News

Two LaSalle Parish schools collected top amounts of non-perishable goods in the seventh annual Suddenlink “Connecting to Those in Need” food drive for The Food Bank of Central Louisiana. In competition with schools from other parishes, LaSalle High School received first place ($500) in the high school division and Jena Junior High School received third ($100) in their respective division.

 

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Members of the LaSalle Parish Police Jury adopted their 2014 budget totaling just over $6.65 million at their regular December meeting held Monday night of last week after conducting a public hearing to receive comments on the budget. With no comments being received, either oral or written, jurors adopted the budget for the coming year 

 

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Jena High Student Michael Bowen blows a duck call he made as his classmates and his teacher, Russell Dorton, looks on during their visit to the LaSalle Parish School Board meeting last week. Dorton’s special education class were honored guests at the meeting to lead the pledge and showcase the duck calls the class is making as part of their community based training class. Dorton said the project has been really good for the students and he is very proud of them and their hard work. Shown in background is School Board/Superintendent Secretary Mary Brewer 

 

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Jena High School junior Bryttanye Erwin was chosen as the winner of the recent Most Beautiful Pageant, sponsored by the Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) club at JHS. Bryttanye is the daughter of Ellis and Stacye Erwin of Jena. In the pageant, she represented the Anchor Club. 

 

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The Jena Town Council adopted the town’s 2014 year budget total of just over $6.2 million at its regular December meeting held Tuesday night of last week. The budget had been introduced at the November meeting and a public hearing was held prior to adoption last week. The budget totals $6,245,779 in revenue; $5,227,512.76 in operating expenses; and $913,360.71 in capital improvements 

 

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LaSalle Parish workforce increased by 228 workers during the past year, according to figures just released by the Louisiana Workforce Commission (LWC). Civilian labor force figures for October 2013 shows LaSalle with 7,274 people employed, up from 7,046 in October 2012. The unemployment rate for LaSalle in October this year stood at 4.7 percent, which is the fifth lowest in the state. Parishes with lower unemployment rates than LaSalle are all in extreme south Louisiana, including Lafourche, 4.1 percent; Terrebonne, 4.3 percent; Lafayette, 4.5 percent; and Cameron, 4.6 percent.  

 

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Officials in the town of Olla recently held a groundbreaking ceremony for the Olla Recreational Complex’s future walking trail extension, basketball court and bathroom facilities as well as the town’s downtown Farmer’s Market and the trail’s addition of exercise stations. The trail extension, basketball court, bathrooms and market are funded through the Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Louisiana Foundation’s Live Lively LaSalle! grant. The exercise stations are funded through a $25,000 grant from The Rapides Foundation.

 

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Tax statements for 2013 for LaSalle Parish taxpayers went out in the mail a couple of weeks ago and taxes are due by the end of December. The tax statements were mailed by the La- Salle Parish Sheriff’s Office, as the Sheriff is the ex-officio tax collector for the parish. Taxes are based on assessments assigned by the La- Salle Parish Assessor’s office

 

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Jena Band of Choctaw Tribal Council Member and Tribal Historic Preservation Director Dana Masters shows Fellowship Elementary first grader Jackson Yates how to play the Choctaw game of stickball as part of their recent Choctaw Thanksgiving exhibition to showcase their culture to area students. Masters explained that the game is a full contact sport with no protection padding or helmets and the players use two sticks with curved netted ends to scoop up, catch and throw the ball at their team’s pole to score. She told students that the game was played by the tribes to settle disputes between tribal members and other tribes to avoid going to war and that the game

could be deadly but it was used to keep the peace within a tribe

 

Christmas for thousands of kids worldwide will come from residents of LaSalle Parish in the form of shoeboxes filled with goodies. Operation Christmas Child (OCC) is in its twentieth year and Jena First Baptist Church has participated for the past 17 years. In the first year the church participated in the program, in 1997, a total of 25 boxes were filled. “A total of 1,571 shoeboxes were filled and delivered to a distribution site in Pineville on November 25, thanks to the efforts of many parish citizens,” Frances McDonald said with a twinkle in her eye, knowing that the number surpassed the record set last year

 

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