Events to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. are planned Saturday and Sunday in Eunice, according to Mark Dupre, co-chairman of the MLK Citywide Celebration Committee.
A prayer breakfast is scheduled at 9 a.m. Saturday at the Dr. J.G. Frank Family Life Center, next to the New Zion Baptist Church, 251 Nimitz St.
A parade and ceremony are planned Sunday.
The first event is a parade, which will line up at 1 p.m. in front of the Eunice City Hall. The parade is to start at 2 p.m. and will go south on 2nd Street to Maple Avenue where it turns east to Martin Luther King Drive where it turns north to Anne Street and then west to the church.
The program will start at 3 p.m. at the center where the principal speaker will be Eunice native Leroy “Pete” Burney.
Burney retired from Hallmark Cards earlier in 2016 after serving 25 years with the company. He was senior vice president of supply chain and business establishment and a corporate officer from 2009 to 2016.
He was responsible for manufacturing, logistics, global procurement, engineering, quality, demand and inventory management and information technology at Hallmark, a $4 billion global corporation with over 40,000 accounts and includes the Crayola brand of products.
Burney is a native of Eunice and graduated from Eunice High School and LSU Eunice. He went on to earn his bachelor’s degree in secondary education from LSU and earned a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Massachusetts.
He served four years as a signal corps officer in the United States Army’s 82nd Airborne Division before joining Hallmark.