Support for Louisiana, the state we're in is provided by.

Every day I go to work for Entergy.

I know customers are counting on me.

So Entergy is investing millions of dollars to keep the lights on and installing new technology to prevent outages before they happen.

Together, together, together.

We power life.

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

It takes stars 30 years of working to catch up to the starting salary of someone with a four year degree.

More than a million Louisiana workers are hitting a paper ceiling.

The overwhelming likelihood is a runoff between Landry and Wilson.

Gubernatorial candidates are reaching the end of the campaign trail.

It may take it 50 years, 100 years to get back to where it was, but we got plans to get it back.

Kisatchie National Forest recovery efforts from Hurricane Laura devastation.

Hello, everyone.

I'm Karen Leblanc and I'm Kara St. Cyr, a wildfire in Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge near New Orleans, burned for several days.

Bayou Sauvage went up in flames following a lightning strike.

Now the refuge spans 27,000 acres and flames have consumed more than 75 acres of the property.

We'll have more on this story in a future episode.

Now the Department of Transportation and Development is asking that you use caution when driving by that area.

And now on to other news making headlines across the state.

Southwest Louisiana is getting an additional $50.6 million from FEMA for Hurricane Laura recovery efforts.

The announcement comes from Congressman Clay Higgins, who says some of those federal grant dollars will fund areas, school repairs.

State Farm is raising auto insurance rates on Louisiana drivers with a 17.3% increase in premiums.

The rate hike comes after a state farm received approval in June, and it impacts nearly one third of Louisiana drivers by Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon█s estimate.

That's more than a million people.

Louisiana students for the second consecutive year have scored higher on the LEAP exam.

That's the state assessment that measures proficiency in core subjects.

The Louisiana Department of Education released early results for the last school year for students in grades three through 12, showing a two point jump in the percentage of students considered proficient.

With 75% of school systems improving year over year, Louisiana's gas prices are lower than average, but creeping up, according to AAA, the national price per gallon at the pump is up 25% from last month at $3.81.

In Louisiana, the price at the pump ranks lower than many states, with a current average price per gallon at $3.43.

That's up from last month's average price.

AAA reports that Hammond has the highest price at the pump.

Louisiana's newest literary ambassador was announced this week.

The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, along with Governor John Bel Edwards, introduced Allison Pellegrin as Louisiana's newest poet laureate.

The Covington resident is a writer in residence at Southeastern Louisiana University.

She is the author of award winning collections of poetry.

Her two year tenure begins August 14th, following Mona Lisa Saloy█s successful run as poet laureate.

A movement is gaining momentum to tear the paper ceiling and tap into Louisiana’s underemployed and underestimated workforce held back because they don't have a four year college degree.

Estimates are more than 1 million Louisiana workers experience the paper ceiling screened out of the hiring process because they don't have a degree.

Here's more.

Kenny Nguyen is the owner of a successful creative agency in Louisiana.

He's known as a star, not the celebrity type, but rather an individual skilled through alternative routes.

Kenny doesn't have a college degree.

He quit college after his company took off and he doesn't believe a degree should be a barrier to success.

That's something I hope other folks in our industry can learn is that this degree here, this paper ceiling, quote unquote, is holding you back from getting such great talent.

All you have to do is just be able to look past a degree and look at someone's skills.

Justin Hutchinson works with Kenny as the director of business development.

You could say Justin is a lucky star because his employer saw his potential without a college diploma.

I got offered an internship here at 368 and from that about a year and a half into it, I decided I want to drop out of college because I was growing so fast on my career that I realized I didn't need the piece of paper to validate that I can contribute in this industry and I could be one of the biggest players in it.

Well, you are a lucky star because somebody believed in you without that piece of paper.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Take somebody.

Taking their first leap of faith is really on their employer to be like, Wow, I see something in this kid.

Justin works with other creative professionals at Three Sixty Eight several without degrees and all are thriving.

Landing big name accounts and producing cutting edge work.

I encourage anyone that's trying to make a more equitible place for stars is that you can't just bring them in when they have no degree and give them no support.

They need people around them.

They need training.

It's very intentional.

College is a place that you go to that kind of gives you that when you leave, they give you that support system.

Stars need need that same support system in Louisiana.

1.1 million are stars.

So basically, if you don't have a stars strategy, you have half of talent strategy.

Megan West is the president of the Greater Baton Rouge Society of Human Resource Management.

What I would ask that others do is to just remove degree requirements, if you can, from the screening process and just look for skills, because that's basically what you're looking for, is if they have the skills, they can do the job just because they don't have a paper.

Those leadership traits, right.

But leadership, public speaking, the networking ability, these are things that most stars have to have in order to get that door open for them.

So these are things that are often overlooked by employers.

