The Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Induction Celebration’s Round Table Luncheon is the most exclusive, yet casual, opportunity for the public to enjoy hearing from the Class of 2025 inductees.

It’s next Saturday, June 28, at 12pm at Riverside Reserve, 104 Mill Street, in Natchitoches. There are still a few seats available among the 300 guests for the seventh annual Round Table Luncheon presented by the Tiger Athletic Foundation.

Registration is available for the luncheon and can be made by visiting LaSportsHall.com, or by calling 318-238-4255. It is a ticketed event and only a few dozen seats are still open to see and hear from 2025 inductees including Nick Saban, Andrew Whitworth, Vickie Johnson, Danny Granger, Danny Broussard and Joe Scheuermann.

Festivities begin next Thursday evening, June 26, at 5pm with the free of charge Welcome Reception open to all, no registration necessary, at the Hall of Fame museum facing the traffic circle at 800 Front Street in Natchitoches.

The Friday, June 27 slate begins with the BOM Celebrity Bowling Bash at Four Seasons Bowling Center in Alexandria. Friday evening is the free Rockin’ River Fest concert on Cane River Lake in downtown Natchitoches, from 6-10:30pm, with the Class of 2025 introduced at 9:15 right before a sports-themed fireworks show over the water.

Events Saturday include the free for kids Saints and Pelicans Junior Training Camp, the Round Table Luncheon, and the Induction Reception and Ceremony, which is sold out. A waiting list is being compiled.

The Round Table Luncheon starts with tremendous Louisiana cuisine and quickly kicks into gear with Fox Sports announcer (and 2020 LSHOF inductee) Tim Brando interviewing small groups of inductees on stage in a very informal and fast-moving setting.

A poignant scene at the 2019 luncheon unfolded before the program when Peyton Manning, being inducted later that day, stopped by to greet LSU legend Johnny Robinson, who was inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame two months later.

Scenes like that, up-close access and the fun-filled dialog between Brando and the Hall of Fame inductees combine to provide a memorable 90-minute event.

The Hall of Fame Round Table Luncheon shapes up as a highly entertaining opportunity for guests to have a up-close-and-personal experience and be entertained and well fed in a casual setting, with a touch of elegance at Riverside Reserve on the banks of Cane River Lake just a mile from downtown Natchitoches.

To answer the question of where the big bass craze started, all we need to do is look at our neighbor to the west — Texas! No state has done more for bass fishing than Texas, and the people largely responsible work at the Texas Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (TDWF).

Texas has led the way showing how all other states should manage their fisheries, especially when it comes to producing huge largemouth bass. 
 
In the 1970s, tournament bass fishing was starting to take root and anglers wanted to catch more and bigger bass. The first lake that started producing huge bass was a power plant lake, Lake Monticello, near my hometown of Mt. Pleasant, Texas.
 
By the mid 1970s, this is where the big bass fever infected Texas and the bass fishing world. Monticello was a hot waterpower plant lake which gave bass a long and productive growing season. Here bass started spawning in December and as word spread about the size of bass being caught, Monticello became a destination for all bass fishermen.
 
Then in 1980, one of the greatest bass fisheries in America was impounded … Lake Fork. This lake was a game changer and lit the fuse for an explosion of huge largemouth bass. Every bass angler that has ever wet a hook has dreamed of catching either a new world or state record bass and most felt Lake Fork was the place that would give anglers the best opportunity.
 
It presently holds 12 of the top 20 bass ever caught in the state of Texas!  It recently showed out this past May when the Bassmaster Elite Series showed up. It took a four-day total of over 128 pounds to win this event. The winner, with his best five, had a daily average just over 6 pounds per fish! 
 
Today, there are other lakes in Texas that are starting to produce record-size bass with the most recent being Lake O.H. Ivie, located just south of Abilene. There, double-digit bass are becoming the norm with 8-10 pound bass not even turning heads. 

 
In the last three years, O.H. Ivie has produced 39 bass weighing 13 pounds or more, all caught between the months of January and March. In Texas, all fish caught over 13 pounds become a part of what is called the Legacy Class Program. 
 
This is all part of the Texas ShareLunker Program. Biologists retrieve these huge bass from around the state and take them back to the hatchery in Athens. There they will breed these lunker fish with other lunker bass over 10 pounds, which in turn will be used as a part of their stocking program for other lakes.
 
