Wednesday, September 20, 2023
Sheriff Aaron Mitchell and District Attorney Don Burkett announce a Sabine Parish Grand Jury returned two indictments last week for second degree murder charges.
Robert Earl Preston, age 39, and Edward Lamar Glynn Jr., age 29, both of Many, were booked into the Sabine Parish Detention Center last week.
Two Sabine Parish residents died last year from an overdose of illegal drugs allegedly sold to them by Preston and Glynn.
Sabine Parish Sheriff Detectives investigated the cases and were able to obtain toxicology and autopsy reports, cell phone records and other digital data as evidence in the cases, as well as witness information.
Sheriff Mitchell said this is the first time an illegal drug dealer has been charged with murder in an overdose death in Sabine Parish.
District Attorney Burkett said in Section (3) of L.R.S. 14:30.1, it states “Second degree murder is the killing of a human being when the offender unlawfully distributes or dispenses a controlled dangerous substance listed in Schedules I through V of the Uniform Controlled Dangerous Substances Law, or any combination thereof, which is the direct cause of the death of the recipient who ingested or consumed the controlled dangerous substance. …Whoever commits the crime of second degree murder shall be punished by life imprisonment at hard labor without benefit of parole, probation, or suspension of sentence.”
Preston’s bond was set at $1 million, and he remains in jail.
As of press deadline, Glynn Jr.’s bond had not been set.
(All persons are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.)
(Special thanks to Det. D. W. Seegers for the above report.)
Celebrate Life Rally to be held
A Sabine Parish Rally to Celebrate Life will be held Saturday, Sept. 23, from 9:30-11 a.m. in the lot across from City Hall in downtown Many. The event is being sponsored by the Louisiana Right to Life, Sabine Parish Citizens for Life and the Abortion Survivors Network, according to Michele Smith of Natchitoches who is coordinating the program.
An outstanding list of speakers will be present for the event, including Many Mayor Robert Hable, Robert Sensley, who is Program Assistant for Louisiana Black Advocates for Life, Jessica Spears, who is co-founder for Natchitoches Walk for Life, Morgan LaCaze, who is Executive Director of the Natchitoches Woman’s Resource Center and Laxie Dance of the Young Adults/Students for Life.
Also speaking will be State Rep. Alan Seabaugh, Rep. Rodney Schamerhorn, David Bartholdi of Only Believe Ministries of Hemphill and Kathy Ellzey of the Sabine Parish Citizens for Life. Carolyn Ricks will supply music.
In addition, a representative of Louisiana Right to Life will speak, as will a pastor from Living Word Church in Many.
Ms. Smith will also be one of the speakers, as she has been very active in the movement to prevent abortions. She is a co-leader of the Sabine Parish Citizens for Life. In addition, she is a Louisiana Awareness Advocate with the Abortion Survivors Network and a co-leader for More Than Sisters.
The public is invited to attend and show their support for this project. Attendees who wish to sit during the event are invited to bring lawn chairs.
For more event information, please call (318) 581-7004.
Folks around Sabine Parish have noticed hordes of black crickets in the past few days. The above picture was taken on San Antonio Ave. It is reported that typically if we have an extended drought towards the beginning or the end of summer it can result in really high cricket populations. A lot of times, crickets are really busy at night, and they will swarm toward any light they see. The more lights you have on around your structure, the more cricket problems you’ll have. Other things that promote cricket infestation are moisture, clutter, messy yards and food sources.
Four years ago, Aaron Mitchell was campaigning for Sheriff and walked so many miles campaigning that he wore holes in his boots. We were struck by this dedication and took a picture which was used in Observations. He won the election. We asked Sheriff Mitchell the other day if he thought he might wear a hole in his boots this year, and he said he thought he might. We’ll keep up and if he does, we’ll take a picture.
Sheriff Aaron Mitchell announces K-9 “Zeus” is the newest employee of the Sabine Parish Sheriff’s Office.
Zeus is a one-year-old male German Shepherd born in Poland in July 2022. Zeus and his handler Tactical Narcotics Team (TNT) Sgt. Nick Sandel recently trained together for five weeks at U.S. K9 Unlimited in Abbeville. Zeus is now certified in Patrol Work, Criminal Apprehension, and Narcotics (Methamphetamine, Cocaine, Heroin, Marijuana, and Ecstasy) through U.S. K9 Unlimited.
