Looking Back: July 1989

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July 2,1989
• State election officials have informed the Evangeline Parish Police Jury it may not call a special election in Ward 5 to obtain voter input on whether or not to impose a stock law in that rural area. Jury President Leland Vidrine revealed that jurors were notified such a special ballot issue was restricted to public road issues and not applicable to an issue such as stock laws where private landowners are required to fence their property to halt the free roaming of their cattle.

July 6, 1989
• Evangeline Parish students were among a total of 112 students, grades 1-8, who were enrolled in an enrichment program for gifted students that was offered June 5-22 by LSU at Eunice.
The program included a variety of classes in computer science, art, photography and chemistry. Students were selected based on their participation in school activities for the gifted or talented, on maintenance of a 3.0 average for each school reporting period, or recommendation of their teacher and principal.
The students were as follows:
Mamou: Gwen Danielle Gradney, Brandon Griffith, Catherine J. Smith and Alaina Dene Vidrine.
Ville Platte: Joseph Conrad Ardoin, Josh Ardoin, Jeremy L. Bellard, Benjamin Duos, Saul Duos, Kristina Guillory, Antissia Lemalle and Heidi Veillon.

• The State Fire Marshal’s Office announced it is cooperating with the Ville Platte Fire Department in an investigation of a fire which heavily damaged a two-bedroom frame house at 405 N. Chataignier. Fire Chief Reinel Smith reported no one was in the residence when the firefighters answered the 8:36 p.m. alarm on Sunday, July 2.

• After a week of delays, the nine year old Dixie Youth Sub-Distict tournament finally came to an end as Ville Platte East and Ville Platte West met in the finals with the East team winning, 7-0.
Ville Platte East team members included: Marcus Guillory, Corey Thomas, Dustin Jones, Ski Ortego, Chris Israel, Craig Berzas, Josh Soileau,, Mark McCaulley, Jeffery Fontenot, Marco Duplechain, Shane Reed, Kip Fontenot and Adam Soileau.
Members of the Ville Platte West included: Brandon Fontenot, Jay Aswell, Brandon Vidirne, Guy Reily, Montrecus Campbell, Eric Foret, Cody Perron, James Blood, Paul Johnston, Eric Deville, Michael Fontenot, Justin Godeaux, and Dustin Manuel.
July 13, 1989
• For the first time in the school’s history, a Sacred Heart student, Johnny Fontenot, has earned the honor of being named to a national post in a student organization.
Fontenot, a junior, scored highest on the parliamentary law exam at the National FBLA Convention held in Orlando, Fla. His score, and the submission of his resume, automatically made him the FBLA national parliamentarian. Fontenot, the son of Clyde and Julia Fontenot of Ville Platte, was one of the four Sacred Heart students who represented Louisiana as its parliamentary law team. Jude Reed, Brady Guillory, and Becky Floyed, along with Fontenot and a Leesville student, scored third in the national competition.

July 16, 1989
• The Ville Platte Lions Club announced it will hold its Second Annual Trap Shoot beginning Saturday, August 19, through Sunday August 20. The events will take place at the Chauncey Pitre Memorial 4H Building, two miles west of Ville Platte on Highway 10.
Men, Women and Boy’s Jr. Division cash prizes and trophies will be given. Qualifying is Saturday and the hunt ends Sunday at 10:30 a.m.
The event is designed to help hunters get in shape for the upcoming season.

• It was announced that limited edition art prints of a recently completed oil painting by Ville Platte artist Waven Boone will be released as part of a fund-raising effort by Grace Christian Academy for its new school building, according to Carolyn Ardoin, school director.
The paining depicts a afternoon buggy drive down a dirt road lined with majestic oak trees. The commissioned oil painting is entitled “Sunday Drive.”
The painting will be reproduced in the next several months in a special edition, according to Boone. The edition will be limited to 1000 art prints each individually numbered and signed in pencil by the artist. Overall size of each print will be 20” by 24”. Prints are scheduled to be received by mid-August. The pre-release price is $40 donation to the Grace Academy Building fund.
The $40 price is strictly a pre-release offer. Once art is released the price for each numbered copy will be $45 or more.

July 20, 1989
• Ville Platte’s 12 and under girls softball all-stars W.O.W, took first place in the U.S.S.S.A. Playoffs and second in the Pony League State Competition.
The fourth win in the tournament put W.O.W. in the only no-loss position in the tournament. But in the final game, W.O.W. took he lead in the second inning, 1-0, and kept that lead to win the game and State championship, 4-2.

July 23, 1989
• A tubular boom snaked across the inlet of a 20- acre man made lake owned by Allen Ortego in the Tate Cove area as workers for Conoco, Inc. used vacuum tanker trucks, a backhoe, and muscle power to clean up an oil spill of a yet undetermined amount. A shovel handle marked the spot where a leaking pipe east of Conoco’s commingling Tank Battery NO. 1-8 allowed oil to escape through a grassy, timbered area, down a ditch which lead to the small lake. As he surveyed the damage, Allen Ortego told The Gazette that Conoco officials notified him of the oil spill the day before. Ortego stopped and talked with Conoco workers and employees of Guillory’s Tank Truck Service of Eunice as he and his attorney traced the path of the oil and took pictures of the site.