Nationwide, private and public employers are joining the tear the paper ceiling movement, capitalizing on the untapped potential of an underestimated, undervalued and underpaid workforce.

What we found in our research is that it takes stars 30 years of working to catch up to the starting salary of someone with a four year degree.

We're really equating 30 years of work, experience and deep skill building with a four year degree, and that's inequitable as it is unfair.

And that set paper ceiling right?

We want to tear it open and create an alternative path.

And that's what we really try and do every day.

70 million Americans are considered stars skilled through alternative routes without a four year degree.

We are seeing a really big misalignment between the people who can do the job and want to do the job and jobs employers need to hire for, especially in industries like health care, where talent shortages are literally leading to hospitals closing.

Alison Salisbury is with Guild, a national organization aimed at bridging the gap between an underemployed workforce and employers needing their skills.

And we do that through about 2000 different programs, many of which are online, to suit the unique needs of working adult learners who have dependents, who have jobs, and who may not be located nearby.

A high quality institution and designed to really serve their needs.

It's how do you align the things that learners have access to learning with the skills that our country needs to continue to be really economically vibrant?

A national petition is circulating calling on governors to tear the paper ceiling by removing the degree requirements from state hiring practices.

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan is the first to formally eliminate the four year college degree requirement from thousands of state jobs.

To date, 15 governors have signed the petition.

Louisiana's governor has not.

So 60% of the Louisiana workforce is stars.

And right now where we're screening them out, right.

We're leaving them behind and we're leaving that untapped potential.

And what's amazing is we're seeing a lot of employers in Louisiana join this thinking to say if Louisiana is going to continue to be this leader in innovation and frankly, a state of opportunity.

Imagine what kind of state we can be because we have the best talent.

Let's open the floodgates.

Let's tear that paper ceiling.

Louisiana.

Louisiana is just three months away from the gubernatorial primaries, and we're up to nine candidates vying for the top office in the state.

This week, we are hitting a turning point, with endorsements starting to roll in.

U.S.

Senator Bill Cassidy released a video endorsing Republican front runner Jeff Landry.

Let's take a look at that for a moment.

Today, I endorse Jeff Landry for governor.

There are good people in the race and I'm friends with most.

But as I have traveled the state, Jeff has been the candidate connecting with the most people from all parts of the state.

By the way, we're both fighting to make flood insurance more affordable and to get resources to restore our coastline.

He and I both strongly support Louisiana becoming the leader in the new energy economy, which will create thousands of new high paying jobs.

And we both agree we must improve access to mental health services.

These are the issues the next governor must address.

Jeff plans to.

Be here to talk with us about how this endorsement could shape the rest of the election as political analysts Jim Engster.

Always good to have you join us.

Good to see you, Kara.

All right.

So let's let's jump into it.

So how does this endorsement reshape the rest of the election?

What's what is the effect going to be?

This one is an endorsement that might not have been anticipated.

After all, Bill Cassidy voted to impeach Donald Trump, the former president who's who has endorsed Jeff Landry.

So they're not on the same page about Donald Trump, but they are on the same page about who should be the next governor of Louisiana.

Cassidy is backing Landry and they did serve in Congress together for a couple of years, but it was not thought this was going to happen.

And we'll see where it goes.

But Bill Cassidy was censured by his own party for voting to impeach the former president.

He may be trying to make amends for the candidate who's been endorsed by the state Republican Party.

Well, do you think there are any other factors that led to this endorsement?

I think that Cassidy wouldn't do this unless he philosophically was in sync with Jeff Landry.

But I do believe that he thinks Jeff Landry is going to win the race and Cassidy will be running for reelection, presumably in 2026.

And it would be nice for him in his mind, I'm sure, to have Governor Landry on his team if Landry wins the governor's election.

Well, endorsements are extremely important, especially the late stages of a campaign.

Has Landry gotten any other big endorsements this year?

He's been endorsed first by the state Republican Party.

That was the biggest of all.

And now a lot of other Republicans have fallen in line.

And I think by the end, he'll get most of the endorsements.

But Garrett Graves notably has endorsed Stephen Waguespack, and Graves has been mentioned as a potential candidate against Bill Cassidy in 2026.

And Stephen Waguespack right now is a longshot to win, a longshot to make the runoff.

And Graves went out on the line for his friend, who he served with in the Jindal administration.

But Cassidy he's a good politician.

He's never lost a race.

And I think he thought probably correctly that at this point, for his political viability, the best choice was Jeff Landry.

Well, let's talk about the other Republican candidates at this point.

There's up to about four of them.

And you mentioned Waguespack, Waguespack, and there's also Schroeder.

And those seem to be getting the most funding.

I mean, besides Landry, I mean, where do they stand in all of this?

John Schroeder has a statewide position.

He's treasurer, so he has an inherent ability, you would think, to raise some money.

And he has, but he hasn't gotten a lot of traction of late.

