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 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.

Gun violence is unfortunately a daily occurrence in Louisiana.

But a new push from the feds helps to reduce the wide ranging impacts and a small island off the coast of Louisiana plays an outsized role in helping our state bird thrive.

Plus, what goes into creating a new city?

I sat down with the mayor of what promises to be the state's fifth largest municipality.

And Pistol Pete Maravich is life and legacy honored with a new exhibit at the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Museum.

Let's get started.

Hello, everyone, I'm Karen LeBlanc.

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

But first, Louisiana has one of the highest rates of gun violence in the country, and a series of laws allowing more people to carry guns without training will take effect in July.

Now, the U.S.

Surgeon General is urging officials to treat gun violence as a national health issue, like traffic safety or smoking.

Since 2020, gunshot wounds surpassed car accidents, cancer and other causes as the leading cause of death for children and adolescents in the United States.

The rate of gun violence in the U.S. also vastly eclipses gun related deaths in most other countries.

The Surgeon General says the toll of firearm related violence affects everyone, not just the immediate victims.

He is pushing for things like increased funding for research, advising health workers to discuss safe gun storage with patients, more access to mental health support, and bans on certain types of weapons.

Any gun safety legislation faces long odds with GOP lawmakers backed by groups like the National Rifle Association.

In other news, groups have joined a lawsuit over a controversial new law requiring the Ten Commandments be posted in every public school classroom in Louisiana.

Nine families of various states with public school kids filed suit in U.S. District Court this week.

They join the ACLU and other civil liberties groups, arguing the law interferes with parents rights to choose how their children learn about religion, according to the law signed by Governor Jeff Landry.

The signs must be in large, easily readable font along with the commandments.

Connection to America's laws and legal system.

Making the rounds on cable news.

Governor Jeff Landry says he doesn't understand why so many people oppose the measure.

I didn't know that it was so vile until the Ten Commandments.

I think that that speaks volumes about, how eroded this country has become.

I mean, look, this country was was founded on Judeo Christian principles.

And every time we steer away from that, we have problems in our nation.

In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a similar law in Kentucky, ruling that it violated the Constitution, protected separation of church and state.

From hashtags to headlines, politics are trending this week.

President Joe Biden faced off against former President Donald Trump in the first debate of this election cycle.

The two argued over a range of issues, including immigration, abortion, access and the January 6th attack on the US Capitol.

When asked by moderators, Trump repeatedly downplayed his actions on January 6th and his conviction on 34 felony charges.

President Biden, meanwhile, drew criticism even from some members of his own party because of his halting performance and raspy voice, which his campaign said was a result of a bad cold.

Earlier in the week, former President Donald Trump made a fundraising stop in New Orleans, where he reportedly raised around $5 million while switching gears.

Former LSU sprinter Sha'carri Richardson is headed to Paris for the 2024 Olympic Games, where she's favored to win a gold medal.

Now, Richardson is on track to represent team USA in Tokyo, but lost her spot after testing positive for marijuana.

She wants to encourage others who are going through challenges to believe in themselves and to work hard to reach their goals.

So far, about a dozen athletes with ties to Louisiana have qualified for this year's Olympics in Paris.

They get underway July 26th.

The start of another hurricane season draws focus to Louisiana's barrier islands and help buffer the state from strong winds.

Clean Bass Island near Grand Isle forms part of that parallel island chain, experiencing land and habitat loss.

It's also home to the Louisiana State bird and an.

It's an essential nesting site for the brown pelicans ability to survive and thrive.

In recent years, wildlife officials completed work to restore the available nesting space.

We're taking you on a tour.

As we approach Queen Bass Island near Grand Isle.

Brown pelicans take flight.

It's nesting season for the Louisiana state bird, which is a sight to behold after it disappeared from Louisiana habitat in the 1960s.

As we stand today, we are in excess of 20,000 birds on the island.

So yeah, you see the population out here more than double.

I mean, you're looking at 550 nests.

Breaker.

It's pretty outstanding.

So yeah, the birds have enjoyed what we've done, which was the goal.

By 1963, the pesticide DDT had decimated Louisiana's brown pelican population.

So once we were able to reduce or stop the use of DDT, then, the door was open for pelicans to return.

But pelicans tend to come back and nest in the place where they were hatched, where they fled.

And so, what we did was we went to Florida and we got some young pelican chicks and brought them over to Quintus Island, an island where previously they had lived and thrived and were hoping that they would imprint on this island here.

And over the years they did.

And we're able to, bring back the brown pelican to the state of Louisiana.

The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico created the largest marine oil spill in U.S. history.

Oil slicks blanketed Queen Bess Island, and once again, the brown pelican population was in peril.

A 2019 study, calculate a 50% decrease in brown pelican colonies in Louisiana.

