3 decades later, Mark Shirley still finds joy in teaching 4-H’ers about La. marshes

By Rebecca Chaisson on Friday, December 29, 2023
  • Mark Shirley, a coastal specialist with the LSU AgCenter and Louisiana Sea Grant, smiles while showing wings of various duck species to 4-H members participating in an Advanced Marsh Maneuvers camp in December. Photo by Hilton Waits/LSU AgCenter
    Mark Shirley, a coastal specialist with the LSU AgCenter and Louisiana Sea Grant, smiles while showing wings of various duck species to 4-H members participating in an Advanced Marsh Maneuvers camp in December. Photo by Hilton Waits/LSU AgCenter

    By Olivia McClure omcclure@agcenter.lsu.edu GUEYDAN — In the late 1980s, a group of 4-H Junior Leaders in Vermilion Parish was itching to do something fun for a summer club activity. “They did not have the resources to take a trip to, back then, Six Flags in Houston,” recalled Mark Shirley, a coastal specialist based in the parish. “There wasn’t a Blue Bayou Water Park in Baton Rouge yet or …