Support for Louisiana.

The state we're in is provided by Entergy.

Louisiana is strengthening our power grid throughout the state.

We're reinforcing infrastructure to prepare for stronger storms, reduce outages, and respond quicker when you do need us.

Because together we power lights.

Additional support provided by the Fred B and Ruth B Ziegler Foundation and the Ziegler Art Museum, located in Jennings City Hall.

The museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is an historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana.

And the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

With support from viewers like you.

Honoring a symbol of America's independence on this 4th of July holiday.

And an athlete turned artist renders Louisiana Sports Hall of Famers and colorful portraits.

Even though he's colorblind.

We'll bring you a fascinating story as Louisiana looks for ways to develop renewable energy sources.

Some communities and industries are looking to the sun.

And a Louisiana program funding the rebirth of main streets across the state celebrates 40 years of small town success stories.

Let's get started with.

Hey, everyone, I'm Karen the.

Much more on those top stories in a moment on this week's edition of Louisiana, the state we're in.

But first flags are still waving across the country after the 4th of July celebrations.

The red, white and blue is a symbol of patriotic pride tied to pomp and circumstance and certain protocol.

We have the presentation of the colors.

We now have the national anthem to be sung by Denise.

Where are you, Denise Melanson?

Thank you.

Okay.

Oh, and salute.

It's flag day across the nation and in Lafayette.

The Acadiana Veterans Honor Guard is paying tribute in a ceremony honoring veterans from all branches of military service in 1916.

President Woodrow Wilson honored the anniversary of this resolution by officially establishing June 14th as Flag Day.

Which brings us here today.

The first fall of our flag is for the symbol of life.

The ceremonial folding of the flag comprises 13 folds, each one in remembrance of the original 13 colonies and tied to a specific meaning.

The Acadiana Veterans Honor Guard performs a flag folding ceremony at events and funerals as a public service.

We have one main mission, and that is to provide military honors, funeral services for all Canadian veterans, and we cover a 45 mile range of all the funeral homes.

So we stay pretty busy, I think since our establishment in March of 1984, we've done about 1500 events.

Harold Burrell is 82 years old and serves as commander of the Acadiana Veterans Honor Guard.

He joins other volunteers, former members of the U.S. military, who share a passion for promoting patriotism.

How do you feel about patriotism today and the respect for the flag?

For the most part, it's good.

we have problems with it, with some of the younger generations coming up.

I don't think they quite fully understand what patriotism is all about.

That just speaking from the heart.

Beyond the pomp and circumstance of ceremonial events.

The Stars and Stripes call for a certain protocol outlined in the United States Flag Code.

Some of the do's and don'ts.

It should not be embroidered, printed, or otherwise.

When pressed on such articles as cushions, handkerchiefs, napkins, boxes, or anything intended to be discarded after temporary use.

The flag should not be used as wearing apparel, bedding or drapery.

The flag should never be drawn back or bunched up in any way.

The flag should not be used as a part of a costume or athletic uniform.

There is also a reverent way to retire a U.S. flag that is tattered, torn, or threadbare.

What is the proper protocol?

What should people know?

You don't throw them in the trash, can you?

You don't burn yourself.

you can turn to any organization such as the Boy Scouts, VFW, the American Legion, or some military, or they collect them all and they have a ceremony that they do when they dispose of, they burn them.

And our last and final act this morning, I'd like to have everybody come up and we're going to do our circle of freedom as we play our song.

God bless the USA and I won't forget.

Patriotic holidays remind us that freedom is a privilege.

As we pause to honor the men and women who make life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness possible.

Whether you choose to salute, say, the Pledge of Allegiance or pay your respects by joining hands in a shared celebration, the red, white and blue flies high as a beacon of hope and unity, transcending politics and polarization.

That is a thing of beauty and that it really stands for our country.

It's the only thing that stands for a country other than God.

From hashtags to headlines.

Here's what's trending.

A lot of people will be spending that time outside over the holiday weekend, and we already know it is hot, hot, hot in Louisiana.

More than a thousand people from across the state have ended up in emergency rooms with heat related illnesses, according to the state health department's new online dashboard.

Most of the hospitalizations have happened on the weekend.

The page includes tips on how to stay safe, do things like staying inside, air conditioning when possible, experts say.

Also, you need to watch out for symptoms like nausea, dizziness, headaches, which means that you might have gotten a little overheated or might be in danger of something like a heat stroke.

So pay attention to those symptoms.

A former New Orleans Saint, Steve Gleason, will receive a big honor next week.

He is being awarded the 2024 Arthur Ashe Courage Award.

It's given to recipient.

His contributions transcend sports and who reflect strength in the face of adversity.