Queen Bess was really the poster child for, Deepwater Horizon.

The entire island was coated.

This is a high energy environment.

so oiling, came on.

and so you had adults, some adults, young of the year, a great deal of loss associated with.

And so when the settlement finally came through, Queen Bess was prioritized as the first project to go out of the gate.

Restoration efforts began in 2017 to rebuild and restore the island, habitat paid for in large part by funds from the Restore act, comprised of Clean Water Act penalties levied from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

No one can say for sure why the brown pelican is drawn to Queen Bess Island.

It remains one of Mother Nature's mysteries.

What is it about Queen Bess Island that makes it so attractive to the ground?

Pelican?

You know, it's, there's been folks asking that question for a long time, so you're not the only one.

the one thing that I can certainly say is Louisiana has been a natural resources.

and that's, that's critical, particularly when you're talking about care for young and what have you.

They need to be able to go out there and gather food for the young as well as themselves.

as far as why did they put Queen Bess in a hole?

You know, there have been any number of papers and what have you, where there are associations to certain things.

But honestly, you know, I don't think we really still know why that is.

By 2020, restoration efforts have increased the island's nesting habitat from 5 to 37 acres.

So you asked us, while we're out, if we see a pelican with jewelry and a tag to film or take a picture of it to help with your efforts in tracking?

That's right.

So starting in 2019, we started coming out here, at night, in the summer during nesting season.

And we will humanely catch a brown pelican and put, federal band on it.

That's got a federal identifier and what we call a state band or an alphanumeric color band, on its leg.

And so now we can look around and we can see if we see a pelican with what looks like a yellow bracelet on.

And we keep track of all of those sightings.

There's a place where you can go and report any sighting of a brown pelican band that you see.

And we've had reports back from as far away as Panama.

Tagging confirms that pelicans returned to the same island to nest again and again.

Brown pelicans live an average of 20 years.

However, the odds of surviving past age one are slim.

It's why nest habitat fosters many nests are essential to the brown pelican population.

There was only three species nesting out here prior to the prior to restoration, but now we have about eight 8 to 10 species on the island nesting.

So not only did the number of nesting brown pelicans increase, but the number of species out here increased as well.

You can report a brown pelican spotting and check out Brown Pelican Stats on queen bass at the website.

Avian monitoring.com.

Officials are in the planning stages to form what will be the fifth largest city in Louisiana.

The city of Saint George Thursday, the state Supreme Court rejected a last ditch effort to block the city's creation.

The push for Saint George started with plans for a new school district, but evolved into what will now be the new city in southeastern section of East Baton Rouge Parish.

I sat down with Saint George's first mayor, Dustin Yates, for more on how he hopes to make the city a model for future municipalities.

I am joined by the mayor of the City of Saint George, Dustin Yates.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

So he's joining us here in studio to bring us up to date on the evolution of the new city of Saint George.

The official city government structure is in place.

What's next?

So we have a lot of our members.

In fact, the majority of them have never sat on any type of legislative body before.

But that's kind of how we started and really kind of how we ran our campaign was and what we focused on was just ordinary citizens that that were looking to do something better for their community.

So we want to make sure they get the proper training and an understanding of how the process has to be and, and, and their roles and responsibilities moving forward.

So that'll be the first step.

And then after that we'll, we'll, we'll publish a schedule of, city council meetings.

and then we will begin the process of building our city.

Give us the backstory.

This has been five years in the making, and it was a grassroots effort.

Sure.

Yeah, it's been five years in the making since the vote, actually.

So if you really go back to the very beginning of the movement, the movement, really began in 2010, 2011, when a group of residents in the southeastern part of East Baton Rouge Parish were attempting to create their own school system.

they went through the legislative process, for two years in a row.

And ultimately, they were told in the process that you couldn't have your own school system, unless you became a citizen.

So that was in 2013, and that's, when I started becoming involved with the movement.

So I've been involved with it almost 11 years to the day.

So by state law, you had to have 25% of the registered voters in your area sign a petition saying that they would like for the residents of the proposed area to vote on it.

we went through that process for a few years.

We acquired the correct amount of signatures.

It was put to a vote by the governor, and, the people came out, voted in support of it.

In October of 2019.

Shortly thereafter, it was contested legally, and we ran through A to Z in the Louisiana legal system from, the district court to the appellate court to the Supreme Court.

And, April 26th of this year, the Supreme Court ruled that we we could become a city.

This is also about the tax base and the best utilization of tax dollars.

Right.

So we would like to keep, some of those tax dollars home, where we're at.

But, you know, one of the, the misconceptions from the very beginning was that we were leaving the parish or we were breaking away, and that's just not the case.

We didn't leave East Baton Rouge Parish.

We don't want to leave East Baton Rouge Parish.

