Parker. equipment and assist Dr. Parker’s His lab manager had moved on and team with data analysis. It’s also expected he’ll work toward a after talking with his team, they graduate degree. In all, the process wanted to bring Drennan back. should take about four years, he says.

“Dr. Parker said Dan was up to “Dr. Parker was still selling me snuff. He said he did a great job,” on the ‘it’s Harvard’ aspect. And I Dr. Murphy says. “Obviously, he

remember very distinctly telling him in the interview, I’m not accepting this job because it’s Harvard but because I want to work with you. I don’t want to work at Harvard, but I do want to work for that guy in that lab with that group.”

Asked if he ever reflects on what he’s accomplished, Drennan deflects. Sure, his hard work and determination played some role in where he’s gotten but luck and other influences played a bigger part.

“It’s easy to say look at this kid who overcame flunking out of high school and now he’s going to Harvard. If it’s not for all of these folks, this opportunity doesn’t happen. That’s the part of this story that I want to tell people about.”

– Jacob Batte

Nicholls State University • The COLONEL • Fall 2018 |

15

Colonel Pride

Colonels Abroad

16 | Fall 2018 • The COLONEL • Nicholls State University

Adam LeBlanc

Austin Matherne, left, and Rebecca LaBelle

nnually, a group of Nicholls art students and faculty spend more than two weeks abroad, viewing famous pieces of art, reliving historic moments, studying iconic architecture and digging deeper into the people, places and themes that influence them today.

For the students, the trip is more than a vacation. Throughout their journey, they are required to keep journals filled with sketches and notes that give colorful insight into the impact that each landmark and culture has on them. At the end of the class, those students are asked to take that experience and portray it in a final art form.

This summer, 20 students spent 16 days traveling across Europe, stopping in places such as Berlin, Prague, Vienna and Venice, among others, to visit places such as the Berlin Wall, the Memorial of the Murdered Jews of Europe, the Prague Castle, St. Vitus Cathedral, Teatro Olimpico and St. Mark’s Basilica.

A

Nicholls State University • The COLONEL • Fall 2018 |

17

Colonel Pride

"Mucha" a fine art relief print by Rebecca LaBelle

"Stained Glass" a fine art relief print by Adam LeBlanc

“We saw so many sketches and quick studies by several artists and that inspired me to just keep working; to always keep that creativity flowing.

This final piece was really a mash-up of Alphonse Mucha’s work and my own ideas. I’m happy with the outcome”

“St. George the dragon slayer was one of my favorite biblical myths growing up and, going into the trip, I wanted to do something with that. Seeing St. George's Basilica in person, I was overwhelmed by how it aged. It resembled a ruin. I wanted to make a piece that could stand up to the original.”

- Adam LeBlanc, Houma

- Rebecca LaBelle, Berwick

18 | Fall 2018 • The COLONEL • Nicholls State University

A collection of sketches and notes from the journal of Austin Matherne.

“I fulfilled my lifelong dream of seeing the Infant Jesus of Prague statue. Since I was a baby, my mom prayed devotional prayers to him, leading me to have a great love for the statue and the devotion. I never expected the sculptural orientation surrounding it to be magnificent. It was art meeting heaven; it was everything I thought it would be and more.”

- Austin Matherne, Raceland

Nicholls State University • The COLONEL • Fall 2018 |

19

Colonel Pride

A Fresh Batch of Fun

E

very Wednesday this past spring around 10 a.m., folks from the Nicholls and Thibodaux community would line up in the main entrance of the Lanny D. Ledet Culinary Arts Building waiting for caramelized bacon muffins, peanut butter and jelly cookies and turtle danishes.

They were lined up to get their favorite pastries and baked goods from the inaugural Bakery at the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute.

Chef Tammy Rink joined the Culinary Institute faculty in 2016 and very quickly had conversations with department head Chef John Kozar about how best to utilize a previously unused retail space by the main hall.

Their vision was a bakery.

With 13 pastry concentration upperclassmen in need of a class this

spring, Chef Rink and Chef Kozar created a class that would teach the students how to create and operate their own bakery. The class covered everything from cost control and market research to creating a menu and displaying their food.

“It was so much fun to experiment and learn new things,” says Kelci Martinez, who took the class in the spring and is now a graduate assistant. “I look forward to working with these students to build something greater.”

Her signature menu item was Tart á la Bouille, which she compared to a vanilla cream pie.

“It’s something that my grandmother made for me growing up,” she says. “It was a truly great feeling to see

everybody love the flavor and the style of the pie that I made.”

Each week, one student was put in charge of the bakery. They would create the menu, work with Chef Rink to procure the supplies and assign the other students specific work.

This class served as a pilot program for the future, Chef Rink says. In the fall, the bakery will open from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and will include the more popular food items from the spring, including boudin croissants, bananas foster cookies and chocolate chip cookies, while still allowing the students to create specialty items.

There’s even talk of making it a requirement for pastry majors.

“I’m hoping as the semesters go we can add more to it,” Rink says.

– Jacob Batte

Hiking with God

I

t was Ashton Crow’s first time hiking the Appalachian Trail and he had overpacked and didn’t have the strength to make it much further.

But he wasn’t alone. Another member of the group from Nicholls helped him carry his load the rest of the way.

“I think that relates to our spiritual lives as well,” he says. “It helped to show me that sometimes we have to share our burdens. Our friends can help us shoulder the burden of life and we don’t have to do it all alone.”

That kind of experience is what the annual trek hosted by the Nicholls’ Baptist Collegiate Ministry aims to achieve.

“We’re big believers in that a good way to see God is to get out in nature,” says BCM Director Conan Sherlin.

Every year, the group of young men spends seven days hiking a portion of the trail. Though currently the group is only young men, Sherlin says if a female hiking leader joins their group he would encourage young women as well.

The inaugural group began at the starting point on Springer Mountain in Georgia. The following year’s trip picks up where the last one left off.

20 | Fall 2018 • The COLONEL • Nicholls State University

This summer, the group made their way into northwest Tennessee.

Sherlin says he would love to complete the entire trail with Nicholls students but jokes that “at this pace, it will take us about 40 years.”

BCM has tried to minimize the costs for the students by renting equipment and bringing on other essentials. Sherlin says they will start the trek over once the travel costs to continue further north become too expensive.

“There’s something about a fire at night that seems to provoke deep conversation,” says Zachary Vorenkamp. “I was getting to know guys and we were bonding as a group over the course of those miles. We can say that we did this together.”

Each day the group wakes up, eats breakfast and discusses a scripture chosen to match what they have seen along the trail. Then they start walking, stopping for lunch and dinner. Then they go to sleep and wake up the next day and do it all over again.

“I’m a huge believer in the mountains,” Sherlin says. “There’s something majestic about seeing and being in the mountains. Breathing that clean air, I think it just does something good for you.” – Jacob Batte

THE NICHOLLS

I

NINJA

t’s 3 a.m. in Dallas and Andrew Naquin is approaching the obstacle course, with his name flashing in bright lights above him. The adrenaline inside him is pumping now. He’s about to compete on American Ninja Warrior.

While the rest of the Bayou Region is sleeping, or getting up early to go fishing, Cajun Zeus, as he is known, gets started. He carefully hops across the first obstacle, called the floating steps, hugging the landing pads to make sure he remains secure.

The next obstacle – the catch and release – would require him to combine his passion for strengthtraining and gymnastics. He uses his momentum to swing from one bar to the next as the commentators gawked at the size of his arms.

He bounds off the first trampoline on the bouncing spider, catching himself with his feet between two hanging walls. He then makes his way across to the second trampoline. If he lands right, he would propel himself high enough to catch one of the hanging bags and onto the next platform.

Instead, his feet flew out from beneath him when he hit the trampoline and he was flung face first into the padded wall like a cartoon character, slowly sliding down the wall into the water.

“It was like a slingshot,” he says with a laugh. “All I remember is my head hitting the wall.”

He says the impact looked worse on television than in real life, noting how he was still having fun when he hit the water.

When the Napoleonville native isn’t hopping, running, scaling, frogging and slamming his face into the hearts of television viewers across the country, he’s a Nicholls student studying dietetics, combining a lifelong love of strength training and gymnastics with a desire to understand nutrition.

“It’s about learning how to eat the right way,” he says.

“Nutrition goes hand-in-hand with health and fitness.”

Fitness has been a way of life for Naquin since he was a teenager. His family now owns two gyms in the Assumption Parish area and he supports

himself through college by taking on clients at the gym. But he considers himself more than just a personal trainer.

“I do more of coaching and teaching, than just the lift this to gain muscle kind of thing,” says Naquin, who also teaches youth strength training at the gym.

“I remember going to high school and not being taught the right ways to lift early on. I want to help the younger kids understand the correct form and lifting their own body weight before they jump into high school and start over doing it without knowing what they’re doing.”

His popularity and demand has boomed since appearing on the show. Next year, he’s going to work with the Assumption High School baseball team on their strength and conditioning. And he recently hosted a Ninja Warrior Camp that sold out within a week.

Naquin says he’s not a one-and-done competitor and plans to go back again next year. But while American Ninja Warrior is the short-term goal, he has dreams of being a licensed dietician, earning his masters and opening his own practice. “I want to use this as another way that I can help people.” – Jacob Batte

Nicholls State University • The COLONEL • Fall 2018 |

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A LOOK BACK ON

70

The Early Years

Nicholls first president, Dr. Charles Elkins, breaks ground on Francis T. Nicholls Junior College on May 9, 1947, at the historic Acadia Plantation. Originally part of the Louisiana State University System, Nicholls State College separated from LSU in 1956 and became a 4-year college. In 1970, the name changed one more time, to Nicholls State University.

Then and Now On the left, snow blankets the campus, which then only consisted of Elkins Hall. On the right, nearly 70 years later, history repeats itself, this time during final exams, giving students a holiday cheer-filled break from studying.

Success in Sports Nicholls success on the courts and fields also dates back decades. On the far right, Colonel cheerleaders prepare for the big game. On the left, Nicholls women’s basketball players celebrate winning their first Southland 2018 • The COLONEL • Nicholls State University 22 | Fall Tournament Conference championship.

YEARS OF COLONEL PRIDE Big Bands at Guidry Stadium Given Nicholls' close proximity to the cultural hub of New Orleans, it is no surprise that popular bands such as Chicago, left, and KC and the Sunshine Band, right, have visited campus over the years.

Campus Fun Nicholls students have always known how to have a good time, even as traditions have evolved over the years, whether it was catching the greased pig back in the 60s and 70s or chowing down on mudbugs at the annual Crawfish Day held in the spring.

Old and New Over the course of 70 years, Nicholls campus and its facilities have evolved. In an effort to improve the living spaces for students, Nicholls demolished dorms such as Long Hall in 2008.

In the middle, Nicholls also added the Harold J. Callais Recreation Center in 2012 with stateof-the-art exercise equipment, gymnasium, Nicholls State University COLONEL 2018track. | 23 fitness• The studies and an• Fall indoor

Colonel Pride Whatcha Got Cookin’?

Roasted Triple Tail, Charred Okra, Heirloom Tomatoes & Jasmine Rice SAUCE CREOLE 1 large onion diced 2 cups diced okra (fresh or frozen) 2 bell peppers, diced 4 stalks celery, diced 4 clove garlic, minced 1 teaspoons dried thyme 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes 1 tablespoon salt 1 teaspoon black pepper

Sauté onions in a large sauté pan over mediumhigh heat. In the order on the left add each of the following ingredients about a minute after the next. Once all the vegetables and spices are combined add the stock. Bring to a simmer and then turn the heat to low and cover. Cook for 30-45 minutes. Remove from heat. Puree sauce in a blender or with an immersion blender. Pass through a fine mesh strainer. Season with salt and creole spices of your choosing (everyone has their own preferences). Reserve for plate up.

2 cups crushed tomatoes 8 cups shrimp or crab stock

CHARRED OKRA 10 pieces split okra

Split the okra and toss with extra virgin olive oil and salt. Place the okra on a 2 lemons grill grade and char until both sides Extra virgin olive oil develop some color. Remove the okra Salt from the heat and squeeze lemon juice over all the okra.

Pepper

TRIPLE TAIL 4-5 5oz Triple Tail fillets Salt Pepper Paul Prudhomme’s Seafood Magic (or seafood seasoning of your choice) Extra virgin olive oil A 2014 graduate of the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute at Nicholls State University, Chef Ross Dover is the chef de cuisine at one of the hottest fine-dining restaurants in New Orleans, Restaurant August. Dover has honed his skills at Big Al's, Dominique's Bistro, Cafe Giovanni and Foundry on the Bayou. Dover also helped start another New Orleans Staple, Johnny Sanchez, as sous chef. He was a 2016 finalist for Gambit's Emerging Chefs Challenge and has been named a "Chef You Ought to Know" by Point of Vue magazine.

