Discover Lafayette

Herb Schilling joins Discover Lafayette to look back on the profound influence his education at UL-Lafayette (formerly USL) has played in his life.

In recognition of his generosity and dedication to the university, Herb is being honored at the UL-Lafayette Alumni Association’s 25th annual Spring Gala on March 26, 2022.

The University of Louisiana at Lafayette Alumni Association will honor Herb Schilling at its Spring Gala 25th anniversary year event to be held from 6-10 p.m. on Saturday, March 26, at the UL Lafayette Alumni Center, 600 E. St. Mary Blvd. It will feature entertainment and food, and live and silent auctions. Art, gifts, travel opportunities, and Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns merchandise are among items that will be up for bid. Tickets may be purchased here.

Herb reminisced about his upbringing in Lafayette and his lifelong friendships with his classmates. "The university has been a part of my life from birth. My mother (Olga Schilling) was a professor of secretarial sciences at the university in 1949 when I was born and we resided one block from the university on Johnston St. My mother would walk to work every day. My first schooling was at Hamilton Lab School, a laboratory school on campus to train teachers. I received my first degree from the university in 1954....I'll see who's paying attention!"

Herb Schilling graduated from the Hamilton Lab School in 1954. The University has been a part of his life since birth. He is pictured in the top row, second from left.The Hamilton Training School operated on McKinley Street on the campus of SLI, the Southwestern Louisiana Institute in Lafayette, from 1939-1977. The students were children of SLI/USL staff and faculty.

Like his father, Herbert Schilling, who came to Lafayette in the late 1920s to play baseball and became co-owner of the Lafayette White Sox co-founder of the Evangeline League, Herb loved baseball and had an encouraging future in that realm. But when he was a young boy, Clyde Wolf encouraged him to be a golfer and discouraged him from trying to compete in two sports arenas. Herb took up golf and gave up his baseball aspirations. He became a four-year letterman on the USL golf team and graduated in 1972 with a degree in business management. He was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.

"The university is an asset to this community in that it has helped us survive the ups and downs of the oil industry. Now, it is the backbone of our community, deservedly so. The success of this university means the success of this town, and the success of this town means the success of our business."

Herb particularly credits two professors, Dr. Bernard Bienvenu and Dr. Rex Hausen, for serving as the foundation of his business success. Both Harvard-educated, they used the Harvard case-study method for teaching back in the 1960s and 1970s when Herb attended college. "USL was the only university using that method in the south," Herb said.

Dr. Bernard Bienvenu (pictured at right) along with Dr. Rex Hausen, taught Herb Schilling business principles during his days at USL studying business management. "That education is why I'm here today. One thing Dr. Bienvenu always said was 'Have balance in your life. Don't have everything in one pocket, because if that pocket rips, all the marbles will fall out and you'll lose everything." As opportunities knocked throughout Herb's life, he would pick good investments and most importantly, "good partners."

Following his father's death in 1981, Herb assumed leadership of Schilling Distributing which he has grown to heights never imagined, now distributing a vast array of beers as well as fine wines.

Bryan MacDonald, CEO of SchoolMint, joins Discover Lafayette to share the story of how his company chose Lafayette LA as its new headquarters. A technology industry leader in choice, enrollment, registration, and behavior for K through 12 schools, SchoolMint serves more than 12 million students in 18,000 schools nationwide.

With over 25 years of education software industry experience, Bryan has been at the forefront in designing technological advancements that dramatically affect all aspects of the educational experience for students, parents, and schools.

Bryan got his start as a middle school math and science teacher at the University of Wyoming Laboratory School while also working as a Technology Specialist. He loved it, got immersed in statewide committees in Wyoming that were working to improve school data collection, and ended up being hired by the local school district as its technology leader. It was there that he discovered the antiquated ways the school system collected grades, student attendance, report cards, and transcripts and thought, "There must be a better way."

He looked around for tech help and discovered PowerSchool, a start-up company that was the first web-based system delivering cutting-edge services to schools and families who needed ready access to student information. "For the first time ever, teachers were using the same system as the front office and parents were using. Moms could drop off their kids, go home, get online and see if their kid made it to class." This was heady stuff for the 1990s tech world.