Sgt. Sandel’s former partner, K-9 “Kay,” is an almost 10-year-old male Dutch Shepard who served Sabine Parish since 2019. Kay retired on August 8, 2023. Kay had all the same certifications as Zeus. Kay will remain at home with Sgt. Sandel where he will live out the rest of his days.
K-9s normally work until they are 10 years old before they are retired.
K-9 Zeus will take Kay’s place alongside Sgt. Sandel and the Tactical Narcotics Team to combat illegal narcotics in Sabine Parish. Zeus will also be able to locate dangerous suspects who flee from law enforcement.
Sheriff Mitchell said a K-9 officer will always be a necessary and valuable member of the Sabine Parish Sheriff’s Office.
(Special thanks to Det. D. W. Seegers for the above information.)
It was a great Hank Williams Sr. 100th Birthday celebration in Montgomery, AL last weekend. Hank Williams Museum Director Beth Petty and husband Jeff pulled out all the stops to provide a very memorable long weekend full of special concerts, informal Museum gatherings and a special graveside service held Sunday morning, on what would have been Hank Sr.’s 100th birthday, Sept. 17, 2023. The Museum also provided beautiful 100th Birthday commemorative items including a special issue poster, enamel pin, magnets, clothing, glossy program book and more.
The Country music legend was honored with concerts presented Friday through Sunday in Montgomery’s beautiful downtown Davis Theater. Performing were Gene Watson, Rhonda Vincent, David Ball, Jason Petty, Leona Williams and son Ron Williams, Perley Curtis, David Church and several others.
Our own Joey Kent, formerly of Shreveport and now of New Orleans, was on hand to represent Shreveport and the Louisiana Hayride. He brought along with him the historic KWKH microphone through which Hank and other stars sang. It was the mic Hank used to make his final recording, “The Log Train.” Joey also brought an oversized poster print of Hank singing through the mic which was fun to admire as well.
Big kudos to the Pettys, who work so hard to pay proper tribute to the legacy of Hank Williams Sr. His latest honor, induction into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, was presented on stage Sunday. Hank already belongs to the Country Music and Rock n’ Roll Halls of Fame.
For more information or to visit the Hank Williams Museum in Montgomery, visit thehankwilliamsmuseum.net or call (334) 262-3600. You’ll be glad you went. Their vast collection is astounding.
Barry Gene Knight, age 59, is wanted by the Sabine Parish Sheriff’s Office for
- Failure to register/notify as Sex Offender (Felony)
- Failure to register vehicle operated by Sex Offender (Felony)
- Theft of Motor Vehicle (Felony)
Knight lived previously in Zwolle and was last seen in the Shreveport area.
(Thanks to Det. D. W. Seegers for sharing this info.)
Our son-in-law Jim Collins, who lives near Charlotte, NC, has become quite the photographer of music acts who tour through his area. His work, including music reviews, has been published in Charlotte, Nashville and other music-rich areas. He has also been tapped to provide album cover photos.
Jim was kind enough to supply the following after Sabine’s own Lucas Jagneaux appeared at the legendary Evening Muse in the NoDa Arts District of historic North Charlotte.
Lucas Jagneaux and the Roadshow
Going to music shows is kind of my hobby at this point in life, and I see on average around 30-40 bands each month. On Sept. 10 here in Charlotte, I attended a show at one of my regular venues, the Evening Muse. This particular night Lucas Jagneaux and the Roadshow was in town and the one on my schedule to attend. To my surprise upon meeting these guys, I learned they were all from the Sabine Parish area. In fact, when Lucas did the band intros during the set and told where each member was from, it was a strange feeling for me [as a former Sabine resident] to hear places like Many, Florien, Converse, and Mansfield as their hometowns. Usually it is Nashville, Charleston, Denver or some other city where bands are based.
His band is one tight playing group that consists of Lucas (guitar, vocals), his brother Tobin Jagneaux (drums), Bates Bell (bass guitar), and Waylon Salter (pedal steel). Each of these guys are excellent musicians in their own right, and together they put on one great show. Lucas is also a talented songwriter as well. Playing his original music was what the crowd was there for, and he did not disappoint. His set covered a lot of his catalog of songs, and he tossed in “My Hometown” in honor of Charlie Robison who had just passed away. Being the true professional and knowing his audience, for the finale he got local singer Justin Clyde Williams to come up and help close the show with James Taylor’s “Carolina in My Mind,” an obvious crowd favorite here.
