Sports: Longtime N.O. writer reflects on career, p. 5
Music: Flaming Lips play at Varsity today in world record attempt, p. 9
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www.lsureveille.com
Going for the Gold
Track & Field: Duncan begins Olympic qualifying today, p. 5 Thursday, June 28, 2012 • Volume 116, Issue 147
Joshua Bergeron Staff Writer
“The LSU Quidditch team nominated five people, and a committee selected the players based on experience, notoriety, organizational skills and who could pay for the trip,” Armentor said. Kneiling and Armentor had to raise $3,000 each for the trip. To foot the bill, Kneiling said she worked and saved her money, while Armentor said he received donations and held fundraisers in his hometown. Kneiling, who has been playing Quidditch since her freshman year, could barely
The University received a green designation on its targets for the LA GRAD Act from the Board of Regents on Wednesday, allowing it to raise tuition by 10 percent. During the annual review of the LA GRAD Act, Larry Tremblay, deputy commissioner for Planning, Research and Academic Affairs, addressed the board as part of the Planning, Research and Performance Committee. “It’s all based on student success,” Tremblay stressed. “If an institution doesn’t pass the student success standards, then they don’t pass. It’s that simple.” However, LSU-Eunice did not pass those student success standards. It was the only institution to receive a red designation. The Eunice campus failed to pass three out of five student success targets — first-to-second year retention rate, same-institution graduation rate and statewide
QUIDDITCH, see page 15
GRAD ACT, see page 15
LSU Quidditch players chosen to represent US in international tournament
Marylee Williams Contributing Writer
MORGAN SEARLES / The Daily Reveille
GRAD Act allows for tuition increase
LSU-Eunice to lose $700K in funding
(And not just the snitch)
Sarah Kneiling, agriculture-business senior, defends another player [left] and Brad Armentor, kinesiology senior, makes an offensive move [right] during their final Quidditch practice Tuesday before the two leave to represent the U.S.A. Quidditch team in London.
BOARD OF REGENTS
Sarah Kneiling, agriculture-business senior, and Brad Armentor, kinesiology senior, are getting ready to represent the U.S. abroad. They just have to remember to pack their broomsticks with their cleats. Kneiling, a beater, and Armentor, a chaser, raced down a makeshift Quidditch field Tuesday evening in a last-minute practice before they join 19 other Quidditch players for the first International Quidditch Association 2012 Summer Games.
The United States will compete against the United Kingdom, Australia, France and Canada in the July 8 tournament in Oxford’s Cutteslowe Park. The two finalists from that tournament will participate in a Quidditch demonstration match during Oxford’s Olympic torch festival on July 9. Quidditch players from all over the country were chosen to represent the United States in the summer games. However, players weren’t selected solely on athletic ability, according to Armentor, because there is limited footage of Quidditch games.
ALUMNI
Former Golden Girl wins fiction awards Leblanc inspired by family history Kristen Frank Contributing Writer
From dancing to drafting, M. M. Leblanc has gone from being an LSU Golden Girl to writing an award-winning historical novel. The book, titled “Evangeline: Paradise Stolen,” has received the 2012 National Independent Publisher Book Award, and more recently, the Louisiana Press Women Communication Award in Fiction, Books and Verse.
The novel details the history behind the deportation of the Acadians by the British from France to Canada in 1755. Leblanc’s novel chronicles the lives of families during the famous deportation, with her own ancestors’ history interwoven through the work. Her maternal grandfather’s side of the family was part of a group that was deported from France to Canada and then exiled to Louisiana, Leblanc said. She said hers was one of the first and largest families to take part in this event. René Leblanc from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s
“Evangeline” was the notary — the person who verified documentation as official — for the King of France, and he worked in the time of the deportation. He was also a relative of Leblanc. Leblanc grew up in Lafayette, La., and learned about her genealogy from her grandfather, former Louisiana Senator Dudley Leblanc. She said the inspiration for the novel came from wanting people to know of her family’s story, the illegal actions of the British in 1755 and her own love of history. With studies in marketing and French, Leblanc didn’t take any NOVEL, see page 15
photo courtesy of CAERULEUM PUBLISHING
M.M. LeBlanc, former Golden Girl and author of “Evangeline: Paradise Stolen,” received the 2012 National Independent Publisher Book Award and the Louisiana Press Women Communication Award in Fiction for her historical novel.