Bryan was enamored with the work of PowerSchool and moved to join the company which was based in Northern California. Through that role, he had the opportunity to travel to Cupertino, CA to meet with Steve Jobs to pitch PowerSchool's software. Apple bought the software and the company!

Besides Apple, Bryan's career has also led him to work with national companies such as Safari Books Online, Maximus Education Systems, and most recently Illuminate Education. He joined SchoolMint three years ago.

SchoolMint's customer base keeps growing as its services continue to evolve to meet the demands of today's schools. They offer strategic enrollment management and marketing strategies, and also offer data management and coaching to assist schools with behavior management and support.

Originally based in San Francisco, CA with employees also working in San Jose, Costa Rica, the company made the decision to move its headquarters to Lafayette in 2020 after purchasing Smart Choice Technologies in 2019, which had been founded by Casey Bienvenu when he was a student at the Carencro High Academy of Information Technology. Smart Choice Technologies' focus was on the development of student registration and lottery system software similar to that of SchoolMint. Bryan said, "They were basically doing the same things SchoolMint was doing. What if we teamed up? Why build the same things twice when we could build it together right and make it amazing?"

"SchoolMint can be summed up in three words: Attract, Enroll, and Retain. We're all about strategic enrollment management. It's a new thing for K - 12 schools, but not for higher education. We help schools make themselves known to parents and help the parents find the right school. It's a bit of matchmaking. We help with online applications and make it easy to fill out on mobile phones." Photo by Leslie Westbrook of The Advocate.

During Bryan's first visit to Lafayette, he was left with a highly positive impression, especially upon seeing the "World's Happiest City" banner in the Lafayette airport. He thought, "even if it's not actually the happiest city, this is still special.

Dr. Christie L. Maloyed, co-editor along with Dr. Pearson Cross of The Party is Over: The New Louisiana Politics, joined Discover Lafayette to discuss the recent release of her book by LSU Press.

The Party is Over provides a comprehensive reassessment of Louisiana state politics, institutions, and policies in the 21st century. The book comprises fourteen chapters written by different political experts in Louisiana hailing from institutions such as Tulane, LSU, Southern, UL-Lafayette, UL – Monroe, and non-government organizations, where they focus on issues impacting Louisiana.

"Politics can be so negative. But political science brings an analytical framework that gives students the tools to step back from the vitriol and think about the factors influencing how our institutions work, why do people act like do, and why do they advocate for some policies over others? When you can prepare students with that research mindset, it changes the way that they're able to engage in political discourse that makes conversations much more productive."

Other books have been written about a single aspect of Louisiana politics or the history of well-known people such as Governors Huey Long and Edwin Edwards. But The Party is Over zooms out to that 20,000-foot level to assess the current state of affairs in Louisiana and the forces that brought us here.

Louisiana political analyst Jeremy Alford's writing focuses on the dramatic changes we have seen in the Louisiana legislature. His chapter takes a deep dive into the way campaigning and term limits have dramatically altered the nature of relationships in the legislature. While term limits have benefits in that people can't serve in office for life, it has also kept people from building long-term relationships. With more turnover, there is a cost to the sense of camaraderie that comes along with it.

Louisiana has always been a sui generis (unique) state, being predominantly a "big D" (Democratic) state, holding on longer than other southern states in the U. S. (which experienced the shift to a majority of Republican voters and elected officials). Democrat and Republican ideals didn't historically cause a division among our Louisianans; rather, people were either "Huey Long-ites or Anti-Huey Long-ites."

But the national trend of partisan politics has trickled down into Louisiana and in the past ten years, many elected officials have made the shift from Democratic to Republican. Interestingly, however, this dramatic shift hasn't occurred among the voting population. We still have an inordinate number of registered Democratic voters in a state where the majority of elected officeholders are Republican. In 2000, Democrats held the overwhelming number of elected seats in the Louisiana House of Representatives and Senate; in just twenty years, those numbers are upside with the Republican party holding a vast majority of the elected seats in both houses. Outside observers puzzle over this conundrum, but with Louisiana's open primary system, people can vote for candidates no matter what their registration is. There is no push to go through the process of changing parties when you can vote for any candidate no matter their party.

