With one semester of his students work complete and another one starting up, Dr. Geoff Stewart from the Moody College of Business at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette returned to Ville Platte and updated the city’s Rotary Club on Project Engage which is designed to revitalize Ville Platte and Evangeline Parish.
Dr. Stewart began his program by summarizing his students’ work last semester. One of their areas, he explained, has already received traction from the Evangeline Chamber of Commerce and its director Renee Brown.
“Renee has really taken off with some of those ideas on the tourism side and developed a Smoked Meat Trail around the parish connecting that trail to people who are staying at RV parks and trying to get them to go and shop at those certain locations and to start cooking the food you all so enjoy around here,” said Dr. Stewart.
This semester, Dr. Stewart has enlisted the help of master’s students from the communications school at UL-L to start working on campaigns to promote the Smoked Meat Trail and to put those plans in place.
This semester, as Dr. Stewart explained, is about promoting “civic engagement from both the individual side as well as the business side.”
Another aspect of this semester, according to Dr. Stewart, is “how do we better tell the story of what’s happening in our school system.”
“The school system here is ranked higher than the school system in Lafayette Parish, which a lot of people here know,” Dr. Stewart said. “People in Lafayette would be shocked just from a perception standpoint.”
He continued, “The school leadership over here is saying that’s not good enough. They’re looking to become an A district. There are only four A districts in the state.”
To better highlight what is happening in the schools, Dr. Stewart and his students are looking to put on exhibits during the Street Dance slated for November 2 in Ville Platte.
“Basile High has recently started a drone program,” he said. “They had a farmer approach the school system about it, and they paid for him to get certified. He’s teaching a drone certification program.”
He continued, “We’re working with them to get them to bring the drone to do video of the Street Dance. My teams are also working with the school board to highlight some of the things they’re doing in the schools during that dance because there are some real positive and good things that are happening.”
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TONY MARKS Editor