In addition to his sports stardom, Gleason has become a global inspiration and an advocate for people suffering from ALS.

He will formally receive the honor at the ESP award ceremony next Thursday, the 11th in Los Angeles.

Each year, the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame commissions portraits of each inductee in the class.

The artist who renders these sports legends on canvas is a former professional athlete who shares a common theme with those he paints.

One of resilience in the face of challenges.

Artist Chris Brown has created nearly 160 portraits for the Sports Hall of Fame.

Here's his story.

Artist Chris Brown is colorblind, although you'd never guess it from the looks of his brightly colored portraits of the 2024 Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame inductees.

I've adapted.

You know, it's just like anybody that would lose a leg.

they would adapt to life.

I've adapted in that way.

I know what I see.

I have no clue what you see.

Since 2009, Chris has been painting portraits of Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame inductees with Prisma colored wax pencils.

He developed his own technique of identifying colors.

If you were to.

You know my Prismacolor pencils.

If you were to open up my case and I have like 500 in there, every single one you picked up, you would notice that the name of the color is always on the opposite end, the sharpened, you know.

So I do know I know my colors really, really well as far as what goes what what what do I use to make certain things?

Because I might mix some things that that you wouldn't think to mix.

You know, I'll tell you a little science experiment every single time I use grays, a lot of grays are very neutral.

So I use cool grays and warm grays to manipulate colors to get them to what I'm seeing on the photograph onto onto here.

So, you know, the only bummer is I'm never going to be able to see it the way you see it, because I have no clue how you see it.

The athlete turned artist played for the Chicago Cubs as a minor league pitcher before turning his full time attention to art.

Each inductee portrait is a collaboration that speaks to the person's career and personality.

Each portrait of the athlete is almost like a visual bios, sort of a story of their their achievements and who they are.

That's a good one to put it.

Yeah, yeah, it's just like I said, I really want people to know when they come in, what they did, what they accomplished, why they're here, you know, and then once they see the portrait, then they can pull it up on the screen and find out the kind of person that they were to.

They're always great people, you know, and and maybe that's what goes into them becoming such great athletes is, is the kind of people that they are.

So, in the end, once you read their bio and everything on, on the touch screen and they're really you really start to understand what it takes to be in the Hall of Famer.

Each inductee name is etched into the museum's illuminated Sports Hall of Fame.

Wall names date back to 1959, with the first class of sport's greats after, you know, 16 years of working, 10 or 12 portraits a year, it's starting to fill up with all these names that I that I know and I love, and I'm, I'm invested in.

And, you know, I consider them all friends.

Each year, the museum showcases a memorabilia exhibit of inductees, mementos on loan.

Some of the items appear in Chris's portraits.

So you can, you can see it's a very.

It's a very, diverse class.

Anyway, as far as MMA for the first time, you know?

So that's exciting.

And you want to talk about, fun for an artist like the belt.

So you got the real belt right here, you know, and you can kind of see the kind of detail that goes into that.

So as an artist who's doing the market, that's the first thing that pops in your head.

You're like, oh, not, I have to do a belt.

I get to do a belt.

You know, I get to do the UFC belt.

During the Sports Hall of Fame induction weekend, Chris presents each inductee with an official portrait print, which is the culmination of months of work in his studio.

What do you think?

Well, I think that's great.

You made me look a lot younger, made me look taller.

Is it just no cellulite showing that?

So I think that's that's a that's a big deal.

I said, you know, he actually looks like I lost weight, which is.

That's not true.

It's just that I built like a meatball.

I'm excited about being here.

I'm excited about all the places that we've coached.

And more importantly, the experiences we had every, every stop along the way, whether it's Tulane or high school, that's what makes it all worthwhile.

I mean, to see the reaction them going on the stage is the biggest, biggest thing that, you know, this is something that's going to be permanent.

If you missed the biggest weekend in Louisiana sports, LPB has got you covered.

Be sure to catch our two hour special recapping the 2024 induction ceremonies and the full celebration around the city of Natchitoches, including a reunion of past Hall of Fame inductees.

That's all.

On July 11th at 7 p.m. right here on LPB.

The energy industry is big business in Louisiana, but to ensure our role as a key power provider and to protect our planet, the state needs to evolve and match where alternative forms of energy come in.

Things like wind and solar power.

I sat down with one group playing a key role in moving the state forward to discuss opportunities, big and small, for solar energy and how it can be a big economic driver for Louisiana.

I am joined by Camille Manning Broom.

She is the president and CEO of the center for Planning Excellence, which is focused in part on climate adoption.

Which brings us to the conversation of solar energy and its evolution here in Louisiana.

Solar energy being a renewable energy.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you so much, Karen, for having me.

