Sports

Jena High Class of 2020 graduate Barrett Keene signed last week to play baseball for Centenary College in Shreveport. The signing was celebrated by family and friends with refreshments at the JHS Fieldhouse. With the Centenary Gents baseball team, he will play pitcher and first base.

“Before I came here to coach, I saw Brayden pitch against the team I was coaching then, and I was really impressed especially when I found out he was only a freshman. I was excited to come here and coach guys with so much talent like Brayden,” JHS Head Baseball Coach Colton Knuckols said. “The thing I’ll remember the most about Brayden is his willingness to go throw against really good teams. He won a second round playoff game for us and that hadn’t happened in a long time. I’m excited to see him take it to the next level, but he will be missed.”

Being an outdoors-oriented person brings with it a number of satisfying things. You get to sneak out in the woods during hunting season and try to outsmart whichever wild game species you’re hunting.

Our lakes, ponds and streams are laden with bluegills and bass and catfish and goggle-eyes just waiting to come home with you for a swim in Lake Crisco. The catching is exciting; the eating divine.

There are times, though, when we’re out and about without gun or rod and nature’s youngsters enthrall us as they go about doing what little wild critters do.

Last Sunday as Kay and I were approaching our driveway after church, something caught our eye in the pasture across the road.

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BATON ROUGE--With the special session nearing an end, the Senate passed a possible compromise bill Monday aimed at lowering auto insurance rates and winning support from Gov. John Bel Edwards, who vetoed a major Republican-backed tort reform plan.

The bill, by Rep. Richard Nelson, R-Mandeville, passed 35-3, with seven Democrats voting in support. The House passed Nelson’s bill 82-9 last week, with 21 Democrats voting for it.

It is one of several bills and resolutions that GOP lawmakers have passed that could serve as substitutes for the one that Edwards vetoed, but it is not clear if the business groups that originally pushed for the changes would agree to the compromises in Nelson’s bill.

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Although the sun had not yet appeared over the horizon, the air was already warm and sticky, typical of the onset of another hot July day in Louisiana. This would have been a good day to work on articles in my air conditioned office but fishing guide and friend Eddie Halbrook’s call the night before had a sense of urgency about it.

“I don’t care what you have planned for tomorrow,” Halbrook said, “put it off. The bass are schooling on Grand Bayou and you need to come with me.”

The “Grand Bayou” Halbrook mentioned is Grand Bayou Reservoir, a small 2500 acre impoundment located 50 miles south of Shreveport. I don’t mind admitting a degree of skepticism when Halbrook mentioned that for the past week, he’d been catching at least a hundred bass a day. Skeptical or not, I found myself in the back of Halbrook’s boat as the bright, and soon to be hot, sun made its appearance in a cloudless July sky.

The second annual ‘Pilots for Patients’ benefit golf tournament will be held Saturday, July 25, 2020 at the Caldwell Country Club, located on U.S. 165 just south of Grayson.

This year’s benefit will be held in memory of Linda Whatley of Columbia and Phil Henry of Jena.

Tee time is 1 p.m. and entry fee is $200 per two-person team. Format will be a 2-person scramble.

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The frightening commentary about feral hogs around much of the country today is this – if you don’t have hogs on your property now, just wait; they’re coming.

So, what is the problem with having feral hogs on your property? Aren’t they just another species of wildlife that have a right to compete for living spaces? Not exactly – wild pigs not only can but do horrific damage to the landscape, rooting up food plots and fouling water sources. They’re worse than that. Feral pigs also are disease carriers of up to 37 parasites with at least 30 diseases that can be transmitted to people, pets or wildlife. The case is thusly made that wild pigs need to be eradicated or their numbers reduced, but how do you go about that? You can try to shoot them but when harassed just a bit, they become as wary as deer and start doing their damage under the cover of darkness.