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Darrel LeJeune is a prominent member of the Eunice/Basile communities, as a life-long educator, journalist and editor of The Basile Weekly, leader of Basile Sing Out, church music minister, member of the Board of Directors for the Swine Festival and Eunice Players’ Theatre, and a member of the Evangeline Parish Tourism Commission.
His passion and skills were formed during his tenure with Up With People (UWP), an international educational and performance program that seeks to increase respect and understanding for people of all races, colors, genders, and nationalities through its music, message, and service.
Earlier this summer, LeJeune was presented with the J. Blanton Belk Outstanding Alumnus Member Award, named after the organization’s founder. Chosen as the singular recipient from a pool of 14,000 alumni from around the world, LeJeune was presented with the award by Belk himself, now age 93.
During his time with UWP, LeJeune appeared across the USA and in England and Ireland as a featured soloist of the group. Upon returning home, he used that learning experience in his classroom and for extracurricular activities at Basile High School where he taught English, social studies, speech, art survey, and yearbook, and he became the band director. LeJeune was originally nominated for the Everyday Hero Award, for which there are several recipients.
Upon receiving nominations from two members of Eunice Players’ Theatre, former students involved with UWP and the La. Swine Festival, the UWP educational coordinator, the current production director of UWP, and a UWP cast mate from 1983, the committee was was so impressed by his resume that he was instead chosen for the singular Outstanding Alumnus Member Award.
For LeJeune, receiving the outstanding alumnus award brought with it a mixed-bag of emotions. “Winning this prestigious international award was a shock for me. Past winners have been exemplary individuals of whom I never would have considered putting myself on equal footing, and the award’s namesake is an idol to me. I have devoted my life to the standards and principles of the Up with People organization, but for the alumni association to name me its outstanding member is overwhelming. I want to thank the incredible cast that I was part of in 1983-84 for nominating me for this honor, and thank the loving community of Basile for backing me financially in my travels that year and for supporting my endeavors here in Basile since then. The importance of community service in my year of travel with Up with People led me to a lifelong commitment to make Basile a better place. I am honored to carry on the ideals of Up with People and hope to bring more of that spirit to my people here in Basile in the years to come.”
LeJeune’s commitment to community through performance is evident in his work with Basile Sing Out, an offshoot of UWP on a local level, with whom began performing with in high school at Basile, and later became the director of. He brought the group to perform all around the state and at Astroworld and Walt Disney World. Besides statewide charity and school events, Basile Sing Out performed for four consecutive years on a local television station’s Cerebral Palsy Telethon show. In Basile Sing Out’s final year under LeJeune, they made a record 40 appearances. In June, 2017. LeJeune organized the 50th anniversary reunion of the founding of the Basile Sing Out.
Theatre-goers to Eunice Players’ Theatre will recall that he played Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof” and King Arthur in “Camelot”, both under the direction of Debi Crawford, who penned a letter of nomination to UWP. In describing his selflessness she noted, “Darrel is our beloved jewel, bestowing his creative talents towards community involvement and taking pleasure in nurturing these raw talents in others that would otherwise go unnoticed.”
Besides playing lead roles, he also served as musical director, and provided one-on-one assistance to various individuals. He is an asset to any theatrical production, inspiring with his performance, generous with his time, and nurturing in his manner.
Aware of the correlation between participation in the arts and academic achievement, he used artistic expression in the classroom and encouraged his students to find their passion in the arts, knowing that the skills they learned in the classroom would translate to life skills.
His tireless efforts did not go unnoticed, as he was the recipient of the Joanie Kerstein Award for Outstanding Musical Achievement in 2013. This lifetime achievement award was given to Darrel in recognition of his long-standing commitment and dedication to musical performances over time in ways large and small. As current EPT board member Jody Powell noted in her nomination letter to UWP, “Darrel is most certainly our hero; we are eternally grateful for all that Darrel has contributed toward the success of Eunice Players’ Theatre, and for the spark he has ignited within scores of youth and adults who have been inspired by his performances, his guidance, and his service to our community theatre.”
In presenting the award, UWP said, “Darrel lived by the beliefs and strengths of Up With People long before being accepted (in 1983) and has continued to live by these beliefs many years after.”