So before we begin, give us an understanding of what the center for Planning Excellence is all about.

Center for Planning Excellence is a 501 C3 nonprofit that works across the state, helping communities and governments, plan for their future.

So thinking about future land use and what is your vision for this place?

How can quality of life factors be changed through the built environment to to enhance our experience in our community, our relationship with our community and be a smarter, better place?

Louisiana is making progress in developing solar energy, and I want to start first with a just a broad based explanation of why solar energy here in Louisiana.

Yeah.

So it's very critical for us to think about our energy infrastructure quite differently in the future.

if we are going to be resilient, if we are going to be able to adapt to changing conditions, our infrastructure also needs to adapt.

We have such a high energy demand, and there is also a demand for decarbonizing those energy sources.

Camil and most people think of solar energy.

Visions of these solar panels on rooftops come to mind, but it's actually much bigger than that, right?

It's good to think of it at different scales.

It can be a solar panel on a household, but it could also be a, what's called a microgrid or community scale solar, which could be a smaller unit of solar connected with battery storage, that is creating a distributed energy source, for small areas.

and then we get to utility scale solar, which is a much larger, track of land with that that can produce a lot more solar energy that that goes straight into the grid.

So help people envision what a community micro grid would look like.

Okay, let's think about, your neighborhood.

if you had an adjacent piece of land to your neighborhood, there could be a system in place to where it holds solar panels and battery storage, and it goes directly into supporting your neighborhood system, which makes it a microgrid.

so when the larger power grid goes out, your system could not only maintain energy, but in a future scenario when we have enough of these, provide energy back to the main, the main grid, to make us overall more resilient in our grid.

Now, the center for Planning Excellence help develop a solar energy toolkit.

Tell me about that.

Yeah.

So when we saw the amount of demand that was, that was coming out across Louisiana for large scale utility solar, we heard the the the question is from the community, the needs from the community.

And so we wanted to respond, providing them with best practice policy tools to help them get those ordinances in place so that solar investment could occur, but could occur on their terms to make sure community benefits from it.

So on Earth Day, the federal government announced that it awarded Louisiana $156 million.

Grant called solar for All.

The intent of the grant is to provide solar energy to low income housing low income residents.

Where are we at with that grant?

Yeah, so it's very, very exciting opportunity for Louisiana and its residents.

the the grant was announced and the state is in discussions with the feds on, the details around that.

And so hopefully within, you know, by the fall, we'll have a lot more information about how that grant will be rolled out across the state.

We also have solar energy infrastructure developed across Louisiana at a large scale level.

private investment.

we have a solar farm, or as you say, what?

Utility scale?

Utility scale.

development in point could be parish.

we have another one, I believe Prairie Ronde Solar farm under construction and in Saint Landry Parish.

And both of those projects are, by a company, lightsource bp.

They're investing heavily in the state of Louisiana, building these large scale, solar facilities.

The reality is that when you look at how many permits have given or how many, how many companies have interest, it looks like the whole state's going to become a big, you know, solar solar farm.

But the reality is there's only a certain amount that could even fit into the grid right now with current grid infrastructure.

And so, the, the pushback that we hear from a lot of the farming community is that, it seems as though there's going to that all the farming industry, all of all of the sugar cane farms are going to turn into solar farms.

Well, this isn't even possible.

This isn't going to happen.

And so what we are trying to do is make sure that we're there to support community needs with all the pressures around this investment, to make sure that investment is good and benefits the community, but also creating long term partnerships with the solar industry, providers.

And, you know, these are critical investments we need into the grid, but we also need our communities to benefit from them.

And we'd be remiss not to point out, in the development of Louisiana solar energy infrastructure, we have a, solar panel manufacturing plant, first solar, coming to New Iberia.

I believe they have stated they plan to open or be operational in 2026.

Yeah, it's really exciting because you want the manufacturing so we can manufacture, build out solar panels that can be shipped across the globe.

But first, let's put them on homes and businesses across Louisiana.

And then, in addition, build out microgrids, start building out community scale solar, and then also have the larger needs for utility scale solar.

But this needs to be holistic.

It needs to be planned.

Communities need a voice.

The solar industry alone in 2023 contributed around 53 billion to the U.S. energy market.

what's critical for Louisiana's is, according to Louisiana Economic development, there are already 3000 jobs held in solar energy in the state and another 7000 projected in the near future.

Thank you so much, Camille.

Mandy Broom, thanks for sharing your insight and expertise on, resilient communities and the role that renewable energy, in particular solar energy, can play in creating resilient communities.

Thank you.

Karen.

Main streets across Louisiana are becoming main attractions again thanks to a program celebrating its 40th anniversary.

