GONZALES CELEBRATES WITH ANNUAL CHRISTMAS LIGHTING CEREMONY ä Page 3G
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THURSDAY DECEMBER 11, 2014 H DONALDSONVILLE • DUTCHTOWN • GEISMAR • GONZALES • PRAIRIEVILLE • ST. AMANT • SORRENTO THEADVOCATE.COM
Parish explores options for road work
Darlene Denstorff
BY DAVID J. MITCHELL
of La. 42 and had already converted one side of the old road into dirt, awaiting a fresh run of PRAIRIEVILLE — The train of big base material and asphalt. Manchac Acres is one of the construction vehicles inched along one side of two-lane Man- first and longest stretches of chac Acres Road one morn- road that F.G. Sullivan is repairing this month as contractors ing as part of a $6.9 million parmoved forward with a major ish government road overlay rework of the parish road in program, parish officials said. The project, approved last northern Ascension. Workers with F.G. Sullivan month and begun Dec. 1, repreJr. Contractor are repaving 1.9 sents one of Ascension’s largest miles of Manchac Acres north road maintenance outlays in re-
dmitchell@theadvocate.com
AROUND ASCENSION
DDENSTORFF@ THEADVOCATE.COM
Sheriff in need of shoppers Calling all shoppers. Sheriff Jeff Wiley is looking for volunteer shoppers to fill the Christmas list of hundreds of area children in his Christmas Crusade for Children program. Anyone interested in helping out is asked to meet at the Gonzales Wal-Mart at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 11, near the grocery entrance. Volunteers will receive family cards listing children’s ages and requested gifts. The program picks up the bill, and deputies with the Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office tag and bag the gifts. If shopping isn’t your thing, there are other ways to help. The Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office is accepting monetary donations and new toys to help make a happy holiday season for disadvantaged children in Ascension Parish. For additional information, call Deputy Janet Fontenot at (225) 621-8318 or Deputy Jodie Delaune at (225) 6218374.
cent years and will repave and repair nearly 23 miles of parish roads, according to the parish road list. The project, which actually combines two years’ worth of road work, also for the first time relies on new road mapping efforts approved in 2012 and conducted in 2013 to help establish road priorities for the overlay program, parish officials said. Councilman Todd Lambert,
chairman of the parish Transportation Committee, said Monday that he believes the parish’s switch to a more hightech method of measuring road conditions has made setting the priority list fairer for the entire parish. Lambert said the roads being repaired in his council district, as an example, were the priority roads, and he believes the assessment method likely will be used on future road overlay
programs. “We’ll see how the program goes this first go-round,â€? Lambert said. The council has been supportive of the method, Lambert said, saying they agreed that the new way of prioritizing roads for repair appears to be more fair. Jason Taylor, parish engineer, agreed with that view, noting äSee ROAD, page 4G
Eat, Dance & Be Merry
Gonzales Christmas Parade route Starts 2 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 14
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Advocate staff photo by TRAVIS SPRADLING
Prairieville’s Calvin Braud, 79, dances with his friend Virley Lanoux, 83, of St. Amant, Tuesday at the 30th annual Gonzales Senior Citizens Christmas party at the Gonzales Civic Center. Seen at left are Carnell Fontenot, 74, and his wife, Delores Fontenot, 70, and at right, Stanley Dixon, 77, and his wife Gwen Dixon, 75, all from Gonzales. ä To see more photos from the event, visit www.theadvocate.com.
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Gonzales Christmas Parade Floats, marching bands and firetrucks will roll out of the East Ascension High School gates at 2 p.m. Sunday for the annual Gonzales Christmas Parade. The parade goes from Worthey Road to Burnside Avenue and ends at Airline Highway, said organizers with the parade sponsor, the Jambalaya Festival Association. For information, visit jambalayafestival.org/ events_christmasparade. aspx.
Christmas Movie Night
Volunteer Ascension’s Christmas Movie Night is set for 6 p.m. Friday in the amphitheater at Jambalaya äSee AROUND, page 2G
Senior gardeners bring beds to their level BY KATE STEVENS
“Things changed for me,� said Judy Cook, a 71-year-old retired beautician. And with age came the usual PRAIRIEVILLE — Leroy Cook calls it “senior gardening,� a aches and pains. “You get very uncomfortable method of raising his garden beds waist-high to allow him working on the ground,� said and his wife, Judy, to continue Leroy Cook, 74. “It’s just an easier way to gardening without as much physical wear and tear on their garden,� he said of the raised beds. bodies. The Cooks’ three-acre propLifelong gardeners, the Cooks realized they needed to erty once boasted cattle and scale back their favorite fruit- chickens raised for beef and ful hobby as the years crept eggs, and the backyard behind by, especially after two car ac- their 1961 cypress-hewn home cidents and a 2011 surgery pre- featured rows of corn and othvented Judy Cook from easily er crops. It was so impressive, Leroy bending down and getting back Cook said, that agricultural up again.
Special to The Advocate
classes would take field trips to see how fruit and vegetables were grown. The couple, who have been married for 53 years, also grew their own potatoes, strawberries, figs, tomatoes and cucumbers. The homegrown food helped them save money at the grocery store, especially as their family grew to include four sons. Their backyard still includes fig trees and turnip and mustard greens growing in the ground, but most of his crops are now in raised boxes.
Advocate staff photo by KATE STEVENS
Judy and Leroy Cook inspect their green onions using the äSee GARDENS, page 3G ‘senior gardening’ method.
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