24 | Fall 2018 • The COLONEL • Nicholls State University

Season fish fillets with salt, pepper, and seafood seasoning, then set aside. Heat cast iron skillet on medium high heat. Add extra virgin olive oil and wait until right before it smokes. Sear triple tail quickly 2-3 minutes on each side. Do not overcook, place on baking pan and hold.

PLATE UP 4-5 5oz cooked Triple Tail fillets 1 qt steamed jasmine rice Heirloom cherry tomatoes, peeled and halved Charred okra Chives Poached shrimp Creole sauce

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Nicholls State University • The COLONEL • Fall 2018 |

25

The Red Zone Running Home

T

he Nicholls State University men's and women's cross country squads had a strong showing at the Nicholls Cross Country Invitational, the first home meet held

by Nicholls in more than a decade.

In a combination of athletics and academics, the meet was held at the Nicholls Farm.

“This is very exciting for several reasons,” says Coach Stefanie Slekis. “For starters, this is an excellent opportunity for us as a team, but this is also a way for us to show off the beautiful Nicholls Farm and the work that our biology and geomatics departments are doing over there.”

Freshman Julia Garcia Verges was the Colonel women's top finisher, placing fourth in the women's 4k on a 17:11.02. She was followed by fellow freshmen Lara Reifers (17:39.40) and Faith Keter (18:19.50), who rounded out the Top 10 at seventh and 10th, respectively. Sophomores Joyce Kiplagat (18:23.09) and Eleana Callejas (18:58.87) and freshman Isabelle Caron (22:34.42) also competed for the Colonels.

Freshmen Daniel Figueroa (21:59.63), Jonathan Hernandez (22:02.42) and Tyler

26 | Fall 2018 • The COLONEL • Nicholls State University

Granger (22:34.30) posted Top 10 finishes on the men's side at fifth, sixth and eighth, respectively. Freshman Dustin Worley (24:24.57) and junior Teril Cooper (28:30.03) rounded out the men's group.

Tulane and the University of New Orleans competed in both the men’s and women’s races, while Loyola University in New Orleans competed in the men’s race.

Nicholls held the meet as a way to prepare to host the Southland Conference Championships in 2020. Hosting a conference championship has been a goal for both Slekis and Nicholls Athletic Director Matt Roan.

“We began to evaluate what was around us, what can we do to create a real cross country course where we can be competitive,” Slekis says.

The Nicholls Invitational also included the long-running high school meet, the Dr. Richard Morvant Invitational, which was won

by Vandebilt Catholic High School, and a community race.

“It gets us that whole exercise of not only our team being at home, but we can get our

community out to support us, our department to support us and also helps the people in the area get used to the idea of a race happening here annually,” Slekis says. – Jacob Batte

Alum, Former Coach Gives Back

L

ester Bimah bleeds red and gray.

Most mornings you can find the former Nicholls men’s soccer coach jogging around campus. If you don’t see him then, you’ll likely see him at any number of Nicholls sporting events. Even those on the road. Just last fall, he traveled with the football team to watch them play against Texas A&M University.

If you get a chance to talk with him at the Barker Honda dealership in Houma, there’s a chance he’s wearing a custom Nicholls Barker Honda shirt - he wears Nicholls red twice per week.

“Without Nicholls, this region would be nothing,” he says. “Nicholls means so much to this community.”

The native of Trinidad & Tobago almost didn’t attend Nicholls. Not because he was looking at other colleges and universities, but because he almost didn’t immigrate to the United States.

Bimah grew up third-world country rich, which means his family had one of the only cars and 2-story houses on the islands but lacked running water and electricity. His grandfather wanted a better life for his children, so he helped them move to England and Canada when they got older. Bimah’s parents, however, moved to Louisiana. He stayed behind to finish high school and when it came time for him to join his family, he originally had his sights set on Canada.

“But when push came to shove, I moved to Louisiana,” he says.

While he was at Nicholls, he was named one of the Who’s Who Among Students. And he had to work harder than his peers to graduate.

“I said I don’t know the 50 states, I had never heard of George Washington or Abraham Lincoln,” he says. “I could tell you every country, their capital and their prime minister or leader, but we didn’t learn math the same way, and we didn’t have a lot of the sciences.”

Bimah was a central figure in the creation of soccer at Nicholls. During a soccer class, then assistant basketball coach Jerry Sanders asked if any of those students knew anything about soccer. Bimah, who had a shot at professional soccer when he was younger, raised his hand.

He was officially hired by then Nicholls athletic director Don Landry in 1981 as the first men’s soccer coach. He says he can remember guys like Vic Lafont, Danny Cavell and John Weimer helping him get the program started, and retired Nicholls professor Dr. Albert Diket helping him procure uniforms and equipment.

After two losing seasons to start his career, he led the Colonels to four consecutive winning seasons from 1984 to 1987, as an affiliate member of the Southeastern Conference, making the SEC Tournament finals in 1988.

“I recruited some great players and raised my own money from local businesses,” he says. “I had four or five guys play professional overseas. In 1983, we had three of the top 20 scorers in the country right here in Thibodaux.”

He was named to the Nicholls Athletics Hall of Fame in 2010, and he was recognized by the program when they announced the Lester S. Bimah Locker Room at the Woman’s Soccer Complex in 2012. Bimah says he still stays in

touch with his former players.

“They call, we relive the glory days and talk trash,” he says.

Bimah was recruited by a friend to sell cars one summer and found out he was pretty good at it and could make more money. He left coaching not long after. In 2000, he joined the Barker Family in opening Barker Honda in Houma, where he serves as a managing partner.

“I don’t want to sell you a car, I want to sell you a friendship for the rest of your life,” he says.

Never one to remain dormant, Bimah has been active in the community.

For the past 25 years, he’s served as an usher at St. Joseph’s Co-Cathedral in Thibodaux. He’s been the president of the Houma-Thibodaux Auto Dealers Association for 10 years and serves on the board for Fire Protection District No. 4. This past spring, he was named the Grand Marshall for the Thibodaux Fireman’s Fair, which he describes as the “biggest honor ever bestowed upon me.”

Even though he stepped away as a coach, Bimah has never gone too far away from Nicholls. As president of the Colonel Club, he has served on hiring committees that brought in women’s basketball coach DoBee Plaisance and women’s soccer coach Dylan McBride.

“Nicholls gave me a whole lot, so I’m very proud to have been able to do that, to give back to the university,” he says. “It’s Colonel Pride. It’s giving back to the university and to the people of Thibodaux. Ever since I moved here, this place has done so much for me. Especially Nicholls.” – Jacob Batte Nicholls State University • The COLONEL • Fall 2018 |

27

The Red Zone

Jones Spikes Cancer

A

s a freshman athlete committed to Nicholls, Katie Jones heard the three words from a doctor no one wants to hear, “You have cancer.” This came in the summer before she was ever able to lace up her shoes and step onto the volleyball court at Stopher Gymnasium.

“At that point, the world stood still," Jones says. "I was thinking, 'What in the world, why now?'”

But she showed her resolve and less than a year after that moment, she was back on the court and on her way to earning a roster spot under new volleyball coach Jay Van Vark.

“I mean, obviously it is incredible what she did,” Van Vark says. “Lots of people in that situation would throw in the towel and just gone into the ‘woe is me’ kind of stuff. But she did not do any of that.”

A six foot, two inches tall outside hitter from Mont Belvieu, Texas, Jones verbally committed the day after her visit to Thibodaux. She already had a connection on the squad, competing alongside Colonel teammate Jennifer Olivarez on the Houston Stellar club team.

When the summer before her first semester came around, Jones noticed a swollen lymph node on her neck. A family doctor ran tests and saw no issue with the bump.

Jones then visited MD Anderson, the most well-renowned cancer center in Houston, to receive a biopsy, and the doctors realized the lymph node was indeed cancerous. She was diagnosed with Stage 2 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in early July.

Even after being diagnosed, Jones originally intended to play during the 2017 season, setting up treatments with Ochsner in New Orleans while still attending classes. Not feeling well the first three days on campus, Jones went back to Ochsner only to realize she had a bacterial infection that dropped her white blood cell count to almost zero. With her life on the line, Jones had a tough choice ahead of her.

"I kind of decided that it wasn't the opportunity for me or the risk I needed to take," she says. "So I thought that I should probably go home, sit down and think about it. I finally decided that I was going to leave this semester and not play in the fall - go home, get better and then come back."

Jones returned to Nicholls for the Colonels annual cancer awareness match, and watched her team pull off an emotional win against Abilene Christian. But for the most part, she focused on getting better so she could return to playing at Nicholls as soon as possible.

Jones received several cycles of treatment and was deemed cancer-free later that fall, re-enrolling at Nicholls in the spring. She returned to the court, first with her club team and then with the Colonels, but the disease and time off had taken their toll.

"It wasn't the same," Jones says. "I felt really out of shape. I couldn't jump, and I couldn't lift a lot, so it was really hard for me. I'm not back to where I want to be or back to where I was, but it's still great being here with everyone. This is my family."

Van Vark says Jones attitude makes it easy

for him to balance showing her support while also making sure he treats her like he would any other player.

“She pushed herself all spring long and wants to play, but she has no interest in being treated differently because of what she went through,” Van Vark says. “I expect her to be part of the outside hitter corps, to add strength and belief to the team.” – Cain Madden

Meet New Coach Van Vark Named head coach in February 2017

Has had several Division I stops as an assistant coach at Grand Canyon University, Ohio State University, which made the Sweet 16 in 2014, San Diego State University, and the Aztecs won their first Mountain West Championship in 2012, and UC Santa Barbara.

Was the head coach for the 2013 Dallas, 2014 Minneapolis, 2015 New Orleans and 2017 Minneapolis USA Collegiate National Team. Also with USA Volleyball, Van Vark has served as the tech coordinator for Team USA tryouts.

Originally from Cedar Falls, Iowa, Van Vark resides in Thibodaux where he bikes to work. His grown children are Audrey, of San Deigo, and Jared, who is a junior on the Colorado State baseball team.

28 | Fall 2018 • The COLONEL • Nicholls State University

SAIL Makes Student Leaders

L

eadership scholar Warren Bennis once said that “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.”

For a real world example, look no further than Nicholls State University, where a motivated football player led the charge to host the inaugural Student Athlete Institute of Leadership at Nicholls earlier this year.

Junior mass communications major and offensive lineman from Baton Rouge, Al Wilson, serves as the Nicholls Student Athlete Advisory Committee president.

His idea for the conference was spurred by a case of bad timing.

Wilson was scheduled to attend the SAAC Leadership Conference in Washington D.C. beginning on Thursday, Nov. 16, 2017. Though he was excited for the conference, he already had something on his calendar: a road game against conference rival Southeastern.

Disappointed but not deterred, Wilson thought back to talks he had with the University of New Orleans Associate Athletic Director for Student-Athlete Enrichment and Senior Woman Administrator, Kirsten Elleby, about hosting a similar conference locally.

“We wanted to have other schools that may be in the same situation as us financially come and participate in leadership drills and activities where we could all learn from each other and become better leaders across our respective campuses,” Wilson says.

Wilson brought that idea to Andrew Kearney, associate athletic director for compliance, where they worked with Elleby to craft the conference.

"Al and I had discussed how great it would be to send some of our student-athletes to leadership conferences, but the cost of doing that wouldn't allow us to reach as many student-athletes as we would have liked," said Kearney.

The inaugural event included 25 student-athletes from Nicholls, Southeastern Louisiana University and the University of New Orleans.

The day-long event consisted of team building activities, a panel discussion, tips on using social media, simulations of scenarios that teams may face and discussion on how to help student-athletes on campus.

“This year our main focus was on being the leaders that we are and using that to lead others,” Wilson says.

“The conversations we had were unbelievable. I took

Junior offensive lineman and Nicholls Student Athlete Advisory Committee President Al Wilson and other Nicholls students cheering on the Colonels Basketball run in the Southland Conference Tournament.

about 6-7 pages of notes.”

Topics focused on real-world situations. For instance, it’s the night before a game and you see on social media that a teammate is out drinking and partying. On the one hand, you don’t want to betray the trust of your teammates, but on the other, you can’t have that kind of activity before a game.

“There was a lot of real-life applicable situations where the different athletes described how they would handle a situation at their respective schools,” Kearney says.

Clyde Verdin, former Nicholls director of media relations, spoke to the group about the increased spotlight placed on social media.

“The biggest thing I tried to convey was that if you don’t think somebody is watching, you need to think again,” Verdin says. “The numbers and facts back up that potential employers are using your accounts as a barometer as whether you’re a good fit for their company or if they can trust you to be a part of their brand.”

Wilson and Kearney say they envision SAIL growing in the coming years. They received positive feedback from the schools who attended, and other schools have reached out, interested in joining.

“We want to include more schools, more personalities and get more angles and perspectives,” Wilson says.