On the local government front, Dr. Maloyed had taught her political science students about the concept of "consolidated government" but had never experienced it. When she moved to Lafayette in 2015, she was intrigued by consolidation and glad to have the opportunity to learn more about how it worked in reality. She has found that many of the citizens of Lafayette parish who are otherwise very politically astute find consolidation very confusing; they do not understand how consolidation works. "That's somewhat baked into the design of Lafayette's system,

Ian Auzenne, Morning Show co-host on KPEL 96.5 with Bernadette Lee, joins Discover Lafayette to discuss his journey in broadcasting. Ian is also well-known for his sports play-by-play broadcasting career. He is a delightful trivia buff who shows up prepared for any job he is called upon to handle in a cheerful and genial manner.

A Lafayette Parish native, Ian grew up in a rural area outside of Carencro around Gloria Switch Road. His father was a St. Landry Parish educator, and from a young age, Ian commuted with his dad to attend schools in that parish and graduated from Beau Chenes High School near Arnaudville, LA in 2006. He's remained friends with many of his buddies from his grade school years, and still affectionately calls out Nick and Butterbean on his morning radio show.

A once-in-a-lifetime experience Ian's Junior year in high school changed the trajectory of his life. Princeton University was inviting students from rural and poorer areas of the U. S. to apply for their "Leadership Enterprise for a Diverse America" summer program. Ian was encouraged by school administrators to apply and he was selected, one of only 54 in the U. S. to be selected (and only one of four or five from Louisiana). The experience led Ian to "absolutely fall in love with Princeton" and he applied to attend college there and was accepted. He graduated from Princeton in 2010.

Ian Auzenne pictured calling plays during a Princeton-Brown game in 2009. "Those four years at Princeton molded me into the person I am now. If I wouldn't have gone there, I don't know if I'd be in broadcasting, if I'd be in sportscasting. Princeton led me directly into my career. I studied Political Science, but people who know me say I majored in WPRB, Princeton's student-run radio station, and minored in politics because I spent more time at the station than I did in the classroom or my dorm."

While at Princeton, Ian became heavily involved with the student-run radio station WPRB, where he fell in love with broadcasting and was a natural at doing sports play-by-play. He covered Princeton football, men's and women's basketball, baseball, and softball.

Ian loved Princeton so much he thought he would be staying in that region upon graduation. On April 20, 2010, however, as he was about to graduate, his beloved grandfather, Darrell Sonnier, passed away. Ian's heart told him he needed to return home to Acadiana to be close to family.

The first call he made as he was looking for a job was to Darla Montgomery, longtime anchor at KLFY. Darla was a friend and mentor of Ian's, having met him when she allowed him to job shadow her in high school. Ian was hired and served as Producer of "Meet Your Neighbor" and Editor of "Passe Partout. He even had an opportunity or two to serve as a field reporter when called upon, something he loved to do.

Ian Auzenne in the early days of his broadcasting career at KLFY where he served as Producer of Meet Your Neighbor and Editor of Passe Partout. His experience has taught him the difference between editorials (viewpoints) and delivering the facts to the listening audience. "It's easy to run your mouth off. It's more difficult to be tactful and respectful. You don't want to take the low road. At the end of the day, we're a news organization and I deliver the news. I am bound by an ethical standard, by what our profession dictates. When a polarizing issue presents itself, you have to ask, "Is it worth offering an opinion or do you just give the listeners the facts and let them sort it out."

Ian moved on to KATC-TV, serving as executive news and special events producer for nine years. He joined Townsquare Media to serve as co-host of KPEL 96.5's daily morning show in February 2021.

Barry Ancelet, acclaimed Cajun folklorist, author, and songwriter, as well as the founder of Festivals Acadiens et Creoles, joined Discover Lafayette to share his love of our culture and his journey as a folklorist. We look forward to celebrating the Festival on Friday, March 18, 2022, after a hiatus due to the COVID shutdown.

Barry served on the faculty of UL-Lafayette from 1977 until his retirement in 2016. He was a professor in the Department of Modern Languages, serving as chair of the department and as the first director of the University's Center for Acadian and Creole Folklore. He developed and taught the first course on Cajun and Creole music at the university. He has been involved in over 50 record projects, providing notes, transcriptions and translations, and has written almost two dozen books on Cajun music and culture.

"My dad told me when I was a kid, 'Find something you really love to do and you'll never work a day in your life.' I got paid to visit with artists like Dewey Balfa, Dennis Magee, Canray Fontenot, and Nathan Abshire, listen to their stories and turn it into coursework and publications. When I retired, in my speech I said I was happy to be retiring before the university realized I would have done it for free."

