Stars shine over Rotary

Before the calendar turned to April, the Ville Platte Rotary Club heard from the Evangeline Parish teachers and principal of the year honorees.
The teachers of the year for this school year are Sara Bergeron from James Stephens Montessori, Lisa Celestine Jack from Vidrine Elementary, and Nicholas Jagneaux from Ville Platte High School. Also from Ville Platte High School is the principal of the year Melanie Miller.
Teacher of the Year Coordinator Grace Sibley explained 20 teachers from the parish competed for the right to be the winner in the elementary, middle school, and high school divisions. She further explained the theme for this year is STAR Teachers ROCK or Super Terrific Amazingly Resourceful Teachers Reach out to Cultivate Knowledge.
Sibley then went over the process of how the winners are selected. Part of that process includes the teachers making 15-minute videos explaining their instructional styles.
The Rotary Club viewed segments of the videos that showed an introduction to Bergeron’s math lesson to add and subtract within 200, Jack’s English-Language Arts lesson on the sugar industry, and the conclusion of Jagneaux’s French lesson on pétanque.
After the videos, Miller then went over some of the things occurring on her campus.
“Ville Platte High’s focus is excellence,” she said. “I expect every student on my campus to achieve that, and they are told that everyday.”
Miller then gave examples to back up her previous point of the school being focused on excellence.
“We had the highest school performance scores in the history of Ville Platte High School this past year,” she said. “The students performed beyond my expectations and actually exceeded that this year because they’ve already achieved higher than they did last year.”
She continued, “Our graduation rate has improved tremendously. Our ACT/Work Keys Index has jumped at least 15 points this year, and our strength of diploma would be about 98 percent. That means more students are graduating and going directly into college or into the workplace.”
The suspension rate has also dipped from 44 percent to nine percent.
According to Miller, new programs such as pre-engineering courses, art classes, film production, and a school choir are either currently being offered or will be offered beginning next school year.
“When these students exit high school, they will be prepared to become productive members of the society,” Miller expressed. “We want them to function in the society.”
Miller concluded, “I invite each of you to come over to Ville Platte High School at any time of any day because excellence is happening everyday. It’s not just athletics at Ville Platte High School. Academics is first, and any student from Ville Platte High School will tell you that.”
During the first meeting of April on Tuesday, the Rotary Club then heard from Paul Stanbrough who worked as a Teamster while transporting Hollywood stars.
“Back in the late 1980s,” he said, “I met Jimmie Davis. He got me into the motion picture industry. One thing led to another, and I got into the Hollywood Teamsters Local 399.”
He added, “Everything we did included transportation. We moved all of the equipment, actors, and crew from one location to the next.”
Over his 25 years in the business, Stanbrough worked with such icons as Marlon Brando, Kurt Russell, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Denzel Washington, Jerry Jones, Mike Tyson, Cedric the Entertainer, Vanessa Williams, Brad Pitt, and Nicholas Cage.
But, as he told the Rotary Club, his favorite actor is Lassie.
“I met Bob Weatherwax. He is the son of Rudd, who is the owner of Lassie,” Stanbrough said. “I drove the backup dogs from California to Richmond, Virginia to do the last Lassie movie. When I left Richmond in the motor home, Bob’s son, Robbie, was the trainer with me.”
Stanbrough continued as follows: “We came through Ville Platte to pick up my dad, and I took him to California with the backup dogs. My brother Craig said I wouldn’t make it through Houston without getting pulled over because the cops look for a rental RV for drug trafficking. Sure enough going through Houston, a cop car pulled alongside me.”
“They pulled me over, and a cop said I was speeding. The other one was in the back and asked where I was going in such a hurry. I said I had to get back to Hollywood because I have Lassie in this van and we have to work Monday. I told Robbie to get the dog and make him do some tricks. The cop in the back saw that and said, ‘Hey, bud, they got Lassie.’”
“My dad was about to go crazy in the front seat because he was sure we were going to jail. Bob Weatherwax like to partake of the Lord’s good herbs, so I didn’t know if there was some still on the bus. If they would have checked us, me and dad and Lassie would be in jail still doing time in Texas.”