“Our dream is that it becomes a premiere leadership conference for the South.” – Jacob Batte

For a complete listing of Colonel Athletics schedules, visit GEAUXCOLONELS.COM

Nicholls State University • The COLONEL • Fall 2018 |

29

A FISH

[prehistoric]

E

very day, Dr. Solomon David uses one of the newest forms of communication to discuss

one of the oldest species of fish still alive today.

by Jacob Batte Photos by Misty Leigh McElroy

30 | Fall 2018 • The COLONEL • Nicholls State University

TALE

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31

A simple check of the @SolomonRDavid on Twitter reveals that eight of his 10 tweets – not including retweets – are about gar fish. One deals with his hate of penguins but that’s another story.

Hardly a day goes by without the assistant professor of biological sciences at Nicholls State University either out on a boat in a local bayou, sharing his latest research or making a clever gar pun.

Mention Twitter or gars around Dr. David and be prepared for the long-winded Washington state native to talk your ears off about the importance of science communication to the public and gar fish to the local ecosystem. In fact, twice during the interview for this story Dr. David started talking about gars and forgot the question or the point he was trying to make.

But, as ungaracteristic as it may sound, there was a time when he forgot he even had a Twitter account. And he was studying something other than fish.

Dr. David’s love affair with the prehistoric fish and social media began a couple of decades ago when a cartoon raccoon changed his life forever.

GARigins of His Passion for Fish Though he was originally born in the Northwest, Dr. David was raised in “the middle of nowhere,” also known as North Dakota, before his family moved to Ohio when he was in the sixth grade.

A young Dr. David loved playing with creatures such as bugs, frogs and snakes, and going to the library to learn about dinosaurs. He was first introduced to his passion when one of his friends showed him the children’s nature magazine, Ranger Rick. In one issue was a spread on the alligator gar - a garticle if you will.

“I just ate it up,” he says now, from his office in Beauregard Hall. “I was flipping through the middle of a particular issue and in the middle is a picture of a giant fish that looks like an alligator but with fins instead of arms. I thought, ‘Wow, this is so cool.’”

Though he lost that issue, the image of the ancient alligator gar stayed with him as he progressed through school. Still, he couldn’t imagine a career studying this fish, so he tried his hand at pre-med at Ohio Northern

University, all the while taking biology classes with field work on the side.

As he approached graduation, he knew the medical field wasn’t for him, and when he took an ichthyology class - the zoology of fishes - he knew what he had to do.

Instead of medical school, he enrolled at the University of Michigan where he would receive his master and doctoral degrees in natural resources and environment. He would also do postdoc work at Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, the University of Wisconsin and Michigan State University.

While at Shedd Aquarium, Dr. David saw a tweet from National Geographic regarding Ranger Rick. Feeling nostalgic, Dr. David replied mentioning how his love for gars was inspired by Ranger Rick and that he was still trying to track down that particular issue.

The Ranger Rick twitter account responded with a PDF of that particular spread. He was excited. Then the editors of the magazine reached out to him, saying they found one remaining copy of that issue.

“I was freaking out. They sent me the issue, and Shedd took pictures of it and I did an interview with the magazine,” he says. “It was neat to be able to talk about that sort of interest and for it all to kind of come full circle.”

Today, a PDF of the spread is saved onto his computer while a framed copy of the issue sits in his office.

An Interest in GARmunications What does @SolomonRDavid have in common with @ArianaGrande, @ KingJames or @ChrisHemsworth? That coveted little blue check-mark next to his name indicating that he has a verified account.

A believer in science communication and a master of fishy puns, Dr. David is a perfect fit for Twitter. There, he can speak directly to a niche audience that, like him, is passionate about these prehistoric fish, while keeping his content fresh and funny.

“You can’t be a robot necessarily – although there’s plenty of those out there – but having that personal twist makes it more

DR. SOLOMON DAVID'S TOP 10 GAR-ISMS 1. ReGARdless

6. Garlfriend

2. Gartastic

7. "Gar walks into the bar, bartender asks, 'why the long nose?'"

3. Garpocalypse (often used in reference to the aftermath of bowfishing, with dead gars piled up) 4. Pirate's favorite fish? GARRRR 5. ConGARtulations

32 | Fall 2018 • The COLONEL • Nicholls State University

8. Mardi Gars 9. Gar Wars main antagonist Garth Vader 10. Where do you do fieldwork on gars?

'Garfield'

approachable,” he says. “And that’s important for scientists because we’re not just putting out abstracts or journal articles and speaking in giant words all the time.”

But he wasn’t always social media savvy. He originally used Facebook for everything. Photo of his family? Facebook. New research on spotted gar in the Chicago River? Facebook.

Twitter didn’t become a regular part of his life until he began working at Shedd. After several members of their PR team began following him on Twitter he remembered something: he had a Twitter account.

“I finally had some content to show and so I figured that maybe it was time to get that going,” he says.

Being able to communicate effectively is such an important part of the modern science community. Using modern communication tools like social media and blogs is one of the best ways to get your research into the public domain.

“I find it's important for the general public to know what the scientists are doing because in the end it's the general public that's funding science,” he says. “And it’s important for them to understand where their tax dollars are going.”

He runs five different Twitter accounts, including the @NichollsBiology, and has encouraged other professors and students to create and cultivate their own accounts. For Dr. David, Twitter’s character limits have made him a better communicator. Biology Department Head Dr. Quenton Fontenot says he would have to get a cup of coffee and sit in a comfortable chair before he would read one of Dr. David’s emails but the social media app forces Dr. David to keep it concise.

“Our department and our university as a whole has a broader reach because of his efforts in science communication,” Dr. Fontenot says. “For our department, we get a lot more exposure because of his knowledge. So having him here is great.”

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GARriving at Nicholls

the research, the more he turned into a “fanboy.”

“I came down to Thibodaux at least 2-3 times over the course of my graduate career, and I also met up with Alysse and Quenton at gar Throughout the time that Dr. David was finishing his graduate degree and conferences in Costa Rica and Mexico,” he says. “So I was no stranger to going from postdoc to postdoc he was wishing he was fishing at Nicholls. the program that Nicholls has here and the quality of students, and the Around 2008, he began looking up other gar fanatics. It was there he research that they conduct.” first learned about Dr. Alysse Ferrara, Jerry Ledet Endowed Professor of For Drs. Ferrara and Fontenot, they knew exactly who to call when a Environmental Biology, and Dr. Fontenot at Nicholls. The more he saw position finally came open in 2016.

Nicholls: Home to Top Gar Research For years, Nicholls State University has been home to a group of professors who double as some of the world’s premiere gar fish researchers.

South Louisiana has one of the strongest populations of gar – which spawn in newly flooded vegetation – in the world thanks to its abundance of bayous, swamps and marshes. Other places have disrupted those habitats by channelizing their water bodies.

What makes the Nicholls staff such experts is that gar is their passion. Dr.

34 | Fall 2018 • The COLONEL • Nicholls State University

Allyse Ferrara, Jerry Ledet Endowed Professor of Environmental Biology, has been studying gar “since before it was cool.” She was focusing on overall fish health while working on her doctorate when she caught her first gar.

“I said that’s it, that’s what I want to do,” she says. “The first fish I pulled out of the water was over 140 pounds and you see this alligator-like head come out of the water. It’s really, really cool. They’re just really amazing fish.”

She spawned her first spotted gar in 2003 after learning from friends

“We actively recruited him to come to Nicholls,” Dr. Fontenot says.

“We actually stole him from a friend of ours,” Dr. Ferrara says. “He was working on his postdoc at Michigan State with a friend of ours and we said we wanted him. We were just as excited to find someone as crazy about gar as we were” Though he’s praised for his teaching ability, Dr. David is in his natural habitat out on a boat.

In fact, given a choice, Dr. David would spend every day on the bayou.

During the semester at Nicholls, he says he gets out on the boat a handful of times each semester. No matter how often, it’s never enough. From playing with those creatures as a child, to picking electives that included field work as a student, he has always felt most comfortable working directly with the organisms he’s studying.

“You could say that this is why I’m even doing the job,” he says, from a Nicholls boat in Bayou Chevreuil.

He’s now taught a full year on campus and has lived through hurricane season and Mardi Gras. Now, all that’s left is to update his wardrobe.

“Everything has always been maize and blue, through and through,” he says, laughing. “I’ve never owned anything red and gray because they were Ohio State colors. I’m working on that, though.”

and colleagues in Tabasco, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas, Mexico, and “an empire was born.”

Dr. Quenton Fontenot, department head of biological sciences, also credits their success to the way the faculty work together. “It’s like we’re back in grad school,” he says. “Me, Alysse, (Dr.) Chris (Bonvillain), Solomon and (Dr.) Gary (LaFleur), we all go to lunch together and tease one another like we would do back in school. It makes it fun to come to work.”

“And everybody has bought into the same thing, too,” Dr. Ferrara adds.

“That helps because we’ve all got teaching responsibilities, rather than just one person trying to do it all, it’s a community effort.”

So what’s all the fuss about gar fish?

For starters, they are the apex predator of their natural environment. That means that conservationists can see how healthy the gar population is and use that as an indicator of the overall health of the ecosystem. If something

down the food chain is out of whack, that would reverberate up.

“Alligator gar are a good sentinel species for South Louisiana,” Dr. Ferrara says. “As we lose the marshes, we’re going to lose those fish.”

Second, recent discoveries have shown that a spotted gar’s genetic makeup is comparable to humans, making them viable for biomedical research.

“We’re doing unique stuff here that is not being done elsewhere and it’s research that other researchers are looking to build off of, so they’re coming to Nicholls to work with us and collaborate with us on these unique resources they don’t have elsewhere,” says Dr. Solomon David, assistant professor of biological sciences.

And lastly, the team says gars are just really cool.

“The most common question we get is, 'Why are you studying gar?'” says Dr. Quenton Fontenot.

Dr. Ferrara laughs before adding, “because it can eat your fish.”

Nicholls State University • The COLONEL • Fall 2018 |

35

Dr. Craig Walker 36 | Fall 2018 • The COLONEL • Nicholls State University

The

Boy from

BOURG

A

first grade class at Honduras Elementary School in Houma gathers around the monitor. Their teacher, Linda Russell,

is showing them a news story that aired on WWL about how a local doctor saved the life of a wealthy healthcare executive from Tennessee.

by Jacob Batte Photos by Misty Leigh McElroy Nicholls State University • The COLONEL • Fall 2018 |

37

The 76-year old Fred Goad had circulation issues in his left leg caused by peripheral arterial disease, or PAD. PAD is caused by plaque buildup or blockages in arteries outside of the heart such as the legs, arms, kidneys, intestine, brain or arms. The blockages keep extremities and organs from receiving oxygen-rich blood.

He sought help from some of the nation’s top doctors and tried various treatments but his condition kept worsening and doctor after doctor began recommending amputation as the only course of action.

By chance, he was recommended to visit Dr. Craig Walker, a heart doctor in Houma who had built a reputation for preventing amputations.

Dr. Walker, using advanced treatment, was able to increase blood flow to Goad’s leg.

When Russell asked her class what they learned, one of the children raises their hand and says they noticed that Goad cried when talking about Dr. Walker.

38 | Fall 2018 • The COLONEL • Nicholls State University

“I said that’s exactly right and I told them that whenever they think that one person can’t make a difference, to remember this story when Dr. Walker made an unbelievable difference in that man’s life,” she says.

For Russell, it’s easy to brag on Dr. Walker. He is her brother, after all, and there are dozens of stories about how he has helped others.

So what drives the Houma Heart Doctor? To understand that, we have to go back to 1953 on a farm in Bourg, Louisiana.

Hard Work and Humble Beginnings Born down the bayou in Terrebonne Parish as the youngest of nine children, the young Dr. Walker had no shortage of activities growing up.

“When you’re growing up at that time in Bourg, your brothers and your sisters are your best friends,” says older sister Kaye Mabile.

His sisters, Mabile, the fourth child, and Russell, the eighth, remember a young Craig as much the same way that they see him today: caring, full of energy and serious about what he wants.

“That’s really the center of Craig’s being, he’s a very loving person who just wants to help others,” says Russell, who recalls her little brother riding around the house late at night on his toy horse. “He’s very altruistic. He will do things and expect nothing in return.”

Even at a young age, his energy and thirst for knowledge were prevalent. As an 8-year old, he once needed an operation on his leg.

During that time, he read an entire set of children’s encyclopedias.

“It took basically all of us to be able to keep up with him,” Mabile says.

“He was asking a question to one of us and while you’re answering it he would ask another one. He was always formulating something else.”

The adorable baby Walker also displayed CEO-like tendencies even as a child.

“He could organize the rest of us and make us help him,” Russell says, laughing. “It was this sweetness about him, and there were enough of us that he could assign us all something to do.”

