Proposed new after school opportunities for students and new technology for state police were highlighted at the last two meetings of the Ville Platte Rotary Club.
Leading off the tandem of meetings was Glenn Fields, who is the executive director of Louisiana Folk Roots. He has been playing music all over the country and all over the world and has played with such musicians as Linda Ronstadt. He has also been nominated for two Grammy Awards and currently plays drums for The Revelers. The group played earlier this year at the Dewey Balfa Cajun and Creole Heritage Week.
Fields stated that the mission of Louisiana Folk Roots is to “preserve and promote the unique culture that we have here in Louisiana with the arts and humanities.” He added, “That includes anything from food to folk art, dancing, and especially our music.”
He described a pilot program that he is proposing which is modeled after such a program in the Appalachian Region. “In my travels around the country, I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the Appalachian areas,” Fields said. “In that area is an organization called the JAM Program, and it stands for Junior Appalachian Musicians.”
“That organization has 41 programs throughout four states and goes into communities to start school program that follows the school calendar,” he continued. “It’s typically 28 weeks and is made up of local musicians. Their job is to identify local musicians and put them with kids for one hour every week so these kids get a chance to learn music from their neighbors.”
Fields then shared his hopes that civic and business leaders from Evangeline Parish can help fund his proposed pilot program for the parish. “The idea of this program,” he said, “is that it is centered here in Evangeline Parish for Evangeline Parish and that Evangeline Parish takes care of its program. Almost none of the money that you guys would help raise would go out of Evangeline Parish at all. It would only go to take care of the rental for a space and to provide instruments for the kids because a lot of these kids don’t have the funds to rent a violin or a guitar or an accordion.”
He continued, “The whole idea about this program is to make it very affordable for families, and that’s where your help will come in. We want to try to keep it affordable because music can be expensive, but I feel that it is an opportunity for children to learn something that they can take with them for the rest of their lives.”
A week later, the Rotary Club heard from Ville Platte native Major Wayne Vidrine. Major Vidrine was recently promoted from Louisiana State Police Troop I Commander in Lafayette to State Police Regional Command Inspector in Alexandria.
He was joined by outgoing Public Information Director Brooks David and began his talk with a somewhat true story about their trip to Ville Platte that morning.
“Brooks and I were travelling down La. 10, and there was a car that was doing 10 miles per hour,” he Major Vidrine said. “We couldn’t figure out what the traffic problem was. Traffic was backed up all the way from the vet clinic and all the way to the old Sonic. We pulled the car over, and, low and behold, it was Boudreaux and Thibodeaux.”
Major Vidrine continued, “Brooks asked Boudreaux why he was going so slow. Boudreaux pointed at the sign and said the speed limit was 10 miles per hour, but it was the La. 10 sign. I walked over and met Thibodeaux and asked what was wrong because he was sweating profusely. He had a look of fear on his face. I asked what was the matter, and he said, ‘Boy, I wish you would have stopped us 10 minutes ago because we were on 167 earlier.”
The major, who teaches leadership for upper and lower management at state police, talked about new technology that is offered for troopers. He said, “When I came on 25 years ago, I never would have guessed we would have some of these things.”
One of the new technologies is Body One cameras. “It uploads to a cloud, so there’s no more human interaction,” Major Vidrine described. “Who’d have thought that could even be possible when a police car actually can drive by a police station and dump the body cameras onto the system?”
He then described some other new technologies. “Eticket is where the trooper swipes your driver’s license through it, and it populates,” said Major Vidrine. “It’s automatically GPS coordinated, and when the trooper hits send, it goes directly to the district attorney’s office and the motor vehicle office.”
He continued, “We have interstate cars now that are totally grey with no markings. These people were hand selected by the troop commanders, and their main vision is to stop and infiltrate those people who text while driving on the interstates.”
Earlier in that same meeting, Rotarian and Mayor Jennifer Vidrine reminded the Rotary Club about the upcoming Tee Cotton Bowl on August 31. “The parade starts at 4:00 at the Girls-Boys Place, and we’re going to go down Main Street straight to Sacred Heart for the game,” she said. “Pre game activities start at 5:45, and there will be stunt airplanes, acrobats, and jugglers. It’s the Bulldogs and the Trojans in the greatest football show on Earth.”
She added that she will be riding an elephant during the parade. When asked if that is any indication whether she will swith political parties, the mayor quipped, “The elephant is only for the parade. I’m not changing parties or anything.”
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TONY MARKS Associate Editor