The decade that ended Tuesday included the 2016 flooding that inundated 200 residences in Eunice and a tax election that changed rural St. Landry Parish for at least the next decade.
Sunday’s edition listed some of the top stories for 2019. The Eunice News selected Eunice High School achieving an A in the state performance scores.
Today, the look at the past starting with 2010.
The August 2016 flooding is the top story in the past decade. Eunice was hit hard by rain that started about dawn Aug. 13, 2016, and kept coming flooding roads, homes and businesses. It was estimated that 20 inches of rain fell in a 30-hour period. Eunice Mayor Scott Fontenot said the water neck deep in places.
Eunice Police Chief Randy Fontenot said it was the worst flooding in 34 years in Eunice.
More than 500 homes were flooded in St. Landry Parish.
In the state, it was reported days after the flooding that 11 people had died and 40,000 homes had been damaged.
The other top story of the decade is in 2013 rural St. Landry Parish voters approved a 2% sales tax to fund a 15-year road improvement program. As of today, about 300 miles of parish roads have been paved. Drainage improvements affecting roads has done.
Called the Smooth Ride Home Program, Parish President Bill Fontenot, who championed the road program, said it is the first of its kind in the state and promises economic advancement for rural St. Landry Parish.
The improvement was evident on roads such as Soileau road north of Eunice. Prior to it being repaved, the road was one long series of potholes.
The following is year-by-year list of top stories.
2010
Top stories for 2010 included: the Saints won the Super Bowl; voters re-elected Rusty Moody as mayor; Ronald Dies was elected police chief; the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion killed 11 workers including Blair Manuel , of Eunice; the LSUE baseball team won its second national championship in three years; LSUE experienced another two rounds of budget cuts; Karl DeRouen, a veteran Eunice radio broadcaster, died at the age of 75 in March; Life Point merged the operations of Acadian Medical Center, of Eunice, and Mercy Regional Medical Center, of Ville Platte; and also taking office were Roland Miller, Germaine Simpson, Jack Burson, James Bergeron and Scott Fontenot, all on the Board of Aldermen.
2011
In a roundup of stories by month: January: Jacque Pucheu announced he would end 12 years as city attorney; Vernon McManus was named by Mayor Rusty Moody as city attorney;
February, the city’s population fell by about 10% to 10,398;
April, Federal Judge Tucker Melancon signed an order ending the school desegregation case in St. Landry Parish;
May, former Eunice High School principal and St. Landry Parish superintendent Raymond Fontenot, 77, died; and the LSUE Lady Bengals won a national softball championship.
June, Marine Cpl. Matthew Richard, 21, of Iota, was killed by IED in Afghanistan; after five years as fire chief and 33 years with the department, Wayne Lavergne retired;
October, Sheriff Bobby Guidroz won re-election and Bill Fontenot was elected parish president;
November, Mayor Rusty Moody recommended Mike Arnold, Basile fire chief, to be Eunice’s new fire chief; the School Board will pay the desegregation case lawyer $800,000.
2012
Top stories for 2012 included: more than 400 people attended a St. Landry Parish School Board meeting held to ask for ideas on how to cut the school system’s budget by $1.5 million which was prompted by a $4 million operating deficit; LSUE was slated to lose $306,000 in state funding in a midyear cut ordered by Gov. Bobby Jindal; the LSUE Bengals won a fourth national championship; a fifth lane was created on Laurel from 12th Street east to Martin Luther King Drive; and 27th Judicial District judges closed sex crime case files to all but the minimum.
2013
Top stories in 2013 included: rural St. Landry Parish voters approved a 2% sales tax for a 15-year road improvement program; about 200 Lawtell residents were evacuated after a train derailment; the LSUE Lady Bengal softball team won a second national title; Courtbouillon, a band formed by Wilson Savoy, Steve Riley and Wayne Toups, won a Grammy; regular gasoline was selling for $3.70 a gallon in February; in May, Edward Brown was elected superintendent by the School Board.
2014
Top stories for 2014 included: Earl Taylor won re-election by defeating former District Judge Ellis Daigle of Eunice; the LSUE Lady Bengals won the national title for the second consecutive year; and in August the City Lake reopened after a three-year hiatus.