In 2023, bass caught in O.H Ivie made up 83 percent of the Legacy Class Bass caught in the state of Texas. Today, this lake continues to produce lunker bass like no other. This calendar year the lake has produced eight Legacy Class Bass over 13 pounds and 14 bass over 10 pounds as part of the ShareLunker program.
 
To visit lakes in Louisiana where an angler might catch a double-digit bass, you may want to check out Toledo Bend, Caddo Lake, Caney Lake or Bussey Break.

‘Til next time remember, the only way to catch big fish is if your lake has big fish! 

Contact Steve at sgraf26@yahoo.com.

June 18 marks the anniversary week of the death of Ray Charles, one of the most influential musicians in American history. Though he passed away on June 10, 2004, the week surrounding his death is often a time of reflection and remembrance for fans and artists alike.

Known as “The Genius,” Ray Charles helped shape modern music by blending gospel, blues, jazz, and country into a sound that became the foundation of soul. His influence stretched far beyond any single genre, and his legacy continues to impact music today.

Born Ray Charles Robinson in Albany, Georgia, in 1930, he lost his sight at age 7 due to glaucoma. Raised in poverty and orphaned as a teen, Charles’s early life was filled with hardship. Yet he found purpose through music, studying classical piano and composition at the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind.

After moving into the professional music scene, Charles signed with Atlantic Records in the 1950s, where he found success with hits like “I Got a Woman” and “What’d I Say.” He revolutionized the industry by bringing gospel-inspired vocals into popular music, a move that gave rise to the soul genre.

Among his many classics, “Georgia On My Mind” became especially iconic, later adopted as Georgia’s official state song in 1979. Over his six-decade career, Charles earned 17 Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s inaugural class in 1986.

Charles’s contributions went far beyond music. In 1961, he refused to perform at a segregated venue in Georgia, taking a stand that would later be seen as a quiet but powerful moment in civil rights history. Throughout his life, he supported causes that uplifted underrepresented communities, particularly those with disabilities.

Despite personal struggles—including a long battle with heroin addiction—Charles maintained a prolific career and remained a generous supporter of programs for the blind and disadvantaged youth. He fathered 12 children and continued to perform and record well into his later years.

His final album, Genius Loves Company, was released shortly after his death and featured duets with artists like Norah Jones, Elton John, and Bonnie Raitt. The album earned eight Grammy Awards in 2005, including Album of the Year, further cementing his legacy.

A memorial service was held on June 18, 2004, at the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles, where stars such as B.B. King, Stevie Wonder, and Willie Nelson paid tribute to the late artist. Then-President George W. Bush called Charles “a great American legend.”

Ray Charles passed away at age 73 from liver disease, but his music continues to resonate with audiences of all ages. As fans remember him during the week of his passing, his life stands as a testament to the power of perseverance, creativity, and soul.

From a blind child in the segregated South to a global icon, Ray Charles redefined what was possible in music—and proved that genius knows no boundaries.

Brad Dison, a lifelong resident of Bienville Parish and writer whose history column “Remember This?” runs weekly in the Journal, has released a new book about Sheriff Henderson Jordan’s pursuit and capture of notorious gangsters Bonnie and Clyde.

“The Trap: The Untold Story of Sheriff Henderson Jordan and the Final Pursuit of Bonnie and Clyde” is now available for purchase at www.HendersonJordan.com.

“There has been more fiction than fact written about their crime spree,” Dison said. “For 91 years, people have assumed that former Texas Ranger Frank Hamer used his superior tracking skills to locate Bonnie and Clyde. This is another bit of fiction. It was Bienville Parish Sheriff Henderson Jordan who located two of their hideouts in Bienville Parish. It was he who set three traps to capture the gang. It was he who used an ‘undercover man’ and a ‘man on the inside’ to determine where they would be on that fateful morning of May 23, 1934. It was he who led the ambush posse and ended their violent crime spree.”

I had it but it is gone now.

You read these articles days after I send them. My habit is to write and send them on Monday morning before noon. So, I start thinking about them on Sunday afternoon. I had the greatest idea in the history of these articles for an article. The idea was brilliant. It was illuminating. It was humorous. It was less than six hundred words. I remember exactly where I had the idea. I was sitting in traffic at Walgreens. I was on my way to Tractor Supply to look at things I will never use in my life. I call this “expanding my horizons.” I smiled to myself and asked myself if I should write the idea down. Somewhere in my brain the voice told me that this idea was so brilliant, illuminating, and humorous there would be no way I could ever forget the idea.