As he grew older, the hard-working, ingenuitive side of Dr. Walker began to blossom. After a successful fishing trip with his father and brothers that brought home more than 100 pounds of speckled trout, a 12-year old Craig was determined not to waste any of the fish. So he spent the next eight hours cutting and cleaning the trout.

“Then his entrepreneurial spirit kicked in and he called the restaurants in Houma and sold those fresh filets and made over $100, which back then was a lot of money,” Russell says.

Those same characteristics can be shown throughout his time at Nicholls State University. He chose to stay close to home because he loved his parents – when asked who his role models were he quickly names his mother and father – and didn’t want to go too far from them.

“I wanted them to share in my success,” he says.

Always planning for his future, the South Terrebonne High School graduate knew he wanted to finish his undergrad in less than three years. So he took on semesters of 30-34 hours in order to meet his goal. He credits much of his success to the education he received at Nicholls.

“Nicholls got me into medical school at a very young age,” he says. “It gave me the foundational preparation in life sciences that I continue to use today, but it also provided role models like Dr. Donald Ayo.” After Nicholls, he officially added the Dr. in front of his name with a degree from the LSU School of Medicine. He completed his residency at Lafayette Charity Hospital and added postgraduate training at Ochsner Foundation Hospital in New Orleans.

During his residency, his father passed away due to lung cancer.

Mabile and Russell recall their brother’s tireless efforts, driving to and from Lafayette, to care for their father. He called every doctor imaginable looking for additional care for their dad.

“My father was proud of what I had done to that point,” he says.

“I completed a mission even if Dad didn’t get to see it, but I think he would have been proud. I know Mom was.”

Caring for Cardio His interest in medicine can, like most aspects of his life, be tied back to family. His uncle opened what would become Terrebonne General Medical Center and four of his siblings went into healthcare. But it was his older brother, Herman, who played the most influential role on a young Craig.

“He would come home from college and tell me stories about his time in medical school,” Walker says. “He was really a mentor for me. He basically helped me to see the world.”

Along the way, he made a key decision to change his focus from pulmonary, or lung-related, to cardiology, or heart-related.

“I thought cardiology was a specialty that was changing,” he says.

“When I looked into the interventional aspect, it really didn’t even exist then. The first angioplasty had only been done a couple of years before.”

He joined Harvard Medical School as one of the first angioplasty fellows in the United States.

“Sometimes fate gives you the right cards and sometimes it doesn’t. This was a case of fate really making the determination that I would become an interventionist,” he says. “But you have to be prepared to capitalize on fate, and Nicholls gave me a great foundational education that helped me do that.”

Nicholls State University • The COLONEL • Fall 2018 |

39

With his fellowship complete, Dr. Walker had no shortage of job opportunities. But his dream wasn’t to work for a high profile hospital. He wanted to come back home.

So in 1983, he opened the Houma Heart Clinic, which was run out of an office at a practice owned by his brothers.

During the first year, he was the only employee. Without much money, he, his wife and daughter lived with his mom. But it wasn’t long before his success began to materialize.

He began adding other doctors to the practice and within two years had bought and renovated a house in downtown Houma to move his practice into.

One of his first big breaks came by a combination of his own marketing skills and the power of word of mouth. After advertising his vascular work in magazines and newspapers across the state, a woman from North Louisiana with an ulcer in her leg so deep you could see the bone visited him. She had been told by other doctors that an amputation was the only answer. She asked if he could help.

“I remember he told her, ‘I don’t know but I’ll try,’” Mabile says.

“And he was able to help her.”

That led to more patients from that region. A similar case happened with a patient from south Mississippi. And so on, and so on.

40 | Fall 2018 • The COLONEL • Nicholls State University

“It’s funny but early on our patients came from the outside before we began growing here,” Mabile says.

35 Years Later Now, the Cardiovascular Institute of the South is a world-renowned practice with more than 40 doctors and a staff of 550 in locations throughout Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The company's reach is global. For much of the past decade, Dr. Walker has visited China annually to offer physician training.

He started the largest cardiovascular conferences in the nation, New Cardiovascular Horizons, to educate and train medical professionals on the latest techniques to treat coronary and peripheral vascular disease.

He sits on global cardiovascular boards, edits vascular disease journals and platforms and serves as a clinical professor of medicine at Tulane University School of Medicine and the LSU School of Medicine. He has received numerous national, global and local awards, and even coauthored a cookbook with Chef John Folse, titled, “Something Old & Something New, Louisiana Cooking with a Change of Heart.”

But throughout it all, he always comes back to the patient.

Despite his busy schedule, Dr. Walker makes it a point to remain personally involved with his patients. Goad told reporters he was surprised when he called the Cardiovascular Institute and Dr. Walker returned his call. Another example involves former Nicholls professor of history, Dr. Paul Leslie, who was one of many new patients that came calling following the WWL story. He could barely get around the house when he called the Cardiovascular Institute. So Dr. Walker made a house call and determined that he, too, had PAD. Now, Dr. Leslie is preparing to play golf again.

“I went into medicine to relate with patients,” Dr. Walker says. “I’ve had the chance to work in industry but I’ve never wanted to do that. I enjoy interacting with my patients. It’s why I became a doctor and I still enjoy that.”

His sisters say that you can tell the days he’s working at the clinic by

how many people are in the waiting room. And he makes it a point to see everyone who came to see him.

“No matter how late it is, if somebody walks through that door and says I need to see you, he will turn right back around and take care of them,” Mabile says.

Sitting in his office which overlooks both Bayou Terrebonne and the Intracoastal Waterway, he reflects on the previous three-and-a-half decades.

“I think what made us successful is that we had a dream, we wrote that dream down and we made it a mission,” he says. “The first 100 employees had to be able to recite that mission by verse. I never dreamed it would be this big but what we did dream were the basic principles that have stuck.”

And he’s not done yet.

“Craig has many more miles to go,” Russell says. “He’s just getting started. He’s always thinking about ideas to minimize pain for the patient.

He really wants them to leave his care in a better quality of life.”

“It’s so very important to him to mesh his work with his family,” Mabile says.

His older sisters see the same “adorable little Craig” that they saw growing up. Though he’s no longer bouncing around the house on a toy horse, he still has “tremendous energy,” often working 18-20 hour days.

“He leaves young people in his wake,” Russell says. “If he’s absolutely bushed, he’ll take a 10-minute nap and wake up with the sweetest smile and say he’s ready to go.”

Dr. Walker takes pride in everything he does whether he’s dealing with a patient with heart problems or at home tending his garden.

“We all see him in the clinical setting but he goes home and he’s also a great gardener, and cook,” Mabile says. “He’s Dr. C always wanting me to come see his ra garden and see his tomatoes.” heart ig Walker' s health His sisters say that people who y tips Meet the Man 1 .

V isit yo don’t know their brother can ur car diolog mistake his knowledge and ist reg 2. Ch ularly. oose h determination for arrogance When he’s not Dr. Craig Walker, he’s a dad to Ashley, Craig Jr. and James ealthy foods and a husband to Tina. He’s an avid fisherman, a proud gardener, an opera when it couldn’t be further 3. Fit . exercis from their truth. singer and a bookworm. e into your r “Every once in a while he’ll “I love my children and I try to stay very close and active with all of 4. Ta outine ke me . dicatio ask me, ‘Do you think mom them,” he says. “Whenever I travel for work, I try to make time to spend ns as p 5. Go rescrib and daddy would be proud?’ with my family.” fishing ed. often.

It’s so important to him,” Take for instance a trip to Chicago several years ago. Dr. Walker Russell says. “I always tell him, 'You brought his wife and youngest son James with him and surprised James, know they would.'” ♥ who has a fascination with tractors, with a trip to the John Deere plant.

Nicholls State University • The COLONEL • Fall 2018 |

41

O OOn nn the tt h e

EEEdge dge B

ack when he first began his career as a principal, Philip Martin could walk down the hall of his school and listen to teachers instructing students.

That’s because decades ago, the doors were unlocked and many rooms were left open. Today, now as a superintendent of Terrebonne Parish School District, cameras litter the hallways, counselors are specifically trained in crisis, school resource officers patrol campuses and the doors are definitely locked. School systems across the nation have responded to violent events seemingly growing in frequency and the idea that it could happen in their school has shaken students, teachers and administrators alike.

“We have responded," Martin says. "We have been very active in that, but do I still feel comfortable? If someone has made up their mind to do something horrible, I don’t know if you can ever completely close the window.”

Through May, 23 school shootings occurred on college and K-12

by Cain Madden Photos by Misty Leigh McElroy

42 | Fall 2018 • The COLONEL • Nicholls State University

Nicholls State University • The COLONEL • Fall 2018 |

43

campuses in the U.S. in which someone was hurt or killed, including the events in Parkland, Florida, and Benton, Kentucky, that saw 50 people killed or injured. Even before these events occurred, Nicholls students voted for their annual student forum to debate the topic, which centered on mental health, gun control and potential solutions.

Here at Nicholls State University, mental health is taken seriously.

Professors are preparing future counselors and school administrators to not only deal with crisis in real time, but to impact students and prevent these events from happening in the first place.

The Nicholls College of Education offers two avenues for students to learn more about crisis management, a course and a workshop.

Masters in school counseling, masters in clinical mental health counseling and specialist in school psychology candidates are required to a take specialized course, focusing on intervention development and evolution, as well as crisis prevention.

“The course covers the major types of crisis, preventing them when possible, and how to effectively respond as a mental health professional,” says Dr. Meagan Medley, an assistant professor specializing in school crisis.

Dr. Medley appeared on local television and radio broadcasts discussing school counseling following the events at Parkland.

“Our students have opportunities to gain knowledge from a crisis area of their choosing and they watch online videos that have

44 | Fall 2018 • The COLONEL • Nicholls State University

certificates from several organizations (including FEMA),” she says.

"A big focus is also suicide screening and risk assessment as well as giving mental status exams.”

Student teachers and any grad student in psychology could also take the National Association of School Psychologist PREPARE workshop No. 1. The one-day program aims to educate mental health professionals, administrators, security professionals and other teachers on the knowledge and resources to help establish and sustain school safety, crisis prevention and preparedness efforts.

“We train educators and students to know what the warning signs are and build them up so they can do a risk assessment and make interventions to students,” Medley says.

The warning signs can include direct threats, admiration and imitation of previous assailants, and foreshadowing in school assignments. Factors can include biological issues, psychological issues, trauma or social issues. The risk factors for suicide can be similar. Medley says those interested in more information on the signs can visit the website schoolshooters.info.

“Oftentimes, for both suicide and in school shootings, a friend will know something is wrong before adults, but they don’t say anything,” Medley says. “We need to create an environment where if you know something, they feel comfortable saying something because it’s not tattling, it’s keeping yourself and your friends safe.”

In the Lafourche Parish School District, the mental health

counselors not only talk with the students but also reach out to the community and parents.

“As time goes on, it seems like mental health professionals are becoming more and more important because of the many different issues students deal with at home,” says Dr. Mary Breaud, Nicholls professor and Lafourche Parish School Board member. “To have a person they can trust to relay that information to is important to make them feel safe or help them with an issue with themselves or a friend.

“You just have to encourage kids to make sure they reach out for whatever problem they need. If they have a problem, they are more apt to share what they are going through with someone they trust who can help and keep it confidential. You have to build those relationships.”

And in her experience, students are becoming more and more open. Breaud says schools have to get more publicity on issues like violence, but also in stopping bullying.

‘We have to report things that are not right,” Breaud says. “But I think people are more apt now to reach out and get help.”

Breaud says it is unfortunate the issue has to be opened up to Nicholls students, but teachers being able to go through the training is important.

“I think that is imperative with the recent acts of violence that we see around the country,” Breaud says.

“And also to be able to identify mental health issues of students and get those students the appropriate help.”

Martin says Terrebonne has a hotline for students to call, but most students go to teachers or counselors. The district has counselors in every school, two in its middle schools and four in its high schools.

“Our teachers know our students well and have been very good with making reports,” Martin says. “But it’s not an exact science. Sure, some kids will show big red flags, but a lot of the time, it’s more subtle and does not necessarily mean there is a possible danger. But we do investigate and begin the process of intervention and trying to resolve whatever issues they are dealing with.”

And mental health crises like this are issues Martin once upon a time never dreamed he’d have to deal with.

“We had to deal with the issues of who wrote on a bathroom wall or some students want to fight because they are mad about this,” Martin says. “Now we are dealing with school shootings. It’s never happened here, but there is no reason to believe it is impossible.” q

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Alumni House

2018 GOLF TOURNAMENT

SPONSORS

Strong Alumni Network Invaluable

Golf Classic Jacket Sponsor

just got back from our most recent Colonel Caravan in Houma, with stops along the way in Baton Rouge, Lafayette and New Orleans, and your participation and enthusiasm has left me feeling inspired. We’re also seeing more prospective students choose Nicholls, more current students graduating, our athletic programs are soaring to new heights and not a day goes by when a Nicholls alum is not being honored for the impact they’re making in their field. It’s a great time to be a Colonel!