It wasn't that long ago in Louisiana that speaking French was shunned and children were not allowed to speak the language in school for fear of reprisal. However, Barry says that he grew up in a French-speaking family who enjoyed Cajun music, and, "we never felt French was a liability." His grandmother always quoted a French proverb, "A man who speaks two languages is worth two men," translated in French as "Un home qui parle deux langues vaut deux hommes."

Barry excelled early in his French studies and loved it. At Cathedral Carmel High School, he represented the school at the Literary Rally, winning a medal. "It was like getting paid to eat candy."

Majoring in French at USL (now UL-Lafayette), he went on to study French at Indiana University where he realized his love of French was grounded in our local French-Acadian culture, not strictly traditional French history. The pre-eminent American folklorist, Henry Glassie, was on the faculty at Indiana U. and encouraged Barry to transfer into folklore, to learn about the cultural side of life, and Barry graduated with an MA in folklore from the university.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the same time as Barry's college days, Louisiana French history was beginning to be recognized for its significance. He mentions local historian Carl Brasseaux and musician Zachary Richard as two others also drawn to finding out how the region's culture came about and asking questions such as "Who are we? Why does our music sound this way? Why does gumbo taste like that? Why do our homes look like that?" Out of curiosity, they started digging and learning about the French-Canadian, African-Caribbean, and French influences which shaped the region's unique culture.

While studying French in Nice, France in the Spring of 1973, Barry was miserable and homesick. One day while walking in downtown Nice, Barry heard Cajun music floating from a store owned by Roger Mason. Barry wanted to know more about this store that showcased music that he missed, such as the Crowley Two-Step; Mason shared that he had a mentor, Dewey Balfa, who he had learned from, and encouraged Barry to go to Basile, Louisiana to meet Balfa upon his return to the States.

Dewey Balfa wasn't just a mentor to Roger Mason, he was an ambassador of Cajun culture and advocated for the revival of traditional Cajun music. In 1964, Balfa had been invited by the renowned music Smithsonian folklorist Ralph Rinzler (along with Gladdie Thibodeaux and Louis Vinesse Lejeune) to play at...

Lindsay Smythe, School Leader and founder of Ecole Saint-Landry in Sunset, a free, public French Immersion elementary school, joins Discover Lafayette to discuss her journey in offering a quality educational experience to our youngest students.

Lindsay is a bilingual educator with 17 years of experience in education at the elementary, high school, and university levels. She always knew she wanted to be a teacher, and she brings a sense of joy and adventure to the classroom.

She received a Master’s in Education from LSU. Upon deciding that she wanted to pursue a Doctorate in Education, Lindsay learned that she would have to be fluent in a foreign language to earn her doctorate. She had never studied French and to accomplish this task quickly, she registered at "Débutant Une" (level one) to attend one of the only French Immersion universities in the world: Université Sainte-Anne in Nova Scotia, Canada, which is also the original home of the Acadiens who were deported from the region in 1755.

Lindsay fell in love with the French language, as well as the Nova Scotia landscape. She describes it as a beautiful area...."There is no better place than this, with warm, friendly people. Picture the most beautiful Festival weekend here and that is Nova Scotia in the summertime."

Lindsay Smythe quickly became fluent in French by attending Université Sainte-Anne in Nova Scotia, Canada. She recommends the experience to others who want to experience a wonderful education as well as a beautiful cultural experience. The university is situated where the Acadiens were deported in 1755 and therefore has many things in common with Acadiana. Summertime French immersion programs are offered twice each year and for those over 60 years old, tuition is half-price. Louisiana residents are accorded the additional benefit of qualifying for the Canadian price of admission. For more information, visit https://www.usainteanne.ca.

She stayed on two years teaching French at Université Sainte-Anne and then returned to the United States to teach French at Lafayette High. During her tenure there, she was named the 2016 Lafayette Parish Teacher of the Year and also nominated as the Louisiana Foreign Language Teachers Association Teacher of the Year.

Lindsay Smythe is a passionate spokesperson for a great public school system as well as for compensating teachers at a level that will entice the best and brightest students to enter the profession. She learned while teaching in Canada that teachers are paid at a much higher level than in the U. S. and the demand for jobs is incredibly competitive. Teachers typically have a wait time of five years to qualify for a permanent role as a teacher, having to first work as a long-term sub to earn their stripes.