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Top stories for 2015 included the death of Mayor Claud “Rusty” Moody in November and the appointment of Scott Fontenot as interim mayor; St. Landry Parish’s first same-sex marriage occurred at the St.Landry Parish Clerk of Court’s Office in Eunice in June; Kimberly Russell became the first female LSUE chancellor in July; LSUE Bengals won a fifth national title; Phillip DeVillier was elected District 41 state representative; and the first Experience Louisiana Festival was held on the LSUE campus.
2016
Top stories in 2016 included the August flooding that inundated about 200 residences in Eunice; after serving as interim mayor, Scott Fontenot was elected mayor in March; Andrew Hundley, sentenced to life in prison for the murder of 14-year-old Terri Elizabeth Pitre in 1997 was freed from prison in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling; former St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s public information officer Clay Higgins was elected as the 3rd Congressional District representative; the Liberty Theater was closed during the year for repairs; Felix Vail, 76, was found guilty of the murder of Mary Horton Vail in 1962 in a trial held in Lake Charles.
2017
Top stories in 2017 as reported in The Eunice News included:
— The sale of a $191.1 million Powerball ticket at Brownie’s convenience store. A group calling itself 292 Family Partnership, opted for the lump sum prize payment option equal to the cash value of the jackpot, which was $119,492,685.
LSU Eunice’s fall enrollment reached 3,051 students, which is a 5 percent increase over the 2016 fall enrollment and the first time there has been more than 3,000 students enrolled since 2010.
— Early voting began in October at the Eunice Municipal Complex. It was the first time voters could cast their ballots in Eunice.
— On Aug. 21, a lunar eclipse stirred some excitement. A crowd of students at LSUE gathered near the Acadian Center to witness the eclipse. Dr. John Hamlin, head of the Division of Sciences and Mathematics, said, “It is one of those things you only see once or twice in your lifetime and it would be a shame to miss. If we live to 2024 we might get a second shot.”
Within a matter of days in April Eunice lost three community figures: former Police Chief Anthony”Tony” Fuselier; Adam “Brother” Johnson; and retired mayor’s administrative aide Joan McManus died.
2018
— Riceland Crawfish announced an expansion that included an addtion to its Sub-Zero plant. Dexter Guillory, owner, said the facility would be used to process its bagged boiled crawfish and alligator. Riceland Crawfish has cultivated what used to be local favorites such as boiled crawfish, packaged crawfish tails and alligator into products that reach tables across the nation.
— Mayor Scott Fontenot and Police Chief Randy Fontenot won reelection in first round voting in November. The mayor’s race was decided with Scott Fontenot receiving 82 percent of the vote. The police chief’s election was clinched with Randy Fontenot winning 78 percent of the vote.
Ernest “Ernie” Blanchard won the Ward 3 alderman’s job outright as did Connie Thibodeaux in Ward 4. Marion “Nootsie” Sattler was unopposed in the alderman atlarge election.
In the December runoff, Chad Andrepont won the Ward 1 position and Germaine Simpson won the Ward 2 job. Parishwide, the defeat of two tax propositions sent St. Landry Parish School Board members back to the drawing board about the school system’s future. About 75 percent of voters rejected taxes for an employee pay raise and a building improvement proposal.
— Eunice Elementary was hit by a fire that damaged 11 classrooms days after opening for the school year in August.
— In the state’s annual scoring, Eunice schools were among the best in the a parish and state. East Elementary earned an A along with the Magnet Academy of Cultural Arts in Opelousas. Eunice High earned a B, but missed being an A school by 0.3 points. East Elementary, Eunice High and the magnet school were recognized as Equity Honorees. East Elementary and Eunice Elementary were among the parish’s Top Gains schools. The school scores were announced in November.
— In March, it was announced that Shreveportbased Allegiance Health Management had reached an agreement to acquire Acadian Medical Center in Eunice and Mercy Regional Medical Center in Ville Platte. Allegiance has hospitals in Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and Arkansas. The Eunice hospital had been part of LifePoint Health, which is based in Tennessee.
— Perhaps long overdue, the city’s fire department received two new fire trucks in May. The city will pay nearly $800,000 for the trucks that replaced 1979 and 1984 model trucks.
— A splash of colorful fun closed out the year when a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held for a can’t miss- it downtown mural by Eunice artist Hannah Gumbo. The abstract art at Walnut and 2nd streets was funded by a $5,000 grant from the AcadianaCenter for Arts ArtsSpark program and Lafayette Economic Development Authority.