Steven Waguespack was head of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry for a decade.

So he has a lot of connections in the business world.

And then there are two state lawmakers, Richard Nelson and Sharon Hewitt.

All right.

So switching gears, let's talk about the Democrats.

So right now, I mean, you mentioned the front runner is Shawn Wilson.

What are his chances right now?

Well, I think Sean Wilson's chances of making the runoff are really good.

He got good reviews and got an endorsement from the governor when he announced.

And right now, no other prominent Democrat is in the field.

But if another Democrat were to show up and qualify in a week from now, then it would be a potential problem for him.

And that's the big question.

Will the field stay as is?

Will people pull out?

Will others get in?

Will there be a big surprise?

I mean, it's conceivable John Kennedy could get in and if he did, he would be a favorite to win the election.

But he's said he won't run.

And taking him at his word, it looks like the field as far as the big names will stay as is.

And if that's the case And if that's the case at this point, I think any prognostic prognosticator would have to say the the overwhelming likelihood is a runoff between Landry and Wilson.

Well, what are going to be some of the big issues that are going to come up in this election.

The issues that seem to be in addition to the economy, which is always one, we're talking a lot about crime and and we're talking about the existential threat to Louisiana.

This is the hottest summer on record.

And I think anybody knows that we've got something going on with the climate and that our state is vulnerable.

So those are issues that will be important moving down the stretch and education.

If we're going to move forward as a state, we've got to do better in education and we have to have a populace where more people are getting a proper education and getting degrees and increasing their chances for success in life.

All right.

So economy, crime, education and what was the last one?

Well, I think the environment.

Basically, what are we going to do to keep Louisiana from just floating out to sea?

No, it is unbearably hot.

Well, thank you so much.

Thank you, Kara.

We appreciate it.

Pleasure.

Hurricane Laura devastated the Kistachie Forest, destroying more than 200,000 acres of natural habitat for plants, trees and wildlife.

Today, the forest is on the mend through an extensive restoration effort aimed at replanting and fostering endangered wildlife, including the Red-Cockaded woodpecker.

Let's head out on a hike in Vernon Parish to take a look.

I'm here at the Kisatchie National Forest, joined by a team of experts who is working to restore the forest after the devastation of Hurricane Laura.

So we're going to head out on a hike and see the progress they've made in the forest and also encounter some wildlife.

So you can see what these unsung heroes have been doing to preserve our natural lands and wildlife.

You ready?

Ready.

Let's go.

So woodpeckers will come in here and make them their homes.

We'll climb these trees during nesting season to extract the babies, pull them out and get data and band them.

Brooklyn Frerks is a forester with the Kisatchie National Forest.

Trained as a tree climber.

She's searching for the baby red cockaded woodpecker, an endangered species that lost much of its habitat to Hurricane Laura, which down some 450 trees with woodpecker cavities.

So from here I can access the hole capture of the babies.

Once I've captured the babies, I have another rope attached to me normally.

And we will lower the babies down to a person on the ground.

The person on the ground is responsible for banding, weighing and collecting data on that baby.

The woodpecker search starts on the ground as biologist Steve Shively inserts a small camera into the tree cavities looking for life.

The two park rangers work in tandem to weigh and tag the baby birds and return the red cockaded woodpeckers to artificial cavities that rangers carved into trees as habitat.

It is miraculous that the woodpecker survived.

Yeah, coming through the hurricane like they were in the trees being blowed down.

We don't know how.

Of course, some of them did die.

But the fact that that our numbers, our population numbers over the next year didn't really decrease was simply amazing.

From above, you can see Hurricane Laura's wrath on the Kisatchie national Forest.

Long leave pines down and scattered like toothpicks.

A huge loss to the forest ecosystem.

Well, we had about about almost 20,000 acres totally flattened when Hurricane Laura came through in 2020.

Then when we come out and we saw the devastation, it was just it was just hard, hard to believe that that that many trees had which had survived.

You know, these trees are close to us.

Some of them are 90-100 years old and they survived that long.

And yet with Hurricane Laura, it knocked almost all this whole area flat.

So flat that Hurricane Laura left parts of the forest looking apocalyptic, making it the ideal movie set for the film 65.

I don't know where we are, but there's something out there.

They choose to shoot here.

And so a lot of the scenes in the movie 65 with Adam Driver were shot right here on Kisatchie National Forest, and you see them walking through Longleaf Pines.

You see them running across the hills with dinosaurs, chasing them.

And we watched this happen.

We watched this being filmed.

The National Forest are called the land of many uses, all kinds of uses, and we knew it would be good for the economy of central Louisiana, for them to shoot here and to show off our national forest and what we have in Bernard Parish.

The dystopian landscape carved by Hurricane Laura now gives way to new life in the forest as rangers replant the longleaf pine and sell the downed trees for timber.