In December 2016, Lindsay was summoned to an exploratory meeting called by Stephen Ortego and Sunset Mayor Charles James to discuss the possibility of starting a French immersion elementary school. The building that used to house Sunset High had been sitting vacant, owned by the Town of Sunset, and Ortego had realized its potential as a site for a French Immersion school. As a French teacher and resident of Sunset, Lindsay immediately saw the value of the idea and jumped in headfirst. Local teachers and education doctorates Michelle Haj-Broussard and Nicole Boudreaux drafted the Charter language, and Ecole Saint-Landry was officially approved by the St. Landry School Board as a Type 1 Charter school in 2018.

Ecole Saint-Landry is in month five of its inaugural school year at this point, with 55 students in Kindergarten and 1st Grade. There are five teachers, all fluent in French necessitated by the fact that no English is spoken in the classrooms.

Dirk Guidry, a Lafayette-based artist specializing in large-scale abstract art, live events, and mural paintings, joined Discover Lafayette to discuss his journey in becoming an artist who has evolved into a business entrepreneur. 

A native of Galliano, Louisiana, Dirk graduated in 2012 from UL – Lafayette in Fine Arts with a concentration in painting. As a child who always enjoyed art, he was encouraged by family and teachers to cultivate his creativity in the talented and gifted program. He remembered fondly his first commissioned piece: he was hired to draw a portrait of his teacher's daughter for $5.00.

Dirk entered UL-Lafayette thinking he wanted to be a computer animator or storyboard artist. But the process of rendering the art was all about the final product and that didn't sit well, so he says he "fell into painting."

"The late Allen Jones served as a beloved professor and mentor of Dirk, and he "still hears him every day" as he works in the studio. Professor Jones had a nurturing and subtle style as he delivered his critiques, and he would let the students figure out for themselves how to improve upon their work. Dirk says, "He used to touch my paintings sometimes. One time before the critique I made sure the paint was still wet because I knew he was going to touch it. And sure enough, he hit the wet part with his pinky and he was taken aback because he never wanted to mess up anyone's painting. Needless to say, he never touched my paintings again!"

Upon graduation, Dirk didn't really know how to get started as a professional artist. So, he worked multiple jobs in the service industry, and of course, at Painting With A Twist, while he showed his art at a few shows.

He had a lucky break early on when his cousin was getting married and asked him if he knew about the "live wedding paintings" being done in New Orleans. He didn't know anything about it but agreed to do the job. This gig led to another, and after a few years, Dirk became well-known for his live event paintings and is in high demand these days. He says, "Even though it's about 8 to 9 hours of straight painting, it still feels like 10 minutes. I blink and it's over."

Dirk Guidry has become a popular live events artist who paints with a fish-eye (wide angle) lens effect. He'll arrive a few hours before an event to paint the background of the venue and allow the paint to dry somewhat. Then, he paints as the event unfolds, capturing the people and fun happenings. "People, especially kids, love to watch me paint 'Bob Ross' style. It's highly entertaining and I love interacting with others." (Pictured work by Dirk Guidry is the Greater Southwest Mardi Gras Association's 2018 Queen and Maids celebrating at brunch.)

Dirk now averages about 35 live events per year. "That's basically my day job." The live event work affords him the opportunity to earn enough to do what he calls his 'studio work,' the opportunity to craft large abstract pieces of art, as well as to have the opportunity to take time off. He has been hired to travel for an event as far away as Cabo San Lucas and gets a good deal of work in Florida and Texas.

The tough part about being an artist is having to have tough skin and learn to handle rejection. Dirk has always wanted to be selected as the Festival International Visual Artist and has applied every year for several years. He jokes that along with those rejections he also filed many others in his "We regret to inform you" email folder.

Yet Dirk persisted, and in this 36th year Festival is to be celebrated, he was named the 2022 Official Visual Artist and will produce the collectible festival poster and pin. His official work will be revealed on February 20,

Adam Zayor, CEO of FlyGuys, an aerial drone services company based in Lafayette, LA, is our guest.

Attention to all angel investors....only 8% of commercial industries are currently using drone technology. The potential for dramatic increases in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, known as drones, is mind-boggling.