Never ever trust that voice in your head. The voice lies. I have no idea what I was going to write. I do not have a clue. I do not know if it was animal, mineral, or vegetable. I lost it. The idea is gone or has landed in someone’s Instagram feed, and they are claiming it as their very own idea. Today, if you read something brilliant, illuminating, and humorous, it was probably my idea!

The idea for the article had something to do with a Yiddish proverb. The Yiddish proverb teaches, “If one man calls you an ass pay him no mind. If two men call you an ass—go and buy a saddle.” I thought it was brilliant, illuminating, and humorous. I forgot what else went with it.

Do you forget?

As I grow more mature and notice all the physical stuff that does not work anymore, I have noticed that my mind is not as quick as it once was. I forget things. I just remembered that I forgot to read an Internet article on remembering not to forget.

Here is the truth in all this. God remembers you! He loves you, knows you, and remembers you as if you were His only child!

When you confess your sins to Him, He forgets them. Since God has forgotten your sins, why do you keep carrying them around?

I am glad God remembers and forgets!

By Royal Alexander

In a unanimous (9-0) ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that Title VII specifically (and the Equal Protection Clause, generally) deems reverse discrimination in American society to be just as odious and intolerable as traditional discrimination.

This holding is not only important because it again enshrines fundamental fairness and equality in our law, but it also prevents similar future cases of reverse discrimination from having to be proven based upon a higher legal standard because the claimant (like here) is a member of a so-called “majority” group (i.e. heterosexual).

This case, Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services, involves a heterosexual (straight) woman who claimed she had been discriminated against on that basis.

Let’s unpack this.

The U.S. Supreme Court determined that “Marlean Ames, a heterosexual woman, has worked for the Ohio Department of Youth Services in various roles since 2004. In 2019, the agency interviewed Ames for a new management position but ultimately hired another candidate—a lesbian woman. The agency subsequently demoted Ames from her role as a program administrator and later hired a gay man to fill that role. Ames then filed this lawsuit against the agency under Title VII, alleging that she was denied the management promotion and demoted because of her (heterosexual) sexual orientation.”

Title VII prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. However, because of her “background circumstances,” Miss Ames, a member of a “majority” group (heterosexual) was required by the district and appeal courts to show additional evidence of discrimination to prove her case.

Not anymore.

The Supreme Court ruled that this heterosexual woman could not be discriminated against regarding job promotions in favor of gay candidates. However, in addition to prohibiting this straight v. gay discrimination, the Court also ruled that members of “majority” groups do not need to meet a higher standard of proof—i.e., based upon their “background circumstances” in order to prove they have been discriminated against. Now, Americans who fall into a “majority” class only have to meet the typical burden of proof that they have suffered discrimination.

Hence, the Court found that Miss Ames was discriminated against on the basis of her sexual orientation after she was passed over for one promotion and demoted from another position. The Court determined that “Ames was qualified, had been denied a promotion in favor of a gay candidate, and was later demoted in favor of another gay candidate.”

The Court stated:

“The Sixth Circuit has implemented a rule that requires certain Title VII plaintiffs—those who are members of majority groups—to satisfy a heightened evidentiary standard,” Justice Ketanji Jackson wrote. “We conclude that Title VII does not impose such a heightened standard on majority group plaintiffs. Therefore, the judgment is vacated.”

This is an important ruling.

In short, what the Supreme Court decided is that a member of a “majority group” (in this case, a heterosexual) does not have to present any more evidence to prove they have been discriminated against than would an individual alleging discrimination who is a member of a so-called “minority group,” such as gay, lesbian or black. The Court observed that requiring Ames to show “background circumstances … that the employer was hostile to straight people—wouldn’t have been required had a gay employee claimed discrimination.”

Going forward, if there is discriminatory treatment of an employee it won’t matter if the employee alleging discrimination is white, heterosexual, lesbian, gay, or anything else. They will be held to the very same legal standard in proving discrimination.