This Fall, we also have exciting things happening on campus. Join us as we celebrate Nicholls’ 70th Birthday and kick off a weeklong celebration for our sixth president Dr. Jay Clune’s Investiture at the Nicholls Alumni Jazz Brunch on Sunday, Sept. 23rd. You’ll be able to enjoy good food and listen to jazz music with Dr. Clune and his wife, Allison, before heading across the street to Ellender Memorial Library to view their newest exhibit, “Nicholls Goes Platinum: 70 years of Nicholls History.”

On the athletic front, have you ever felt this much excitement and anticipation for Nicholls football? I hope to see all of you at the Nicholls Alumni Federation tent while you’re tailgating for the Colonel Football team this season. I can’t wait until the Colonels highly-anticipated home opener against Sam Houston State on Sept. 22nd, Family Day on Sept. 29th and Homecoming on Oct. 27th. It will be great to see everyone come together to support our Colonels!

With all of this excitement, and so many things happening, it’s never been more important for you to become a member of the Nicholls Alumni Federation. As a member, you’ll be able to reconnect with old classmates and friends; network with thousands of alums through our vibrant online community; save money on travel, insurance and at local businesses; and receive updates on all of the university’s latest news.

Nicholls means the world to me. The education I received and the friends that I made here are lifelong. That’s why it is important for me to give back to my Alma mater. Building a strong Colonel alumni network is invaluable for Nicholls, for Louisiana and for its alumni members. Help us showcase the value of YOUR Nicholls degree.

To join, visit nichollsalumni.org or call 985-448-4111.

Tee Box Sponsors

I

With lots of Colonel Pride, Katherine Gianelloni (BS ’14) Director, Alumni Affairs katherine.gianelloni@nicholls.edu 985.448.4109

46 | Fall 2018 • The COLONEL • Nicholls State University

• Thibodaux Regional Medical Center

Colonel Cart Sponsor • Pelican Waste

Colonel Beverage Cart Sponsor • K&B Industries

Map and Program Sponsor • Archie Chaisson, III

• Bridal Corner • Buquet Distributing • Heads & Tails • Ben Malbrough & David Heltz • Meyer Financial Group • PCM • Rouses Markets • Starbucks • Synergy Bank

Green Hole Sponsors

• Acadia Land Surveying, LLC • Brad Naquin, attorney-at-law • Cypress Pond Farm • Duplantis Design Group, PC • Lancescaping, LLC • Lee, Dougherty & Ferrara, LLC • Oceanwide • Kristine Russell, District Attorney • Southern ENT Associates, Inc. • Stagni & Company, LLC • Synergy Bank • Wendy's

Hole Sign Sponsors

• American Sugar Cane League • Gary W. Barbaro, Inc. • Beau S. Brooks attorney-at-law • Mike Bednarz, State Farm Insurance • Leslie J. Clement, Jr. attorney-at-law • Bubba's II PoBoys • College of Business Alumni Chapter • Daigle Himel Daigle PT & Hand Center • Danos • Eatel • Michael Gros, Lafourche Parish Councilman • Law Office of Roger P. Hamilton, Jr. • Jones Insurance Services • Kerry Holdings, Inc. • Henry J. LaFont, Jr. • Bryce Ledet, CPA A Professional Corporation • Neil J. Maki, M.D. • MidSouth Bank • Paul's Agency • Peltier Travel Agencies • Mark and DesLey Plaisance • Dr. Matt Porche Chiropractic Physician • Jason R. Ray, D.D.S. • Riviere Insurance Agency, Inc. • Riviere Law Firm • Paula Rome Consultants • T. Baker Smith • In Memory of Norman and Jamie Swanner • The Center for Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine • TKE Mu Zeta Alumni Association • Bruce Vicknair, New York Life • White Car Marketing

Colonel Notes Married Team denotes Alumni Federation member

1970s Lillian Espinoza-Gala (AS ’77, BGS ’88) had her eight years of research on Macondo oil spill published.

of South Central Louisiana Technical College. She and her husband Ruben Thomas (BS ’92) are celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary on July 17, 2018.

HONORARY HONORARYALUMNI ALUM

Honored by Federation

H

ouma natives Dr. Matthew and Kacy Porche didn’t 1980s know a lot of people when Gina Nicholas Rachel (BS they came to Thibodaux, Dr. John Doucet (BS ’84) was ’95), CPA, is serving as the sworn in as the President but the couple quickly immediate past president of the Thibodaux Rotary of the Society of Louisiana learned that didn’t matter.

Club on June 26, 2018.

CPA’s. She is a director at Though they did not Rotary International is Postlethwaite & Netterville’s attend the school, the an international service Tax Services Group in Porches discovered they organization whose Metairie, Louisiana. had a home at Nicholls purpose is to bring together State University. business and professional Latatia Landry Johnson's (BA “I think Nicholls is like a leaders in order to provide ’98, MEd ’05) has been family, and they let people humanitarian services, appointed as supervisor in,” Matthew says. “The encourage high ethical of federal programs by community really opened standards in all vocations, Ascension Public Schools. and to advance goodwill and up its arms to us, and we peace around the world.

2000s realized pretty early on that Nicholls was the heartbeat Keith “Cris” Perkins (BA ’01) James Callahan (BS ’85, MBA of the community.” is now the assistant vice ’90) was appointed to Danos’ The Nicholls Alumni chancellor for external affairs executive team in July 2018. and strategic advancement Federation named the He will serve as the vice for the Office of External Porches as the 2018 president of operations.

Affairs at The Tennessee Honorary Alumni Board of Regents. In for what the couple 1990s this role, Perkins assists has given back to the Reed Peré (BGS ’91, MEd in leading the system's university. The couple ’06) was appointed to external facing activities. has contributed to the Danos’ executive team in The responsibilities are athletic department and July 2018. He will serve as diverse, from developing numerous university vice president of business strategic relationships fundraising events, while development, sales and with community partners, marketing.

Matthew, a chiropractor, crafting and leading the development of campaigns, serves as a physician for Jacque Blanchard (BSN ’92) to understanding Nicholls athletes. was awarded the 2018 institutional advancement Matthew and Kacy say Excellence Award for standards, along with supporting Nicholls was Nurse Leaders presented helping develop corporate never a conscious decision by the Sigma Theta Tau relations strategic plans that they talked about, it International Honor Society and building general of Nursing at Nicholls State partnerships that benefit the just came naturally.

“It is a privilege to have University. system. something like Nicholls in your backyard, so to Christy Thomas (BA ’92, MEd Walker Peerson (BME ’02) ’93) is now the manager of designed a grant program to support it means you adult basic education at the are helping it thrive,” Young Memorial Campus Matthew says. “I think

From left, Katherine Gianelloni, Matt Porche, Kacy Porche and Dr. Jay Clune.

Nicholls is important to the region because it truly is the heartbeat of the region. If that heartbeat were to fail, so many things would fall with it.

The region is truly lucky to have Nicholls.”

Kacy says seeing support for the university grow so much, in particular off the recent success of the athletics programs, has been reward enough for their efforts.

“It is so awesome to see Nicholls posters and memorabilia everywhere you go within the restaurants and stores throughout the community,” Kacy says. “It has been so much fun to watch the university grow in the last year or two years.

This is a really special and unique time for us.”

When your connection with a university is on the family level, the Porches say you feel like you are a part of it when the school as a whole has accomplishments — academically or athletically.

“I think watching a game and knowing the players, that when they hit a home run or score a touchdown, it makes it more special to know what they are going through personally and knowing how hard they worked,” Matthew says. “I choose to support Nicholls State University because it is such an honor to have something like Nicholls in our backyard." – Cain Madden

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Alumni House JAMES LYNN POWELL AWARD

Museum CEO Proud of Nicholls

W

hen Stephen Watson found out he would be the 2018 recipient of the James Lynn Powell Award, he thought back on more than 45 years of award winners and was humbled to be among them.

In the spring, the Nicholls Alumni Federation officially presented the honor to Watson, the president and CEO of the National WWII Museum in New Orleans.

“To be in the company of some of the people who I believe have made significant contributions to Nicholls State University, who have accomplished significant things in their own careers, it was humbling,” Watson says.

Supporting the Alumni Federation is important to graduates for several reasons, Watson says. One reason is as graduates, they are ambassadors of Nicholls.

“It is our school,” he says.

“We have a vested interest in ensuring that what it means to be a Nicholls graduate

is something we can all be proud of.”

When Watson was a student at Nicholls, he says the staff, faculty and administration went the extra mile for him as mentors. He says he feels a responsibility to give back to the school so that Nicholls is able to maintain those types of relationships for future students.

“There are few things in our lives that are as important as a college education,” Watson says.

“So, for me, to be able to do a small part to help give back and help ensure that Nicholls continues to be a great education resource for new students and new grads in the future is something that is important.”

While talking about responsibility, Watson says that concept equally applies to his role at the WWII Museum, as it is entrusted to tell the American Experience during the war.

“You could argue that

WWII is the greatest event in human history, and it is certainly the greatest and most significant event in the 20th century,” he says. “Telling that story is something we take very seriously.”

The museum, now the Tripadvisor No. 2 Museum in the world, began as the D-Day Museum, because

manufacturer Andrew Higgins built 20,000 landing craft in New Orleans that helped win the war.

The museum is of vital importance to the Crescent City, and Watson says he feels the same way about Nicholls in the Bayou Region.

“What it provides to the business community

in terms of resources that support important industry make it the anchor of the HoumaThibodaux community,” Watson says. “I am also a big believer in public education. I think it is important that we continue to make higher public education accessible to the community.” – Cain Madden

integrate social emotional lessons into drumming ensembles for their older students at George H. W. Bush Elementary in Dallas Independent School District.

107 years old and Kandace is the youngest CPA to ever serve as chair.

manager at The Roosevelt, New Orleans, a Waldorf Astoria Hotel.

was held as well as the induction of the Kenyan Society of Sports Medicine.

Allison Breaux Adams (BSN ’04) and her husband Joshua Adams (BS ’08, MBA ’14) announce the birth of their son, Charles Landry Adams, on July 2, 2018.

Julie Ledet (BA ’07) recently took on a new job at KRTU 91.7 in San Antonio.

Ashley Comeaux-Foret (BA ’08, MAT ’15), and her husband Adam Foret (BS ’09) announce the birth of their son, Dallas Michael Foret, on March 23, 2018.

as a teacher mentor in the Louisiana Mentor Teachers training through the Louisiana Department of Education. She was also named the Elementary Teacher of the Year at the school and parish level for the 2017-2018 school year.

Kandace Mauldin (BS ’04, BS ’04, MBA ’09) was elected 2018-19 chair of the Society of Louisiana Certified Public Jonathan Serigne (BA ’05) Accountants. The LCPA is is the new senior sales

48 | Fall 2018 • The COLONEL • Nicholls State University

Robert Milam, (BS ’07) was recently involved in a mission trip to Nairobi, Kenya, where the inaugural Sports Medicine Conference

Megan Dempster (BS ’09) has been selected to participate

2010s Whitney Vanderson Breaux (BS ’10) was recently promoted

Graduate Pioneer in Digital Journalism

W

hen Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005, digital journalism was still in its infancy. A majority of people got their news from written words or the nightly news, though that was about to change.

During the hurricane's fallout, Cory Haik, then a digital managing editor for the Times-Picayune, banded together with her fellow staff members at the Times-Picayune in New Orleans to make sure people knew what was happening.

“To say we were all unprepared would be quite the understatement,” says Haik.

Haik and her staff created a blog, which helped families determine if their loved ones were safe following the storm.

Haik says when she saw a print out of a blog she had posted being used by the coast guard to help find people, she realized that’s the type of journalism she wanted to do.

The service aspect of the blogs and news stories led her to be part of a staff that won two Pulitzer Prizes in the aftermath of Katrina, one for Public Service and the other for Breaking News.

“Maybe like a month out after the storm, I was living with my in-laws in Baton Rouge. There was mention of prizes for our work,” says Haik. “It to assistant vice president and credit analyst at MC Bank in Morgan City, Louisiana.

Heather Benoit (BS ’11, MEd ’14) is now the executive director of the Wallace Community Center in Raceland, Louisiana. The Center hosts the Lafourche Parish Beyond the Bell afterschool tutoring program and summer activities for kids.

was the first time that digital would be represented in that way.”

Haik added another Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Local Reporting after moving to the Seattle Times. There, she and the staff engaged the community by helping to identify the location of a suspect who had shot multiple cops.

Her next move was to the prestigious Washington Post for five years before she joined the team at Mic, a digital platform for millennials with a reach of 70 million, where she now serves as publisher.