The Louisiana main Street program provides grants to towns and cities to revitalize historic districts and local economies.

Franklin and Saint Mary Parish is one of the four original cities that joined the program.

I'm taking you on a Saturday stroll of this small town success story.

It's a Saturday morning at the Lamplighter Coffeehouse in downtown Franklin, and baristas are busy serving up caffeinated drinks at this popular community gathering spot.

The locally owned coffeehouse is a main Street success story.

I got to tell you, you make a great patio.

Diane Moss and her husband, Doctor Gary Wiltse, opened Lamplighter Coffeehouse in 2021.

It's one of a trio of downtown businesses the couple owns.

My husband and I invested heavily in all of these things, but any grant opportunities that became available yet they did.

They they made them available for us.

The Louisiana Mainstreet program provided funds that help pay for building renovations to the coffee house and other aging and abandoned downtown buildings, revitalizing the local economy.

The city of Franklin was one of the first four main streets, in the Louisiana main Street program in 1984. so we come from a long lineage.

40 years to today.

The city of Franklin's main street has always been the jewel, and it's been our jewel.

And it's been an unknown jewel to many people around our state.

we are that hallmarked main street that you don't have to touch.

The Louisiana Mainstreet program began in 1984 as part of the Main Street America program, a nationwide movement to support small towns and locally owned businesses.

Main streets, a program based on the Historic Preservation Foundation, is in stock preservation, but it's an economic development program that helps, implement a process in small towns to revitalize their historic downtowns, primarily small towns.

Today, there are 36 designated Louisiana main Street communities, including the original four Franklin, Donaldsonville, Hammond, and Houma.

It's done a remarkable job as far as economic development is concerned, and being an attraction to get people to not only visit here, but to move here and stay here.

In 2024, the program is celebrating 40 years of revitalizing downtowns.

Franklin marked the occasion with a new mural by artist Robert Stafford.

What do you want the community of Franklin to experience or take away from the mural you you painted?

Well, the first and most important thing to me when I work in a community is to interact with all the people who live here.

So I get what they feel like and try to put their feelings in their painting.

So they're happy with it and want to come hang out with it and, give them a sense of themselves and their pride, of who they are and what they are.

That's first and then the second lead to, think a little bit about how long people have lived here on this spot on the bayou.

The mural was funded in part by Louisiana Percent for Art, a statewide public art program.

1% of construction, funds, for a state building that has, new renovation or new building for more than $2 million, 1% of that budget goes to public art for that building.

Some of the money paid for this workshop that the City of Franklin participated in, with eight other municipalities and they went through, a five week training, and they learned all about the public art process and how to engage with artists and funding opportunities in insurance and all the stuff that you need to run a successful, public art program.

Today, Franklin's lamp post lined Main street is bustling with visitors and locals.

A small town America success story.

If you look at the buildings out here, almost all of them are occupied.

There was a time maybe five, ten years ago, where there's like maybe 20% of them.

You know, a lot of towns that are struggling, if they have a little shot in the arm, it gives them some vitality to go do something, generate some money.

Franklin has more plans to improve quality of life with projects to enhance public access along Bayou Tache and beautification projects.

Without a vibrant Main street, the community loses.

So that's why we've asked people to shop local, feel local, spend local, play local.

Because those tax dollars turned back over.

So whenever we, we're, attempting to apply for any grants and we need a 25% match, we can't obtain that grant without the 25% match wood, which is what we need to help the tax base in our general fund so we can meet those match dollars.

The Main Street approach is based on four points design, organization, promotion and economic vitality, which is economic development.

So all four of those things have to work together to help a community transform its, its downtown area.

And every community that we work with has a volunteer board of directors.

It's this is very much community driven.

Franklin's participation in the Main Street program has netted $10 million and investments, fostered 139 new businesses and more than 220 new jobs, making downtown a main attraction.

That's our show for this week.

Remember, you can watch anything LPB anytime, wherever you are with our LPB app.

You can catch LPB news and public affairs shows, as well as other Louisiana programs you've come to enjoy over the years.

And please like us on Facebook and Instagram!

For everyone that Louisiana Public Broadcasting, I'm Karen LeBlanc.

Until next time.

That's the state we're in.

Support for Louisiana.

The state we're in is provided by Entergy.

Louisiana is strengthening our power grid throughout the state.

We're reinforcing infrastructure to prepare for stronger storms, reduce outages, and respond quicker when you do need us.

Because together, we power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred B and Ruth B Zigler Foundation and the Ziegler Art Museum.

Located in Jennings City Hall, the museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is an historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana and by Visit Baton Rouge.

And the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting and viewers like you.

Thank you.