The Heritage Foundation noted:

“The Supreme Court properly ruled today that there is not a higher standard of proof for someone asserting that they were discriminated against depending on whether they are gay or heterosexual. The idea that there should be different standards for different individuals based on their race or sexual orientation is repugnant and a clear violation of federal civil rights laws that protect everyone. (H. v. Spakovsky)

This decision is consistent with the Court’s ending the use of race in college admissions and the dismantling of DEI programs. Chief Justice John Roberts has written, lamenting in a 2006 case involving the issue of race in legislative redistricting, “it is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.” This decision—although involving the issue of sex—and others like it have gone a long way toward achieving the golden ideal of genuine equality in our country.

By Brad Dison

On the afternoon of June 4, 1987, 22-year-old Marquisa Kellogg was working at the Grand Slam Restaurant, a once-popular eatery in the Madisonville neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. She had served cheese coneys to two men in their early 20s whom she considered friends. She said she knew them “from the neighborhood.” Marquisa and the two customers exchanged pleasantries. There was no reason for Marquisa to suspect that this day would be any different than any other workday at the restaurant, but according to newspaper accounts from 1987, it all went wrong when the two men walked up to the cash register. The men had a brazen plan to rob Marquisa’s cash register. When they approached Marquisa, one of the men pulled a weapon. Marquisa took one look at the robber’s weapon and fled from her post at the open cash register. When she regained her composure and returned to the cash register, she found that it was short by $25 and called the police.

Police arrived at the restaurant, spoke with Marquisa, and began interviewing other customers. Police struggled to find witnesses to the crime. Upon hearing Marquisa scream, customers turned toward the cash register and saw her run away, but no one actually saw either of the men take money from the cash register. Was this part of the plan? Did the robbers intentionally steer the other customers’ attention onto the fleeing cashier and away from the cash register to enable them to quickly snatch some money? Was this their grand slam?

Marquisa later said the police failed to take the robbery seriously. You see, rather than using a weapon that most people would normally expect a robber to use, such as a gun or knife, this robber used a much smaller weapon which was only about an inch-and-a-half long. The weapon that the robber used to frighten Marquisa away from her cash register long enough to take money from it was a harmless six-legged winged insect called a Cicada.

In an interview in 2021, Marquisa said the robbery at the Grand Slam Restaurant which received national news coverage had been blown out of proportion. She said it had all been a prank gone wrong, but her register was still short $25. Police made no arrests in this case.

Sources:

1. Wilmington News-Journal, June 5, 1987, p.1.

2. News Journal, June 6, 1987, p.12.

3. The Cincinnati Enquirer, June 19, 2021, p.A5.

On Wednesday, June 11, Louisiana residents embrace the spirit of summer by celebrating National Corn on the Cob Day, honoring one of the season’s most beloved staples. On this day, communities across the state gather to enjoy the sweet simplicity of corn on the cob while highlighting its cultural and agricultural significance.

Though often overshadowed by larger crops like sugarcane and cotton, sweet corn has long been a part of Louisiana’s summer harvest. This year, local farmers reported an especially strong crop.

Families across the state embrace the holiday at home, preparing corn on the cob in a variety of delicious ways. Some boil it the classic way and topped it with butter and salt, while others opt for grilling to add a smoky flavor and charred texture. For those looking to change things up, here are several popular ways Louisianans can cook corn on the cob for dinner:

Boiled: Simmered in salted water and served with butter, a timeless method.

Grilled: Charred on the grill for a smoky flavor, often brushed with garlic butter or Cajun seasoning.

Oven-Roasted: Wrapped in foil or baked open-faced with herbs, garlic, and olive oil.

Steamed: A gentle cooking method that keeps corn juicy and flavorful.

Air Fried: Quickly crisped in the air fryer with a light oil coating and spices.

Microwaved: A fast and convenient option—simply wrap ears in a damp paper towel and cook for a few minutes.

Elote-Style: Inspired by Mexican street corn—grilled and topped with mayo, cheese, chili powder, and lime.

Boiled in Milk and Butter: A rich Southern-style twist that adds creaminess and sweetness.

Beyond its flavor, corn offered health benefits, too. High in fiber and rich in antioxidants, it makes for a nutritious addition to dinner tables when prepared without excessive toppings. Nutritionists remind home cooks that keeping preparation simple—boiled, grilled, or roasted with minimal seasoning—could maintain both taste and wellness.

While June 11 also marks other observances like National German Chocolate Cake Day and International Yarn Bombing Day, National Corn on the Cob Day steals the show in Louisiana. Its ties to local farming, summer cooking traditions, and nostalgic family meals makes it a natural fit for celebration.