Haik, a Houston native who moved to Thibodaux just before college, credits her time at Nicholls with helping her prepare for the fast-paced world of modern journalism.

At Nicholls, she worked for KNSU radio, the Nicholls Worth and Nicholls Television Workshop. That experience, she says, taught her to trust herself and her instincts.

As a result of her professional accomplishments, Haik received an Outstanding Alumni Award from the Nicholls Alumni Federation and was recently bestowed an honorary doctorate.

“Reflecting back, it is truly profound; a marker of history,” says Haik. “Digital is a very powerful thing, particularly for public service. It is truly one of the pillars of journalism.” — Shaun Breaux, Jenna Quick

Shannan Washington (BS ’11) recently accepted a postdoctoral researcher position at National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.

Lauren Lapeyrouse Guidry (BS ’12, MEd ’17) has been named the director of the Little Colonels Academy at Nicholls.

Leah Porche (BS ’12), cofounder and owner of the Houma-based Root2Rise, was named the Louisiana Academy for Nutrition and Dietetics’ Young Dietitian of the Year. Root2Rise has offered fresh-pressed juices, healthy snacks and daily yoga since the business opened in December 2015.

Nicholls Honors Outstanding Alumni The Nicholls Alumni Federation honored the university’s top alum from each academic college during its 2018 Awards for Excellence ceremony.

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES Cory Haik (BA ’00)

MIC PUBLISHER “Nicholls gave me the ability for me to be so fiercely in it. I was ambitious. I embraced that by the way.

If anyone ever tells you that, say thank you. There is always something bigger.”

COLLEGE OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION Toby Brady (BS ‘93, MBA ‘97)

PRESIDENT OF THE LOUISIANA CAPITAL GROUP “Nicholls provided me with a solid foundation in the field of business that I was able to take with me into the workforce and fully utilize to further my business endeavors. My Colonel Pride comes out whenever I see a Nicholls graduate excel in his or her chosen field or career because I know that we share the same home.”

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

Dr. Debra Yarbrough (BA ‘74, MED ‘89) SUPERVISOR OF PERSONNEL FOR THE TERREBONNE PARISH SCHOOL DISTRICT “Nicholls has been the foundation for my career, it’s where I received all of my formal training that has helped me get to where I am today. I can proudly say that I’m an alumni of Nicholls State University.”

COLLEGE OF NURSING AND ALLIED HEALTH Kenneth Temple (BS ‘08)

PRIVATE CHEF "The Chef John Folse Culinary Institute at Nicholls is such an important chapter in my success. It shortened my culinary learning curve for sure, but it also taught me everything I needed to survive in the rigorous culinary field. After I finished up that program, I knew I was going to make something of myself.”

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Alumni House

WHERE ARE THEY NOW I

SIMONE MALOZ BA '01

n 2005, a Nicholls communications alum found herself in a situation not many would envy.

Sure, the then 27-year-old Simone Maloz had received some good news, becoming the executive director of a nonprofit dedicated to Louisiana’s coast. But within a couple months, Hurricane Katrina struck the coast, bringing ecological and cultural changes still being felt today.

But Maloz says she wouldn’t have it any other way, as that experience helped her find her voice in helping save the South Louisiana coast.

She leads Restore or Retreat, a nonprofit coastal advocacy group with a mission to unite communities and develop projects that preserve the Louisiana coast and its culture.

Maloz traveled around the state in 2017 during the development of the state’s newest coastal master plan, making a point to engage each community during the tour.

“It’s coastal erosion against us all,” Maloz says.

Maloz credits her former professors at Nicholls for pushing her to be the best she can be.

And her work hasn’t gone unnoticed. She was awarded

N

ot everyone works their dream job. But Nicholls State University alumna Joni Tuck can count herself among that lucky group.

Tuck is the external relations manager for the Greater Lafourche Port Commission, which regulates waterborne trade and commerce from Larose to southern Lafourche Parish. Tuck handles media and government relations for the company in order to receive permits to improve coastal restoration.

“It’s great for someone who likes a lot of variety,” says Tuck.

“My duties range from attending meetings with executives to later jumping out of a boat with my rubber boots on.”

The Labadieville native started off as a chemical engineering major at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, but she realized that career path was not for her.

“I love the technical stuff, the science, building things and seeing big projects come together. So I brought that technical background to a university with a strong communications program,” she says.

Her interest in the coast blossomed when she took a job as a park ranger interacting with visitors at the Jean Lafitte National Park in Thibodaux.

50 | Fall 2018 • The COLONEL • Nicholls State University

the Tillman Esteve Outstanding Member Award by the South Central Industrial Association in 2010, and was appointed to the Governor’s Advisory Commission on Coastal Protection, Restoration and Conservation in 2014.

While at Nicholls, Maloz also connected with fellow communications graduate Joni Tuck. Tuck, the external relations manager for the Greater Lafourche Port Commission, collaborates with Maloz to battle coastal erosion. Tuck says Maloz is “quietly the force behind coastal restoration.”

The two work together on policies, observe what is being done for the coast and ideas on how to stop coastal erosion.

They gather congressional members and staffers from all states to show the effects of coastal erosion.

Maloz is working on her next project, the C.O.A.S.T. Program. Like her work with the state, Restore or Retreat will visit multiple communities, but will only focus on Terrebonne and Lafourche Parish, to talk about Louisiana’s latest master plan for the coast, understand the communities’ interests and help with their coastal needs. – Victor Billiot

From there, she worked for the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program, where she first visited Port Fourchon.

“It was and is the most dynamic place I have ever been to; they are building stuff like there is no tomorrow,” she says. “I immediately knew I wanted to work there.”

That day would have to wait as she moved to Australia with her family to work for Melbourne Water. After several years overseas, she returned home to work for the Lafourche Parish Government as the director of community services. Twenty months later, the dream job came calling.

“Now, I help to get business, industry and the environmental groups all on the same page,” she says. "At the Port, we get that we need these natural protective buffers and we take this holistic approach very seriously. I believe we’re a great case study for the idea that you can have it all.”

Nicholls taught Tuck substantial skills that she utilizes every day in her work.

“Nicholls gave me a great foundation in writing, graphic design fundamentals and photojournalism,” says Tuck. – LaToya Roberts

JONI TUCK AGS '17, BA '17

?

?

Every hour, Louisiana loses a football field of land to subsidence and coastal erosion.

This has been called one of the biggest environmental crisis in the United States and every day there are Nicholls alumni on the front lines fighting for coastal restoration.

These four Mass Communication graduates are doing their part to put the word out.

T

HARMONY HAMILTON BA '15

G

he famous Alexander Graham Bell quote, "When one door closes, another opens" rings true for Harmony Hamilton.

When Hamilton graduated from Nicholls in 2015, she quickly found that journalism was not the right fit for her.

“It was not the exciting, passion-filled creative field that I thought it would be,” Hamilton says.

That was when Hamilton found an opportunity at Audubon Louisiana becoming the first Walker Communications Fellow. Her job was to help the communications team with creating video content and articles to break down coastal issues for the community.

“What interested me about this job was that it focused on coastal restoration,” says Hamilton, who now serves as an audience engagement coordinator at the National Audubon Society in New York. “This took a hit after hurricane Katrina, and they were looking for a younger person to hire.”

While in New Orleans, Hamilton visited sites such as the Caernarvon Freshwater Diversion and the Rainey Wildlife Sanctuary, where about 200 species of birds rest up before flying across the Gulf of Mexico.

rowing up on the bayou, Emily Guidry Schatzel developed a special connection to Louisiana’s coast. But only after leaving would she realize how important the coast was to her.

Schatzel, however, did not begin her career set on protecting the coast. When she enrolled at Nicholls in 1998, she majored in mass communications and English.

During her time as a student, she served as the editor of The Nicholls Worth.

After graduating in 2002, Schatzel enrolled at Loyola University to study law and mass communications.

She received her law degree in the spring of 2005, but Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans before she could complete the second degree.

Schatzel lost her house in the floods following the storm, and she needed to get her life back in order. She put her continued education on hold and moved to Philadelphia to work for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a non-profit focused on free speech at college campuses.

“Since I had completed my undergrad and graduate degrees in Louisiana, I figured it was a good time to spread my wings and move away for a bit, but I always had the

Hamilton says that change from a hard news background gave her more creativity in how she could tell a story.

“When I would talk to the conservationists or coastal advocates, their passion for what they do is so clear that it made my job easier,” she says.

Hamilton’s success is no surprise to her former professors, Lance Arnold and Dr. Andy Simoncelli.

“She took her time here at Nicholls seriously,” says Arnold, an assistant professor of mass communications. “She took advantage of all we had to offer and knew the more she put into it, the better prepared she would be in the future.”

I remember her being one of our bright students who was active in various programs on campus,” Simoncelli added. “She serves as an example to our students today, that it’s important to take risks for good jobs.

Harmony says that their words of wisdom gave her what she needed to achieve her career goals.

“Being named the Outstanding Broadcast Journalism Graduate for 2015 was a big step to get me to where I needed to be.” – Eric Diggs

intention of returning back home,” she says.

After three years away from home, Schatzel seized the opportunity to return with a job with the National Wildlife Federation. She has spent the last eight years advocating for the protection of Louisiana’s coast and environmental issues as the senior communications manager in the NWF’s Mississippi River Delta Restoration Program.

"Hurricane Katrina was so bad because our wetlands were in such bad shape," says Schatzel. “…Katrina destroyed thousands of acres of wetlands in her path. I felt so personally affected by the storm and wanted to get involved at a professional level, hopefully using my skills to further progress in rebuilding our coast.”

Looking back, she realizes that her time at Nicholls not only gave her the communication skills she possesses today, but also taught her about time management skills and self-confidence.

"I hope my work in communications in some way helps us advance restoration so that we can look back and say we’ve made a difference. I want my kids and grandkids to be able to enjoy the coast as I did growing up,” Schatzel said.

– Cullen Diebold

EMILY SCHATZEL EMILY SCHATZEL BA '02, BA '03

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Alumni House

Talkin' Bout My Generation I n 1886, businessman Andrew Carnegie wrote “It is only but three generations from shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves.”

The idea is simple: the first generation builds the business, the second generation grows the business and the third generation blows the business.

It is that prophecy that has driven 30-year old Hal Callais, co-managing director and chief investment officer of Callais Capital Management, to be a success.

“The only way to overcome that paradigm is to reinvent the entrepreneurial cycle,” says the Galliano native, whose family owns United Community Bank. “Create that first generation thinking in the third generation.”

The 2016 recipient of the Young Dealmaker of the Year by the Association for Corporate Growth in Louisiana says his upward trajectory began when he made the decision to stay home and enroll at Nicholls.

“I believe very firmly that Nicholls has an undervalued and under-acknowledged finance program,” he says. “People in this industry tend to have a Stanford, Ivy League or MIT background.

I take great pride that whenever I go somewhere and someone recognizes our success and asks about my background, I can tell John Meyer (BS ’14) and Chris Callahan (BS ’14) acquired Accredited Portfolio Management Advisor designations.

them that I went to Nicholls.”

Following graduation, Callais began to write the business plan of what would become Callais Capital Management.

“I spent a year prepping, studying and learning that industry.

Then I went and pitched to my dad and my brother and I said, ‘This is what I want to do and I want to do it together,’” he says.

His father, Corey Callais, is the chairman of the board at Callais Capital Management, and his brother, Nicholas, serves as co-managing director, chief administrative officer and chief compliance officer.

Together, they opened Callais Capital Management in 2014. Now, the company has grown so much they are moving from their small office in a converted house to a much larger space in the downtown area.

“We’ve done some things wrong and we’ve done some things really well. I think today, we have enough experience and enough expertise that I see a very bright future for this company,” Callais says. “And nothing that I’ve accomplished would have been possible without what my family has done before me.”

Asked to define himself and Callais opens with “A father and a husband.” He coaches soccer teams and adjusts his business plans so that

Katlyn Callahan (BS ’14), and her husband Christopher Callahan (BS ’14) announce the birth of their daughter, Annie James Callahan, on May 21, 2018.

52 | Fall 2018 • The COLONEL • Nicholls State University

he’s never away from home too long.

He checks in on his grandmother down the bayou to make sure she’s okay, teaches his younger cousins about the family history and actively tries to organize family reunions.

“Without family what are you?” he says. “Family is your legacy.”

If you ask his grandmother, Gloria Callais, she will tell you she

Hannah Waguespack (BS ’15) accepted a position as an orthopedic PA at OrthoLA where she can treat patients in Thibodaux, Houma, and Raceland.

always saw this kind of success for her oldest grandson. She remembers the teenager who offered to stay with her after her husband passed away and the college graduate who wrote her a thank you card for helping him out along the way.

“I know this,” she says. “My husband, his grandfather, would be so proud of him.” — Jacob Batte

Paige Johnson (BS ’15) Ashley Sagona (BS ’18) is completed her Master’s now a chemist at Intertek degree in Speech Language Caleb Brett Laboratory.