Fly Guys operates in all 50 states, in 72 countries worldwide, with over 4500 qualified and vetted contract drone pilots doing the work. It has 17 full-time employees overseeing operations and has experienced exponential annual growth of 200% per year for the past three years.

FlyGuys operates in a model similar to Uber; the company is responsible for contracting all jobs, and the pilots have their own drone equipment. "Our business is theoretically infinitely scalable in that we don't incur costs until we have revenue coming in from a confirmed job. Contract pilots range from full-time professionals handling large scale jobs to part-time hobbyists who will capture footage for a commercial real estate site."

The majority of FlyGuys' clients are large-scale companies that need consistent data collected across the country, such as telecom companies installing cell towers. In this example, the towers need to be inspected periodically, especially when adding equipment upgrades. FlyGuys scans 500 to 1000 towers every month or two, taking imagery at different elevations. The engineers at the telecom company can pull together dimensions from the data collected and build-out designs for new devices utilizing AutoCAD (commercial computer-aided design and drafting software), thereby accurately engineering new devices.

Adam Zayor started his company in 2017 with two employees while he kept his day job with Cajun Constructors where he worked in heavy industrial project management. It was on that job in Lake Charles, while working on the SASOL project, that he was introduced to drone services. Cajun Constructors would utilize drone aerial footage to obtain imagery for marketing purposes; Adam realized quickly that the technology could be used for much, much more in handling dangerous and tedious tasks typically handled by human labor.

"From a young age, I always knew I wanted to be in business. I loved building and creating things. I have to say, I wasn't as scared (about starting FlyGuys) as I should have been! I was a little blind about all the effort and the emotional toll that goes into starting a business. Especially one I was trying to drive in a new industry." Adam Zayor when asked about his thoughts on jumping in full-time to run FlyGuys.

With his background in construction management overseeing up to 2000 employees at one time, Adam explained that drones can now replace project managers who walk sites three to four times per week to monitor progress. With a drone, you can capture orthomosaic images, which are high-resolution aerial images similar to Google-earth views, where you can zero in to analyze work in progress, all from the comfort of your office and computer.

Drones were first used for industrial flare stack inspections to get footage a worker couldn't access by a crane. Today, as emerging software is being developed, it seems that the sky's the limit (pun intended!) for the usage of drone technology.

Pictures of Downtown Lafayette taken by a drone on the day of our interview by JP Juneau of FlyGuys

The agriculture industry is projected to be the biggest user of drones, but it is still early in the game. Drones can assist in precision agriculture by detecting the height of plants, the health of the plants, and projected crop yield, all allowing accurate financial metrics to be computed.

Jackie Lyle, Executive Director of Performing Arts Serving Acadiana, known as "PASA," joins Discover Lafayette to discuss the organization's mission to provide local access to great performing arts.

Jackie has worked tirelessly over the past three decades to bring unique arts programming to Acadiana. She is a passionate spokesperson for the many ways art impacts our economy, from hiring people in transportation, printing, recording, and sound, live musicians, costumers, etc. "It's vital that this industry recovers. We have got to be in venues and selling tickets" to thrive and survive.

A native of Oberlin, Louisiana, Jackie moved to Lafayette at seven years of age and followed the stereotypical path of a young girl in the 70s. She had always loved dancing, playing the piano, and being a band member; while she loved the arts, Jackie says she never had the confidence to pursue a career as a professional performer so she graduated in Psychology from LSU. She never intended to work, but to be a wife and mother. However, upon returning home from college, her dad said, "Jackie, you need a job with health benefits!"

Always the dutiful daughter, Jackie followed her dad's advice and became a Clairol account executive, which gave her great sales training, and the opportunity to learn the ropes of business activities.

Her next career move landed her in a full-time job as an account executive with the Times of Acadiana, a start-up periodical. She had the opportunity to work with James Edmunds, Steve May, and Richard Baudoin, all well-known names in the publishing business in this region. Jackie credits this position with helping her understand how the government and community forces worked, and the management team constantly challenged her to do new things and spread her wings. By the end of her tenure with the Times of Acadiana, she led a sales team, had her own publication, and wrote a weekly column for the Times. She was ready to fly successfully on her own.

