Congressman tours Liberty Theater

The centerpiece of downtown Eunice, the Liberty Theater, was on view for a special showing Tuesday morning.
U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson toured the theater, heard about its history from Charles Seale and about plans for its next act.
For the past five or six years the Liberty Theater has been open for its Saturday shows off and on, but mostly off as old age crept up on the building.
There was a mold problem and underlying that was an air conditioning system that was more off than on with a big price tag attached to fixing it.
But there is renewed hope for the theater that first opened in 1924.
The non-profit Association for the Liberty Theatre of Eunice has a goal of rejuvenating the nearly 100-year-old theater that’s credited with helping revive Cajun culture.
Johnson has legislation to separate the annex on the west side of the building from the National Park Service. The annex was built in the 1990s and includes the facility’s bathrooms.
“There is already the recognition of the value of the place,” Johnson said.
“This is a unique venue of tourism that really can’t be offered anywhere else. You can duplicate a lot things we do, but there is only one of these and that’s a real selling point,” he said.
Johnson said it is probably too late in the current session to move the legislation, but it will come up in the next session of Congress with bipartisan support.
Jerry Ledoux, Johnson’s community liaison, recalled bringing visitors to the Liberty years ago. “We would go down to Johnson’s Grocery and get a bunch of boudin ... then we would come to the Liberty.”
That’s the kind of story Eunice Mayor Scott Fontenot wants created again in a renovated theater.
“This is huge. I think this place is a national treasure,” he said. “And it is good to have the representative of the U.S. government see first hand what this building is ... we need some help to preserve these type of places.”
At the forefront of the effort to restore the Liberty is the non-profit board that includes Joel Savoy, Celeste Gomez, Laura Pitre, Pat Dossman, Charles Seale and Paul Feavel.
Seale provided a history of the theater to about 20 people touring the theater Tuesday.
At one point before television in the 1960s, the Liberty was a drawing point for Eunice.
The city was a busy place on the highway from New Orleans to Houston.
But that changed when Interstate 10 opened.
The Liberty closed in the 1960s until the 1980s when Joel’s parents. Marc and Ann, then Mayor Curtis Joubert, Seale and others decided to renovate the theater.
After the renovation and the location of the National Park Service’s Prairie Acadian Culture Center, the result was a live radio show, “Rendez-vous des Cajuns,” featuring music, folklore and comedy done mostly in French on Saturdays.
The live radio show faded away and the theater once again entered a period of decline.
Seale said a four-year plan is being developed and the cost may be about $2.5 million to bring the theater back to life.
The first priorities in the renovation are the heating and air conditioning and a fire suppression system.
Speaking recently to the Eunice Board of Aldermen, Joel Savoy said the best future for the theater is for it to be used for a variety of events.
Celeste Gomez, retired St. Landry Parish tourism director and Eunice resident, said, “We’ve seen what it can be in the heyday. It’s even more important now to revitalize it.”