We are now coming back, cleaning it up as best we can, replanting longleaf pine and keeping it in check with fire.

And so that's our that's our management plan of this whole area.

So through fire, through planting the longleaf, restoring the longleaf, and through all those efforts, it's a it's going to be a beautiful forest.

It may take it 50 years, 100 years to get back to where it was, but we got plans to get it back.

The clearings left by lost longleaf pine give way to new life on the forest floor, including carnivorous plants.

These are yellow pitcher plants, which apparently before the hurricane they were they were here, but in kind of more restricted little spots.

And with the canopy opening up, a lot more sunlight come through and they've just really expanded.

And so these are the leaves of the pitcher plant.

And what happens is that insects are attracted to kind of a little, uh, sweet substance down in there.

And they crawl in there.

And a lot of times you can kind of.

See what's in their throat.

See what they've eaten here.

You see, look, you see little insects in there.

So you can see the little hairs that are pointing back.

So this would be what's known as a carnivorous plant.

Carnivorous plant, because there's there's not a lot of nitrogen in the soil here.

And so they supplement with insects the nitrogen.

Wow.

This one has a full belly.

Yeah.

Wow.

Longleaf pine is native to the region, adapts well to a fire managed landscape and produces habitat for threatened wildlife.

I have a Louisiana pine snake happen to have on here in my back pocket.

So this is one of the endangered species that the forest works to to foster?

Yes.

It was listed as threatened a couple of years ago.

Wow.

And this one was actually bred in captivity long before it was listed.

People that collect snakes knew that it was a very rarely encountered species.

And so they wanted to have them and keep them and breed them and sell them and.

And so they went to the hot spot in the world for Louisiana pine snakes, which is North Louisiana, Bienville Parish.

So there's a population of them in the zoos today that are being managed to breed and produce young that we're hoping that they'll soon be able to release out here on our part of the National Forest to restore populations that have diminished or in some places just been completely eliminated.

Root balls, the exposed tree bottoms that the storm uprooted and scattered around the forest floor serve as new habitat in this evolving ecosystem.

Mother Nature is recovering from Hurricane Laura's hit, adapting to its new landscape and responding to the restoration efforts of human stewardship.

And I can truly say that when we go down this road, you're not going to believe your eyes and what you're seeing, what happened out here and you see all the root balls from the trees that were blown down.

As we drive along the Kisatchie National Forest with Jim Caldwell, Forest staff officer, the tall timbers give way to patches of regrowth.

To date, rangers have planted 2500 acres to restore what they say is the world's second most diverse ecosystem.

Behind the rainforest.

Louisiana medical marijuana and hemp laws remain a point of contention in the legislature.

We've seen three changes to the law in three years, so it's understandable if there's confusion.

With Louisiana Spotlight Shorts High Times, we provide some clarity on the legalities of cannabis usage in our state.

Here's a snippet of that show.

One of the most significant changes to cannabis law was the signing of the 2018 Farm Bill, which permitted nationwide cultivation of hemp.

Through.

Fires, floods and freezing weather.

We will always stand with the American farmers.

The farm Bill doubles the amount of farmers that they can borrow to expand and improve their farms.

After the farm bill's passing, the Louisiana legislature quickly drafted a bill to open the industrial hemp market here in Louisiana.

The 2018 Farm Bill put us in a position to put us first.

When you look at other states in growing industrial hemp.

Representative Clay Schexnayder authored House Bill 491, which allowed Louisiana farmers to start growing hemp following the changes to the National Farm Bill.

I've come to the Capitol to talk to Speaker Schexnayder about this bill, as well as other hemp bills he's authored since then.

You ready, Mr. Speaker?

I'm ready.

Okay.

Can you tell us more about House Bill 491?

What was the goal?

Whenever you were authoring this bill?

So 491 originated from the farm Bill.

The farm bill had set up a framework for states to go in and put in regulations to allow for an industry to start it legalized industrial hemp and what we wanted to do was to make sure that we had guidelines in place at that time in reflective of what the farm bill had presented to us.

And basically what it did, it went in and gave us the framework to have regulations over the industrial hemp and cannabis community.

Remember now, this was a fairly new industry that Congress had put in place that were they were trying to stimulate the economy and get things going and giving another option for farmers to have.

If you missed the full documentary, you can find it on lpb.org or on our YouTube page.

And that wraps up our show.

And remember, you can watch anything LPB any time, wherever you are with our LPB PBS 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.

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For everyone at Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

I'm Karen Leblanc, and I'm Kara St. Cyr.

Until next time.

That's the state we're in.

Every day I go to work for Entergy.

I know customers are counting on me.

So Entergy is investing millions of dollars to keep the lights on and installing new technology to prevent outages before they happen.

Together.

Together.

Together we power life.

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