Pathology from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. She now works at The Center for Pediatric Therapy, in Thibodaux, as a staff speech therapist.

EDUCATION with a twist

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or most college students, working through school means flipping burgers or waiting tables. Alondra Medrano opened her own restaurant.

Medrano and her family debuted Coco’s Mexican Food in January during her final semester as a senior, giving her an opportunity to put to practice everything she learned as a mass communications major.

“Coco’s was like a big project for me, and I don’t say that lightly because there’s no room for mistakes,” she says. “I’m really thankful I chose mass communications because if I had chosen a different major, like accounting or education, I wouldn’t have gotten the same experience needed in this industry.”

The idea behind the restaurant can be tied to its name. Coco’s is named for Medrano’s godchild, Cohen, who is half-Mexican, halfblack. That blending of cultures led to a Mexicanstyle menu with southern flair. Medrano worked on the business plan for six months before the restaurant opened at the beginning of 2018.

“I come up with the ideas and I give them to my mom and my dad and they execute them,” she says. “It works out perfectly.”

Born just outside of Los Angeles and raised in Las Vegas, Medrano and her family moved to the much smaller, and less diverse, Thibodaux – her family owned La Palma on St. Mary Street and owns the Bypass Fiesta Grill on La. 3185 – when she was in high school. Culture shock immediately set in.

“My first thought was, ‘Where are the people?’ because I didn’t see anyone. There weren’t any cars anywhere and it was a big culture shock for me,” she says. “And I came from Vegas, where it is predominantly Mexican people, to being one of two Mexican kids in my graduating class. I couldn’t get my hands on the food and things that were normal to me.”

But with time, the small town and its culture grew on her.

“Growing up, I thought the gambling was awesome and that Vegas was the coolest place, but now when I go back, I can see why my dad

didn’t want to raise me there,” she says. “I didn’t grow up in a small town, so I see how everyone here knows each other, and how everyone likes to do outdoor activities and that interested me.

When I saw I could go to Nicholls and get that feeling, and a good education, it was an easy choice.”

Food has always been important in the Medrano family. Her parents, Ascencion Medrano and Maryanne Medina, are passionate about the culinary arts. When they moved to Thibodaux nearly a decade ago, they noticed a lack of diversity in the restaurant choices.

“Everything was very cookie cutter,” she says.

“We try to take influences from all over but we wanted to do something a little different.”

Citing help from Dr. Linda Martin, assistant professor of mass communication, and Nicki Boudreaux, instructor of mass communication, Medrano says she was able to use that knowledge to build and expand on the restaurant’s brand.

“It all came from influences from my professors, so it was really cool that I could turn to them for help,” she says. “Everything I did for class, I chose my parents restaurant as my project.”

Being a student and the manager of a restaurant meant giving up free time towards the end of her college career.

“I didn’t have a life for a very long time,” Medrano says with a laugh. “But it was worth it.

It’s all about time management. I found time to do the fun things, but when I was doing the fun things, I felt guilty because I could have been working harder.”

Though she has found success working with her parents and the restaurant, Medrano has dreams of putting her mass communications degree to use as a reporter.

“I like sports, but I could also see myself doing something within entertainment as well,” she says.

The difficult part is leaving the restaurant.

“When it does happen, I’ll make sure that I’ll put someone in my place who is both ready and knows what we expect. I won’t just leave this place to anyone, I refuse,” she says. – Jacob Batte

RAISING THE BAR T

he numbers say that if your parents didn’t go to college, you are less likely to graduate high school than your peers. From there, you probably aren’t going to college and even if you do, it’s doubtful that you’ll earn your degree.

But Kristine Russell wasn't going to be defined by what statistics say she should be.

The Thibodaux native didn’t stop after she graduated E.D. White Catholic High School.

She didn’t stop after she graduated from Nicholls. She didn’t stop after she earned her law degree from LSU. Now, she’s the first woman ever elected district attorney in Lafourche Parish, and just the fourth ever in the state.

“I embrace the fact I was able to get such an amazing education right there in my backyard,” she says. “I wouldn’t be who I am — I truly would not be in this office — if it was not for the education I got at Nicholls State University.

Fascinated by psychology and filled with a desire to help children, Russell set out to be a children’s psychologist counseling abused children. However, she began to have doubts if that was truly her destiny. So, on a whim, she took the LSAT. “I thought if I did well it was God’s purpose for me, and if I didn’t then psychology was okay,” she says. “And I did well, so I felt that this was my path.”

Her “aha!” moment came during her first year of law school at LSU while taking criminal law.

“Psychology and criminal law really go hand-in-hand,” she says. “Oftentimes with certain individuals who commit crimes, mental health comes into play and that to me is very, very interesting.”

After graduating law school in 1996, she returned to Thibodaux and was hired by Peltier, Morvant & Cavell law firm, working on insurance defense cases and litigation with Cam Morvant. At night, she taught family law at Nicholls.

“We had a successful law firm and we were expanding. I’m not boasting, but we had our pick of young lawyers who wanted to work

54 | Fall 2018 • The COLONEL • Nicholls State University

for us,” Morvant says. “But we all agreed after the interview she was who we wanted.

It was a real easy decision to hire her."

When Morvant was elected to be district attorney in 2002, he immediately asked Russell to join him as an assistant district attorney.

“It was an easy choice,” Morvant says. “She is excellent in a courtroom because she is intelligent, she prepares and she can litigate.

Those are important factors.”

Since she joined the District Attorney’s Office, Russell has run the gamut of responsibilities, handling juvenile crimes, misdemeanors, sex crimes, felonies and opening the office’s advocacy center in 2005. In 2012, she became first assistant district attorney, meaning she handled more administrative duties. It also meant she would be the interim district attorney if Morvant wasn’t able to finish his term.

Citing health issues, Morvant stepped down from the job in 2017. He says that knowing Russell was ready for the job helped him make the decision.

“I think it’s been a good move for Lafourche Parish because we have an intelligent and energetic young woman who is going to do a good job,” Morvant says.

Russell won the full job in the spring in a special election. She knows her role as the first female district attorney carries added responsibility.

“Whether I'm in this office or outside, that responsibility I feel toward girls that may be watching and seeing what they can do, I’m always aware of that," she says. "I hope that at the end of the day, I make them proud, I make my family proud and I do good while I’m in here.”

Outside of the courtroom, Russell is an active mom.

“The hardest job is raising two teenagers, not being a district attorney,” she says. “My goal at the end of the day is for my husband and I to raise two kids who are kind and good. Anything else they can accomplish is a bonus, as long as they are kind and good.”

– Jacob Batte

Hey, Nicholls alums! Did you get married? Move to another town? Find a new job? Let us know and we’ll include you in our next edition of Colonel Notes. Keep us up-to-date with your life at thecolonel@nicholls.edu

In Memoriam

Remembering Dr. Ronald Kilgen

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Dr. Ronald Kilgen in the bayou during one of the annual pirogue races, back when he was still a student at Nicholls. Kilgen went on to be a long-time Nicholls biology professor.

icholls alumni and retired biology professor, Dr. Ron Kilgen (BS ‘64), will be remembered for his research and the impact he made on the lives of his students.

The 20-year Nicholls veteran passed away on Thursday, April 19, 2018.

A native of Cut Off and resident of Raceland, he helped establish the tradition of top biological research at Nicholls State University.

“In those days, professors didn’t publish much, if any, research,” Dr. Marilyn Kilgen, his wife, says. “We were two of the first. We had the first camp used for research on Port Fourchon, before LUMCON got started, and it was cool to go over there.”

When he graduated from Nicholls State College at the age of 19, he was the youngest Nicholls graduate ever. He was known around campus for handiness. As a student, he built the pirogues used in the annual pirogue races.

In the yearbook, the pirogues are noted to be “Kilgen built.”

After graduation, he went to the University of South Louisiana, now University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and Auburn University for graduate school. Though he and Marilyn loved Auburn, he always wanted to come back home.

“It was his goal to come back to Nicholls because it was the best place that you could be a marine biologist,” Marilyn says.

After two decades teaching, Dr. Kilgen retired from Nicholls in 1991 to start his own company, Kilgen Environmental Services.

“As a south Louisiana native, he was passionate about his work in marine biology and that passion was passed on to his students,” says Dr. Quenton Fontenot, biology department head whose father studied with Dr. Kilgen at USL. When he wasn’t teaching, Dr. Kilgen loved to travel, spend time with his grandkids and visit his crawfish pond.

“He kept urging me to retire because he was ready to start taking some trips,” says Marilyn.

“And his grandchildren loved him. They would come running into the house and jump up on their pawpaw’s lap.”

His impact on his students was evident when he passed.

“He was such a great teacher and let me tell you, his students, they were all at his funeral,” Marilyn says.

Even in death, he will give back to his alma mater with the Dr. Ronald Kilgen Memorial Fund, which benefits the marine biology department at Nicholls.

“He said he didn’t want anybody crying at his funeral, he just wanted to create a foundation where people could give back to the students,” she says.

For a complete listing of Nicholls 70th Anniversary events, visit nicholls.edu/celebrate70 Nicholls State University • The COLONEL • Fall 2018 |

55

Campus Cornerstone

Give the Annual Fund a Look

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he most essential role the Nicholls Foundation plays is fundraising to support the university, its students and the faculty and staff that make this place so special.

This could be improving facilities, creating scholarships or endowments or supporting other campus programs.

That’s why we are excited for the creation of the Annual Fund, set to begin in October. Annual gifts are important to the university because state and tuition dollars alone are not enough. Gifts not only help maintain existing programs, but also can help enhance them and can bring out potential new programs.

In the first year, we have set an overall goal of $700,000, with $400,000 of that being used to help sustain the campus’ aging facilities. Meanwhile, the remaining $300,000 would be split evenly between building faculty strength and capacity, enriching the student experience and fostering quality across campus.

To see the impact donations can make on both an individual, as well as the university, I encourage you to read the story of Thomas Meyer, whose gifts have helped transform the experience for student-athletes on the baseball team. The baseball diamond is now named after Meyer’s late brother, Ben. Your donations can alter the quality of life for students in many ways, including lowering the cost of attendance. The families of two former educators have funded scholarships (Pg. 58) that can help Assumption Parish students eying a career in

education to graduate with less debt.

At the Nicholls Foundation, we also appreciate our corporate partners. The leadership of the United Community Bank talks about how important Nicholls is to the region (Pg. 59), for what it gives back to the community but also in its graduating students, which helps build the workforce of the bank’s system.

Have I mentioned how wonderful it is to have Jeremy Becker leading the Foundation as our executive director? He tried a unique approach in the spring, which allowed donors to both give back to the university, and also enjoy a culinary trip to France (Pg. 57). The experience was so popular that we have already booked all of the seats for a trip to Italy next spring.

Keep an ear out for future trips so you can take part in the experience.

I want to say thank you from all of us at the Nicholls Foundation. Your support has and will continue to have a profound impact on the lives of our students. With Dr. Jay Clune at the helm, Nicholls is poised to build on its tremendous momentum and I encourage you to be a part of this movement.

Sincerely, Christopher H. Riviere (BS ’78) President, Nicholls Foundation

HARVEY PELTIER AWARD

Meyer Proud to Support Nicholls

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hibodaux financial advisor Thomas Meyer says just being in a position to help out Nicholls State University is a blessing.

Meyer says he was further blessed in 2017 when the Colonels baseball field was dubbed the Ben Meyer Diamond at Ray E. Didier Field. The late Ben Meyer is Meyer’s little brother, who died while he was a student at Nicholls.

“Ben was a student at Nicholls, and he was also an athlete,” Meyer says about Ben. “(Colonels baseball coach) Seth Thibodeaux and his baseball program and what he does with his players is very much what Ben stood for, which is integrity and character

56 | Fall 2018 • The COLONEL • Nicholls State University

and just being a quality person.”

For his effort, the Alumni Federation gave Meyer the Harvey Peltier Award, the highest honor for a non-graduate.

“I am honored and humbled to receive this award,” says Meyer, who also calls the award a team effort by the Meyer Financial Group. “Nicholls is very special to me and the Peltier family and what they have done for the University can never be replaced and done again. I am just glad that I could do my part.”

The philanthropist gives back to the community beyond his support for Nicholls. The Ben Meyer Foundation

puts on the Acadia Music Festival, which is the only fundraiser for the foundation, and Meyer also hosts a toy drive to help children who would not otherwise receive a Christmas gift.

And when it comes to Nicholls, Meyer gets to be a part of the university as it has grown over the past 10 years.

