Harlan Kirgan
The Eunice Mardi Gras Run is one of the biggest events for the Cajun Prairie Capital during the year and the Feb. 13 event promises to be a return of the revelry that’s been occurring for more than a 100 years.
Patrick Frey, Le Vieux Mardi Gras De Cajuns de Eunice capitaine, will lead the run of up to horses and hundreds of runners on 56 trailers on Mardi Gras.
“I like our little run,” Frey said Thursday at a Eunice Kiwanis Club meeting.
Last year’s run had 130 horses and 750 runners on the trailers, he said.
The runners will start registering at 6 a.m. at the Northwest Community Center They will leave the center about 9 a.m. and head north to Soileau Road, all the while chasing chickens and having fun on a 12 mile route until they parade through downtown Eunice at about 3 p.m.
“Mardi Gras is just around the corner,” Frey said. “Everybody asks me ‘Are you ready?’ Ask me that after the run.”
Frey’s job as captain is to ride herd on a party that travels through the country with a little mayhem on many minds.
Frey said the association has tags for 250 horses, but he said the Mardi Gras on horseback “has settled down.”
“Of course, we have a lot of Mardi Gras that go on from Saturday to Sunday and I guess when they get to us they are tired,” he said.
For a $30 registration fee, the runners get boudin, a gumbo at the end of the day, beer, soft drinks and a rolling party.
“We have men and women on the run,” he said and that began in the late 1970s.
“I’m proud to say it is going stay,” Frey said of women being included on the run. “I think that is a good thing.”
Frey stresses the association wants its runners in costume.
“I’m challenging people that are going to run this run to come in full costume,” he said.
“Mardi Gras is not supposed to be known,” he said of runners who are going “raise the roof.”
“Come dressed in a costume, please,” he said.
“I don’t want to have to tell somebody that they can’t run or anything like that. I want to come and run and enjoy the Eunice run,” Frey said.
The Eunice Mardi Gras Run welcomes visitors to participate.
Frey said the openness to visitors had a few problems last year.
“I want to apologize to anybody that has been having trouble with getting on the trailers in the morning in the past years,” Frey said. “We are addressing that some people get very ugly with out of town people on the trailers. The Mardi Gras Association trailers are there for anybody to ride.”
The run had some bad reviews regarding people not welcoming strangers on trailers, he said.
“They came to me and said they got cussed out,” he said.
“I want them to have a good time and come back,” he said of visitors.
The local and visitor spending for Mardi Gras is good for the economy, he said.
“Eunice has a good history of the Mardi Gras,” he said. The Mardi Gras run was suspended during World War II, but restarted after the war.
Next year’s Mardi Gras will be celebrated as the 100th one, but Frey said there are newspaper reports that the Mardi Gras was celebrated in the late 1800s in Eunice.
Eunice Mardi schedule
The event calendar includes the following.
Friday
7 p.m. La Recolte and Jamie Bergeron at 2nd and Walnut streets. Food and drinks.
Saturday
Noon until live music, food and music at 2nd and Walnut streets.
3 p.m. Parade of Paws.
4 p.m. Foodways demonstration at Jean Lafitte Prairie Acadian Center.
6 p.m. Rendez-vous des Cajunz at the Liberty Theater. Jambalaya CAjun Band and the Basile Mardi Gras Association. Doors open at 4 p.m. Tickets are $5.
7 p.m. Kevin Naquin and Ossum Playboys at 2nd and Walnut streets.
9 p.m. Wayne Toups at 2nd and Walnut streets.
Feb. 11
9:30 a.m. Old-time Boucherie.
10 a.m. Live music, food and drinks at 2nd and Walnut streets.
9 a.m. Children’s Mardi Gras Run. Starts at the Eunice Recreation Complex at 461 Sittig Road.
3 p.m. Children’s Mardi Gras Run parade downtown.
Feb. 12
Noon Dr. Barry Ancelet’s presentation on “History of the Rural Mardi Gras” at the Jean Lafitte Center.
1 to 3:30 p.m. Council on Aging Mardi Gras at the Northwest Center, 501 Samuel Drive.
7 p.m. Live music, food and drinks at 2nd and Walnut streets.
Feb. 13
8 a.m. Mardi Gras Run leaves Northwest Center. Registration, $30, starts at 6:30 a.m.
9 a.m. Live music, food and drinks at 2nd and Walnut streets.
3 p.m. Mardi Gras Run parade in downtown.
The band schedule at the Fred Charlie Music State includes the following.
Friday
7 p.m. La Recolte.
10 p.m. Jamie Bergeron and the Kickin’ Cajuns.
Saturday
Noon T-Monde
4 p.m. Fred Charlie and Friends.
6 p.m. Jambalaya Cajun Band and the Basile Mardi Gras Association at the Liberty Theater.
Feb. 11
10 a.m. Bubba Hebert and the New Morse Playboys.
12:30 p.m. Kegan Navarre and Louisiana Traditions.
4 p.m. Kyle Huval and the Dixie Club Ramblers.
Feb. 12
7 p.m. Pine Leaf Boys
9 p.m. Travis Matte and the Zydeco Kingpins.
Feb. 13
9:30 a.m. Wallace Trahan and Rice-N-Gravy.
11 p.m. Ronnie Matthews and Throw Down.
1:30 p.m. Paul Daigle and Cajun Gold.
4 p.m. Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys.
6:30 p.m. Leroy Thomas and the Zydeco Roadrunners.