At that time, in the early 1980s, Lafayette's art scene was enriched by the productions presented by the Fine Arts Foundation which began in 1975. The non-profit brought in such renowned artists as Ella Fitzgerald, Rudolph Nureyev, and Gregory Hines. But with the oil and gas bust of the late 1980s, the Heymann Center closing for renovations, and the failure of the organization to pay its taxes, the Fine Arts Foundation folded and filed for bankruptcy in the late 1980s.

From this aftermath, PASA (originally known as the "Performing Arts Society of Acadiana") emerged under the helm of Jackie Lyle. Jackie looked back with pride on the impact that her work has had over the years, including having PASA hired to help with the opening of the Manship Theatre in Baton Rouge and the Grand Opera House of the South in Crowley.

"PASA's goal is to provide local access to great performing arts. That is our #1 goal. Great performing arts you can attend locally is what makes a community great. This does not mean sold-out performances or making "x" amount of money. Our mission is local access. When we are able to return to daytime performances for local students, that will be the most important thing that we can do. So many kids never have the opportunity to step foot in the Heymann. That is a transformative experience as many kids have never seen a grand piano played. We also now have a trailer that will be our local stage to bring performances into neighborhoods. As soon as cold weather ends, we'll be going into three different neighborhoods."

PASA has also commissioned new works, which means supporting the creation of original performances of song and dance by providing direction and financing. PASA's first such work involved telling the story of the settlement of ...

Kay Couvillon, a student life coach, joins Discover Lafayette to discuss her experiences in education and how she came to love coaching.

A teacher with 46 years of experience, Kay earned a Masters's in Education, plus an additional 30 hours in education from USL, now UL-Lafayette. She has taught all grade levels, including gifted education, in Vermilion, Iberia, Lafayette, and Acadia parishes.

She got her start in 1976 after graduating as part of a class of 500 in Education, looking to get hired at one of the two teacher openings in her home parish of Vermilion. She landed the job of teaching the only class of 5th graders at E. Broussard Elementary which was named after her great, great grandfather, Ernest Broussard; her 10-year-old brother, Jude, was a student in the class of 36 pupils. "Most 5th graders are cool. They're a pleasure to be around. I discovered how much they wanted to learn and about their hopes for the future."

Kay reminisced about how different teaching was back then when all the parents were wonderfully supportive. Principal Ray Allen Faulk handed Kay just two things as she began her work....a grade book and a wooden paddle. The paddle was only pulled out once and as Kay said, "I only used the paddle once, not to hit the child but the wall. A student did something and I saw I needed to react. I took her outside and told her 'When I hit the wall with the paddle you scream. The student waited and hollered and we went back in. For the rest of the year, the discipline was amazing! I knew I was never going to hit her."

Kay had the opportunity to study how to teach gifted academic students through pioneers in the industry, Dr. Joseph Renzulli and Sally Reese of the University of Connecticut. They created a summer camp program for teachers in the field and sent them back to their home states filled with enthusiasm for this method and practice of teaching.

Kay believes that all kids are gifted, just in different areas. In gifted programs, the teachers integrate emotional intelligence as much as possible in the program as they realize its importance for success in life outside of school.

In 2004, Kay opened her life coaching practice where she offers a space of listening and discovery of life plans. Currently, she serves as an academic mentor in the athletic department of ULL and has worked with athletes in football, track and basketball who need guidance beyond tutoring. She teaches them the importance of keeping their word, being accountable, reporting in, and keeping their scholarship.

"We all have similar needs of wanting to be loved, acknowledged, and appreciated. When coaching, I start with a question, 'What's up?' because many teens feel lectured to and not listened to. Until they can think about what's up for them, they don't know what direction to go, or if they are going in the direction they want to be going in. I've learned over life that about 90% of learning takes place over conversations between people. It's so important that I listen because that is the greatest gift you can give someone. And I've learned that once you move past your fear, there is a reward on the other side."

Kay shares, "I'm so impressed with UL-Lafayette as the school wants the students to achieve academically and to succeed in life. When Coach Napier arrived, I asked, 'What do you think of Coach?' They all said, 'Coach Napier really likes us and wishes us well.' They didn't talk football, but how he wanted to be there with them. This is so important in life, to let others know we want to be there, that we like them, respect them, love them."

Kay Couvillon and her husband, Glenn Jaubert, are big supporters of UL-Lafayette athletic programs!