Wednesday, April 3, 2019
The Louisiana Forestry Association has released its list of Champion Trees in Louisiana for 2019. Sabine Parish didn’t have any on the list this year. Natchitoches Parish had the champion Bur Oak with a circumference of 16 ft. 5 in.; the champion Pawpaw with a circumference of 1 ft. 10 in.; and the champion Prickly Ash with a circumference of 4 ft. 1 in. DeSoto Parish had the champion Silverbell with a circumference of 4 ft. 5 in. Neighboring Vernon Parish had 31 champion trees.
The Marthaville Cemetery Committee will be selling barbecue lunches Saturday, April 13, from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. in front of the Heritage Building in beautiful downtown Marthaville. Funds raised will be used to pay the Committee’s legal bill because the group is having to sue past president Rocky Gandy to obtain the Cemetery’s records. Folks who have loved ones buried at the cemetery recently elected new officers, effectively kicking Gandy out.
Now, he will not turn over the cemetery records to the new officers and they have no other recourse except to sue.
If you have a question, give Renée Rains a call at (318) 471-2360.
For the past month of so, three airplanes have been working steadily from Hart Airport in Many. They have been busy dropping pellet fertilizer on pine timberland in the Fisher area. The planes get filled at the airport, drop their load over the forest and then come back to be re-filled. It was interesting to watch them.
Political season is on the upswing. Kelly Stewart posted the following on Facebook last week following Observation’s report on the Police Jury pay hike and insurance.
“The whole police jury raise in crazy! And the road conditions throughout the whole parish are awful! When you look at the public record, [the jury doesn’t] have much money to spend, yet they up their pay?!?!?! Doesn’t make any sense to me at all. But this is why I will be running for Police Jury Ward 2 and my father Bo Stewart will be running for Police Jury in Ward 1. Maybe, just maybe, we can get out there and make our roads drivable again. But with some time, patience and lots of prayer, we can make this happen. It will take me and my crew, and the public to bear with us, but we will try our hardest to make this happen. Stewart 2019.”
And Maggie Witt responded, “Kelly, Bo: I think you all will do a wonderful job as Police Jurors. You have to travel the same roads we do. It makes me so mad that they would have the nerve to give themselves a raise and not use the money for our roads. Shameful!!!”
Roxanna Acadia LLC, Olympic Minerals is currently drilling Well #2 in the Pendleton-Many field, just a short distance from Fisher. The permit for the new well was issued March 18. The location is in Section 21, Township 6N, Range 11W. The permit is for a 7,000-foot horizontal well. The company brought in a producer in the same area some months back.
The sad condition of the asphalt job on the Shuteye Road off Hwy. 6 in Many has been called to our attention. We checked into it and found the road has already been patched, is buckling up in places and is in pretty bad condition for a relatively new road surface.
The one-mile overlay was started Oct. 2, 2017 and was finished on Oct 9. The contractor was Aklin Asphalt of Zwolle. And the Police Jury paid $114,901.01 for the job.
It was completed a year and five months ago. Seems the overlay should have lasted longer than that.
We are told that after the overlay was put down, a flood came and washed some of it off the road. Observations asked the Jury if the road work was guaranteed, but as this post, we had not received an answer.
You don’t see a plane like this very often at Hart Airport in Many. This 2005 Cessna 525 was spotted there Wednesday of last week. It is owned by Hog Air Aviation of Paragould, AR and is an eight-seater with two engines.
Work continues on the gas compression plant north of Many just off Hwy. 171. And pipelines are being laid all around. It all is bringing in a lot of workers to Sabine Parish and hopefully a lot of money into our local economy.
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Signs Along Life’s Highway
Saw this sign at the recent 24th Annual Hog Dog Trials Festival in Winnfield.
“Rooster Cogburn” is the big Movies in Many feature film this Saturday, April 6, at the Many Community Center. The show starts at 7 p.m. and admission is free.
Sequel to the Oscar-winning “True Grit,” “Rooster Cogburn” finds the trigger-happy Rooster (played by John Wayne) trying to win back his law badge by hunting a gang of bandits and a stolen shipment of explosives. His job is not made any easier by the daughter of one of the gang’s victims, Mattie (played by Katharine Hepburn) who insists on coming along for the ride.
Rooster is a deputy marshal for the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas. May not sound like much of a job description, but consider this: through most of the nineteenth century, western lands were Indian Territory and not under regular U.S. law. The only people with jurisdiction in tens of thousands of square miles were U.S. Marshals – and there weren’t too many of those. Fugitives from U.S. states would flee to the Territory, where U.S. police couldn’t legally arrest them and where they’d have a good chance of hiding out from any lawmen.
So, if you were a marshal, your job was basically to try to keep order in one of the most lawless regions the U.S. has ever known. A person was pitting himself against the most desperate, violent criminals in doing so. It was a dangerous job.
Marshals were some of the toughest guys out there, and Rooster is represented as one of the worst (or best, depending on how you look at it) of the bunch. In one memorable movie scene, the sheriff says, “The meanest one is Rooster Cogburn. He is a pitiless man, double-tough, and fear don’t enter into his thinking.”
Rooster’s character is questioned throughout the story and folks are led to believe he may be corrupt as well as mean. It is noted that he killed a total of twenty-three men in his four years as a marshal, a number which goes up by the end of his story. It is never quite clear whether the killings of his past are justified, or whether Rooster was trigger-happy. He is portrayed as hard drinking and quick tempered – at home sleeping on the ground in the outdoors, but not so good at indoor life.
Though he’s crusty on the outside, turns out he has a good heart. John Wayne created one of his most memorable characters when he played the role of Rooster Cogburn. You don’t want to miss the movie.
Movies in Many is sponsored by the Many Cultural District Advisory Committee, Mayor Ken Freeman and the Town of Many. The movies are always free, and concessions are available for only $1 each.
If my wife’s mother had lived, she would be 78 today. Her name was Louise Arnold Ellis and from what Laurie tells me, she was a wonderful lady. She died at age 40 from breast cancer when Laurie was 11. Laurie thinks of her mom most every day and especially on April 3.
Don’t forget, folks! This Saturday is the big Bethsadia Baptist Church 2nd Annual Chili Cook-Off from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Many Market Basket parking lot, located at 175 San Antonio Ave.
Admission is free and it’s going to be a great time as chili cooks from throughout Sabine vie for the top prize to be awarded by a panel of judges. For only $5, the public can buy a ticket to sample all the chilis and vote for the “People’s Choice Award.”
Pastor Jay Begbie says there will be lots of fun, interesting activities for everybody, including bounce toys by whatsupinflatables for the kids, Toledo Cruisers Cars and Coffee, and the Soldiers of the Cross Motorcycle Ministry.
If you want to get in it to win it, the chili cook-off entry fee is only $25. Entrants may cook their chili on-site or bring it pre-prepared. They may set up starting at 7 a.m. and electricity will be provided. Judging starts between 10:30 and 11 a.m.
For more information about the event or to enter the cook-off, contact Pastor Jay Begbie at (318) 613-7640.
That’s it for now. Please call or write with your ideas and suggestions for future articles. I love to hear from you. Call me at (318) 332-8653 or send an email to robertrgentry@gmail.com. To print, send or save this week’s column, click on the icon below. Recently archived Observations are located in the pages listed here. Older columns are archived on our Facebook page, where they are listed under Photos and Albums, and listed by date.
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