“When I think about Colonel Pride, I think about a way to keep a true community together,” he says. “I think of the university itself not only by the people it employs, but by the students who come here, stay and end up very much becoming part of this community.” — Cain Madden

Bon Appetit

Foundation Group Goes to France

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ore than 20 Nicholls alumni and supporters had a lunch so special in France they had to clear their afternoon. That’s because the eight courses they would be served at the Institut Paul Bocuse in Lyon would take more than three hours.

In a private room underneath a large chandelier, the group enjoyed dishes including a cod soup, duck with bordeaux, red mullet with a creamy garlic sauce and a festival of sweets such as a chocolate shaped to look like a chestnut.

“It was all beautiful, wellpresented food,” says Chef John Kozar, the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute department head.

“The chefs at the Institut are just world class, some are Michelin Star chefs, which is a huge achievement in the restaurant world. The food was absolutely incredible.”

Nicholls donor Lori Davis of Houma was part of the first Nicholls Foundation trip in partnership with the culinary institute, and she says the Institut was the primary reason they went to France for the 8-day tour.

“We had a lot of wonderful meals while in France, but the meal we had there at the Institut Paul Bocuse was the highlight,” Davis says. “Anyone who has a chance to

go to Lyon should go to the Institut.

The students there have an absolute pride in what they are doing, and you can see the passion going into it.”

Of course, the trip was in France and along the way they had many meals, sampling various wines and cheeses from the Normandy, Tours and Paris regions. It was also not the only special meal, as on April 25th, one couple, Henry and Kimberly Lafont, experienced their anniversary in the City of Love.

“It was amazing to experience our anniversary in Paris,” Henry Lafont says. “It was also enjoyable to just walk around. The hotel was right by the Eiffel Tower and there were little shops and cafes everywhere, many with their own specialties.”

The trip, planned by the Nicholls Foundation Executive Director Jeremy Becker, did have scheduled meals and cultural experiences like the Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe, but time did allow for the couples and travelers like Davis, who went with her father, to do their own thing.

“I’m normally an individual, single traveler, but this opened up a new experience for me,” says Davis. “The whole trip was

outstanding, planned with fun group activities, but there was also free time planned in to explore as an individual.

“It was a great way to bring people together, to support the university, support the culinary institute and support the area.”

While it is too late to sign up for the Foundations next trip in Italy, Davis says she would encourage people to be on lookout for future trips.

“Jeremy is a fantastic trip planner and he will meet your expectations,” Davis says. “If anyone is considering doing something like this, and are not sure, I would say to take leap of faith and go. It is an experience you will never forget. We are really happy we did.”

The first leg of the trip was in the Northern part of France, visiting Caen, Normandy Beach, Monastery of Le Mont St. Michel and Tours.

In Normandy, Lafont says he could not help but think of the saying,

old men start wars and young men die.

“It was very solemn to see all of the soldiers buried there who had given the ultimate sacrifice so that we may enjoy the freedoms we have today,” he says. “We went to the beaches and saw where the men landed, and the boxes where the Germans were waiting on the Allies to land.”

Many on the trip went to the top of St. Michel to visit the abbey, and Becker says it was like going back in time as you walked up, first seeing the homes, then the pubs and stores, the great halls and finally at the top, the buildings dedicated to God. From the monastery, the group stopped in Tours to visit the Château de Chenonceau.

“In some ways it resembled the plantation homes in Louisiana, but on a grander scale,” Becker says. “It was interesting to see the history of it, as well as the majesty of the building and expansive gardens.”

Lyon was the next stop, where they visited the Institut, and from there, the trip concluded in Paris.

– Cain Madden

Nicholls State University • The COLONEL • Fall 2018 |

57

Campus Cornerstone

Donations Help Future Assumption Educators

Pictured left, Mendi and Laurie LaSuer, Sugar Meyer, wife of Lee Meyer, Dr. Jay Clune and Monique Crochet. Pictured right, from left, Jonathan Howell, wife Erica Howell, son Ethan Howell and their two daughters, Camille and Caroline; Larry Howell; Will Carothers, sister Ella Mabile, brother Alex Mabile and mom Cami Mabile.

I

f you’re from Assumption Parish and want to be a teacher, the legacies of two veteran educators can help pay for your college at Nicholls State University.

The Lee A. Meyer Education Scholarship will help incoming freshman education majors from Assumption Parish, while the Tina Howell Excellence in Education Scholarships will help sophomores, juniors and seniors.

“Lee Meyer and Tina Howell were excellent examples of how teachers can positively impact the lives of their students,” says Dr. Sue Westbrook, provost and vice president for academic affairs. “Now, their legacies are going to help create the next generation of great teachers in Assumption.”

Lee Meyer (BA ‘72) spent 26 years as an educator in Assumption Parish, including 23 as a teacher and three more with the juvenile detention center. To honor his passion, his family and friends donated

You made the inaugural Give N Day a huge success!

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$10,000 to create the scholarship in his name.

“He would be so excited to know a scholarship exists in his name,” says Sugar Meyer, his wife. “From the time he started teaching, he had a great passion for education. He was all about his faith, his family and the kids he taught.”

Tina Howell taught for 38 years, with 35 of those years coming in Assumption Parish, before passing away in 2015 at the age of 69. Her husband, Larry Howell, former executive vice president at Nicholls, honored her by creating a scholarship in her name in 2016. Since then, he’s added two more scholarships and donated $30,000 to make the scholarships endowed.

“Tina taught for so long and was loved by so many people. This is a way to carry on her name,” Howell says. “I know she’s smiling down from heaven knowing her name is helping students further their education.” – Jacob Batte

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Donations were received from 26 states, representing all four corners of the U.S., including California, Washington, New Jersey and Florida, and as far away as Hawaii and United Kingdom.

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CORPORATE MARK OF HONOR

Bank Receives Corporate Mark of Honor

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he impact United Community Bank has had on Nicholls State University can be seen every time students, employees and supporters go work out.

The recreation center is named after the late Harold J. Callais, who had been the chairman of the bank's board as well as a member of the Louisiana Board of Regents. With Callais on the board, they helped promote the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute and the college of nursing.

United Community Bank itself has made numerous contributions to Nicholls, including student scholarships for mass communications, fundraisers such as A-plus Scholars Night and Bite of the Arts, as well as athletic scoreboards.

And for that effort, Nicholls President Dr. Jay Clune selected the bank for the Nicholls Alumni Federation Corporate Mark of Honor, which is awarded to an entity for its strong support of the university and its mission.

“I am a Nicholls graduate, and I am very proud that we at the bank were awarded this by the Alumni Federation and Dr. Clune,” says Corey Callais, chairman of the UCB board and son of the late Harold J. Callais.

“Nicholls is a great asset to the community, with the education program, the nursing program, the culinary program and the business school. A lot of our employees, directors and officers

From left, Dr. Jay Clune, Michael Callais, Gloria Callais, Corey Callais, Mark Riche and Katherine Gianelloni.

here at United Community Bank are graduates. We support Nicholls because it is so important to our community.”

A member of the bank's board and the widow of Harold J. Callais, Gloria Callais, says the award is due to all the people

connected by United Community Bank, many of them a part of the Nicholls family.

“Nicholls is so important to our area and I think it produces a lot of good students who do well in business,” says Gloria.

“It would not have been

possible without the many wonderful people working at United Community Bank and dealing with United Community Bank. We can’t forget our wonderful customers. We are very proud to be a sponsor of Nicholls.” — Cain Madden

Nicholls State University • The COLONEL • Fall 2018 |

59

A Colonel of Truth

Closest to the Coast

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ne day in Golden Meadow many years ago, I watched my grandpa unload some fish he had gone in a boat to catch. He proudly raised a huge redfish from a basket in the boat.

“Only one thing better than that,” he told me, not making much of an effort to pronounce the “th” sounds in those foreign, English words, “if I could catch that in my backyard.”

If he were alive today, it would be easy for him to do so. And probably necessary as well because all the land edges that guided his fishing in the past have changed. The inlets and tranasses are open water now. Catfish Lake and Fala or any of the traditional landmarks are now hardly recognizable. All the drilling derricks that towered over the marshes in his day are gone and their wells capped and abandoned.

And the waterside cemeteries of our ancestors have been washed away with the eroding marsh.

From my grandpa’s house, Nicholls is about 50 miles away along La. 1 — a distance unchanged for 70 years since the university opened its doors. However, if you dropped a diagonal line south-southwest from Nicholls on a current satellite image and measured distance “as the gull flies,” you would find open, coastal water as close as 23 miles. And it’s getting closer. If you look at a computer simulation of where the coast is predicted to be in 2050, you should also look for office and classroom space on the sixth floor of Ellender Hall.

It’s much easier for us to understand coastal changes today than it was for my grandpa.

Geologists tell us that land of the Nicholls region was built beginning about 3,000 years ago as the Mississippi River spilled sediment here and there to decide where it would meet the Gulf. Recent excavations of prehistoric cypress stumps and a bed of marsh clams 25 feet under Thibodaux remind us that, during the sediment-spilling era, a prehistoric coast lay beneath where the university is built. The coast was just that close thousands of years ago, and today satellites and salinity tell us that it’s returning.

Beyond distance, however, Nicholls has always been close to the coast. We were the first university in the state to offer students a marine biology degree. Our professors and students have made essential findings in the biology of oysters, shrimp, fishes, water birds, and coastal grasses, as well as discovery of the Gulf Dead Zone. We have been training students in petroleum technology and services continuously since 1958. With the opening of our marine laboratory at Fourchon in 1974, we operated the first permanent coastal teaching laboratory accessible by land. Following that, we were instrumental in the founding, design and administration of LUMCON — the worldclass marine science facility at Cocodrie. We currently have learning and research projects on seven barrier islands along the coast.

Illustration By Dr. Sharon Doucet (BA '78)

Our commitment to the coast extends into our 70th year with revitalization of the Nicholls Farm as a coastal wetlands field station, where, among other activities, we grow and preserve coastal trees and propagate coastal plants for restoration efforts. To date, our professors and students have studied, grown, planted and shared nearly 65,000 mangroves, cordgrasses and other coastal plants, the roots of which are holding coastal sediments in place and helping the coast rebuild.

Lest we forget — and Nicholls never shall — trees and plants are not the only living things with coastal roots. People have roots as well.

In our Center for Bayou Studies, professors and students work to preserve, conserve and document the cultural heritage, history and environment of the people of the Nicholls region, especially those facing loss of homeland.

And we do so on behalf of people within our walls as well. Among our current employees, 87 percent receive their mail in a village, town or city in the Louisiana coastal parishes.

The percentage of current students whose hometown is located in a coastal parish is also 87 percent. And 70 years ago, the percentage of students enrolled at Francis T. Nicholls Junior College who came from a coastal parish was — that’s right — 87 percent.

Nicholls is and has always been closest to the coast. And mileage is not even the best measure of that. – By Dr. John P. Doucet (BS '84)

Aside from being a poet, writer and editor, Dr. John P. Doucet (BS '84) holds many titles: dean of the College of Arts and Sciences,

• The COLONEL • Nicholls State University 60 | Fall 2018 distinguished service professor, director of the University Honors Program and Louisiana's first certified public health geneticist.

Nicholls Forward

visit nichollsfoundation.org

Introducing The Nicholls Annual Fund

What is the Nicholls

Annual Fund?

Gifts to the Nicholls State University Annual Fund are used in essential areas across the campus to sustain and improve campus facilities, provide opportunities for faculty to further their skills, create stronger learning environments, enhance the student experience and meet unexpected needs.

Why are

Annual Gifts important?

Declining funding from the state has resulted in a reduced operating budget. State funds and tuition dollars alone fail to meet the entire budget of the university. Annual gifts augment that money to help maintain existing programs and enhance them by allowing for the planning and implementation of potential new programs.

Foundation Membership

President's Circle

Red and Gray

Colonel Inspired

$1,000 to $2,499

$2,500 to $4,999

$5,000 to $9,999

$10,000 plus

Same as President's Circle, plus invited to a special dinner with Dr. Clune.

Same as Red and Gray, plus invited to a select roundtable and individual gatherings and meals with Dr. Clune.

Will receive all benefits of being a member of the Nicholls Foundation.

Same as Foundation, plus invited to Dr. Clune's "State of Nicholls" address and a reception that follows.

THE

COLONEL the magazine of NICHOLLS STATE UNIVERSITY

Prst Std U.S. Postage PAID New Orleans, LA Permit No. 33

P.O. Box 2074 Thibodaux, LA 70310

NICHOLLS ALUMNI FEDERATION

YOUR MEMBERSHIP MATTERS Joining makes it possible for the Nicholls Alumni Federation to: • Fund alumni student scholarships • Host alumni tailgate parties featuring food, drinks and live music at every Colonel home football game • Publish a redesigned Colonel magazine for alumni and donors

• Honor outstanding alumni and supporters at the Alumni Awards for Excellence event • Promote Colonel Pride on campus and in the community • Organize alumni networking socials

...and much more!

Join today at nichollsalumni.org/membership