If you have not listened to his music before, I strongly encourage you to do so. He is on the streaming platforms, and you can find videos and his website online as well. His latest, “Honky Tonk Heart,” is out there now. I hung around after the show for quite a while talking to everyone, and we discussed the people, places and events we had as common ground from back home. Lucas is gaining lots of momentum this way, and I am sure touring will bring him to the Carolinas again to which I am already looking forward.
(Special thanks to Jim Collins for the above article and photos.)
Another musician in which we take a ton of pride is our grandson, Austin Collins, who is gaining traction around Charlotte and elsewhere with his band, Once Below Joy. Austin is the 21-year-old son of daughter Angela and her husband, Jim. They live in Tega Cay, SC.
Austin was blessed with musical roots on his dad’s side. His grandmother, Judy Callens Collins of Belmont, was a wonderful pianist, and he also gets a lot of talent from his dad although Jim is too modest to admit it. Nevertheless, Jim has a huge appreciation for all types of music, and we think he would be okay with taking credit for exposing his and Angela’s three kids – Andrew, Alyssa and Austin – to a wide variety of musical styles and influences.
Steeped in musical appreciation in his early years, by his mid-teens, Austin became interested in guitar. His immediate proficiency on the instrument laid a solid foundation for his current success.
A few years ago, he auditioned to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston and was accepted, but then along came the pandemic and the school would not take on-campus students among other issues. So, Austin went right to work at local venues and quickly organized a hot group of regional musicians, and he hasn’t looked back.
The most recent edition of his group, Once Below Joy, counts their official start as 2022. They’ve been together about a year and half now playing Progressive Rock. The group consists of Austin Collins (lead guitar), Jesse Griesman (rhythm guitar/vocals), Skylar Wade (bass) and Wyatt Fregerio (drums/vocals).
We’re awfully proud the guys write their own music and released their first EP earlier this year, “Through the Fog.” It is on all streaming services, including Spotify, Apple, Tidal, etc. and CDs are also available on the band’s website: www.oncebelowjoy.com.
In their inaugural year, they have already had the privilege of performing at most of Charlotte’s revered music venues. The bandmembers’ young ages have kept them from booking some spots which have an age minimum of 21, but in another year or so, everybody will be of sufficient age to perform on the stages they’ve missed.
We are also proud that Once Below Joy has begun to expand their market by putting on shows outside the Charlotte area. Those include performances in Gastonia, NC, Augusta, GA (at a favorite venue of James Brown) and a recent music festival in Rock Hill, SC. Upcoming show dates include an appearance at The Swanee Theater in Kannapolis, NC.
In addition, they’re garnering great reviews of their performances and new recorded project.
“Once Below Joy’s new release, ‘Through the Fog,’ shows they’re a band to watch among young East Coast [talent]… With songwriting and musical prowess beyond their years, they are laying a firm foundation for great things to come,” bandcamp.com’s reviews include.
Congrats to Austin and all the guys on their budding musical career. We wish Once Below Joy all the best.
Tax Commission Administrator Wanda Rivers provided us the August Sales and Use Tax Report recently, and we see only four Sabine Parish entities showed an increase in taxes collected this year over last for the month of August. Those showing increases were the Towns of Many, Zwolle and Florien and the Sabine Tourist Commission. All other entities received fewer tax monies in August 2023 than in August 2022. The total loss compared to last year for the month of August amounted to $333,983.43.
ONLINE VOTER REGISTRATION DEADLINE NEARS FOR OCT. 14 GUBERNATORIAL ELECTION
Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin reminds voters that the deadline to register online to vote in the Oct. 14 Gubernatorial Primary Election is fast approaching. It is this Saturday, Sept. 23. It is for citizens who have never registered to vote, as well as voters would like to make changes to their registration.
Citizens may check their registration or register to vote online at www.GeauxVote.com. After registering, voters should download the GeauxVote Mobile smartphone app. The app provides registration information as well as voting districts, sample ballots, polling place information and election results.
Early voting for the Oct. 14 election will take place Saturday, Sept. 30 through Saturday, Oct. 7 (excluding Sunday, Oct. 1), from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Registrar of Voters Office in the Courthouse. For more information about the Secretary of State’s Elections Division, visit www.GeauxVote.com or call the Elections Hotline at (800) 883-2805.
(Thanks to our longtime friend and Sec. of State Ardoin’s Chief of Staff Joe Salter for supplying the information above.)
We were excited to learn that the Rev. Billy Gibbs has accepted a call to pastor Alford Heights Baptist Church in Many. Billy is the husband of our longtime friend, Mandy Salter Gibbs, the daughter of Joe and Bettye Salter, formerly of Florien.
Billy has been in ministry for 42 years, starting out in Youth Ministry. He most recently pastored Slagle Baptist Church in Slagle for five and a half years. He is also a Special Education teacher at Vernon Middle School in Leesville.
His first Sunday in the pulpit at Alford Heights will be Oct. 1, and everyone is invited to attend services at 235 Byles St. in Many.
“We are looking forward to ministering at Alford Heights!” wife Mandy shared with Observations recently.
We welcome Billy, Mandy and Tyler to Many in this new role, and we look forward to having them here!
Observations is again getting reports of Bigfoot doing mischief in Fisher. We will carry full details, along with pictures, in next week’s column. So, be on the lookout.
The following was written by Julia Layton in 2020 for howstuffworks.com. It was sent to Observations by our longtime friend Ted Dove. We thank him for drawing our attention to this article.
What Happens if a Presidential Candidate Dies?
Every four years, the United States plunges into a quagmire of political fear mongering, divisiveness and character assassination – deeper into that quagmire, anyway. We’re, of course, talking about the presidential election. And every four years, people ask: What happens if one of the candidates dies during the election?
It’s an awkward but reasonable inquiry. The peaceful, orderly transfer of power is a defining trait of a working democracy, but the death of a candidate could throw a wrench in that process. It’s happened once before in the United States in 1872.
That’s when Horace Greeley joined a group of Republican dissenters who were against then-president Ulysses S. Grant’s reelection and formed the Liberal Republican Party. The party nominated Greeley for president.
Greeley gained more than 40 percent of the popular vote, but before the Electoral College met, Greeley died. Three electors pledged their votes for him anyway; other electors cast their Greeley votes for minor candidates instead. When the ballots went to Congress, lawmakers passed a measure declaring the Greeley votes invalid and certified the win for Grant. In the end, Grant was reelected with 286 electoral votes.
So, what this means is the repercussions of a candidate’s death depend primarily on when it occurs. And at some stages in the election process, it’s not really clear what would happen.
The United States is a representative democracy, not a direct democracy, so the people don’t actually elect the president. U.S. voters elect the members of the Electoral College, and the members of the Electoral College elect the president.
So, the presidential-election process goes like this: The people vote, then the electors vote, then Congress counts the ballots, then a new president is sworn into office.
If a candidate dies before the general election but after they’ve secured their party’s nomination, it’s a relatively simple fix: The deceased candidate’s party picks a replacement (who may or may not be the vice-presidential candidate from the ticket), and that replacement is on the ballot on Election Day. Both the Republican and the Democratic parties have rules about how their parties would fill the vacancy.
If a candidate dies after the general election, it gets more complicated.
If a candidate dies between the popular vote and the meeting of the Electoral College, the parties follow the same process to fill the vacancy on the ticket. If the candidate that dies is on the winning ticket, it’s still the party’s responsibility to provide a new candidate their electors could vote into office.
But here, the political implications are more serious because it takes some of the power away from the people; they don’t get to vote again. The replacement candidate’s name goes on the Electoral College ballot only, and their political party expects its electors to vote the replacement candidate into office.
There’s no federal law saying the electors have to vote for the new candidate. Theoretically, if the candidate to whom they pledged their votes dies and their party doesn’t name a preferred successor, electors could vote for the party’s VP candidate, a third-party candidate or a leading contender within their own party. But state laws vary on the matter.
But what if the president-elect dies — meaning the winning presidential candidate dies after the election but before the inauguration on Jan. 20?
The 20th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides that if the president-elect dies, the rules of succession apply, and the vice-president-elect becomes the president-elect. Unfortunately, it’s not clear when in the process a winning candidate becomes president-elect.
The winning candidate definitely assumes the title president-elect after Jan. 6, when Congress officially counts the Electoral College votes and declares a winner. But a winning presidential candidate has never died before being inaugurated, so Congress has never had to define president-elect.
If the winning presidential candidate dies between Dec. 15 but before Jan. 6, Congress would have to decide whether to count the votes cast for them. If Congress chooses to validate the votes, the laws of presidential succession are carried out, and the winning candidate’s vice president becomes president-elect. If Congress chooses not to validate the votes, however, the question will be whether the living candidate has a majority of the overall electoral votes. If they don’t, then the 12th Amendment says the House of Representatives must elect the president from among the three candidates with the most votes.
In a two-person race, then, the breathing candidate wins.
(Thanks again to Ted Dove for sharing the above.)
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