If we wanted to, we would have left already.

the idea was to create a smaller, more sustainable government that was in tune to the needs in this area.

And if you look at East Baton Rouge Parish as a whole, you know, it's not a new thing to have other municipalities.

Of course, you have been rouge and you have Baker and you have Zachary, and you have central, which was recently formed in 2006. and those areas are allowed to govern themselves and we were just seeking that same opportunity.

So East Baton Rouge Parish Mayor President Sharon Broome obviously opposed the, the concept of Saint George becoming its own city.

Her concern was that would undermine the the tax base and the infrastructure of, East Baton Rouge Parish.

What do you say to critics?

as far as the the tax base and the structure?

Well, part of their argument was always that they were going to lose all this money, but they really never acknowledged the fact of the services that they were no longer have to provide here.

so we really think that it will have a minimal impact, on the government as a whole, as far as the everyday residents of the city of Baton Rouge.

This is about government, and this is about, prioritization of funding and things of those natures.

And and will they have to do some things differently?

Probably.

Will they have to prioritize some things differently?

Sure.

But the world evolves.

Government evolves going forward.

Where are we at with that initial idea of developing an independent school system?

Will the City of Saint George have its own school system?

You know, the governor appointed me to be the mayor.

he did not, however, appoint me to to start a school system.

So, like I said before, I think we can all agree that we should have better choices for our children in regard to education.

but in the in the interim period, our primary sole focus is on standing up that city government.

Once that government is up and running, and doing the things that we know that it's going to be capable of doing.

I'm sure the school system will then will then become, more of a forefront objective.

The name Saint George, does that come from the church?

The name Saint George has always been significant.

That area.

you have, the Saint George Catholic Church, which is obviously, there.

And I'm a parishioner there.

but you also have, the Saint George Fire Protection District.

and there was an original neighborhood there called the Village Saint George neighborhood.

which really is where the fire department was born out of as well.

So it just seemed to make sense, to the majority of the people that were involved in, in the beginning.

And, and that's kind of it was a it was a vote of the majority.

That's what they wanted.

So going forward, can you just kind of outline some of your immediate priorities in this evolution as a city?

Sure.

So one of our immediate priorities, is obviously to to develop a communication plan.

So, we don't have any money right now, so with we are currently the only city in the state that has $0.

so it's going to take some time for that transference of tax dollars to, to take place.

but establishing a strong communication plan so people know who to call, when to call, where to call, where to meet, where to go to find necessary information is big.

Is the city of Saint George going to essentially clawback, tax dollars paid into East Baton Rouge Parish?

several years back, when the legal fight started or had to work, I couldn't answer that question.

all I can answer is, that moving forward, eventually the two cent sales tax, that is generated in the Saint George area, will eventually be transferred over to Saint George.

and those dollars will be utilized to provide those governmental services that were, previously being provided by Uber.

But do you know, does it does it start collecting, into the Saint George coffers today?

Yesterday?

Last week.

Two years ago.

It's a great question.

Yeah, that's a great question.

I wish I had a great answer for you.

but that date is yet to be determined.

All right.

final thoughts before we go.

To be quite honest with you, we believe that we are going to create a model for future governments, to look upon, for 2420 first century governance.

it's it's not a stretch to for people to look out and see that, the 20th century model of municipal government, is broken.

It's know it's been broken for quite some time.

we're looking to have a clean, efficient government that relies a lot on, contracting out of services.

we're going to have very few employees.

we're going to, instead of investing in that, we're going to invest back into our community.

We're going to we're going to make a great place where people want to stay, where families want to raise their children, and where our children want to stay.

And ultimately.

And currently, Louisiana is losing more people than we're gaining.

and that's and that was always been a directive of ours and always been an objective of ours from the very beginning is to kind of curb, that, that, that, migration of our people to, to other areas or other states.

Well, thank you so much, mayor.

Dustin Yates, City of Saint George.

we look forward to watching your progress as a city.

I appreciate it, and thank you so much.

Saint George leaders have agreed to formally ask East Baton Rouge Parish to transfer tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue to the city's new coffers.

East Baton Rouge Mayor President Sharon Weston Broome says she set a meeting with Mayor Yates to discuss ways to streamline the transition.

A new exhibit at the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Museum in Natchitoches pays homage to Pistol Pete Maravich, the LSU basketball players who captured the hearts and minds of a generation of fans.

Sportswriter and photographer John McCormack shares his archive of Pistol Pete photos, including many that have never been on public view until now.

Let's take a look as Miss Mag and fans share memories and musings of Pistol Pete.

Fans call Pistol Pete Maravich the Wizard of Oz for his showy, record shattering moves on the LSU basketball team from 1967 to 1970.

On and off the court.

Photographer John Moose Mack captured Pete's fast paced play and personal moments.

How did you have such intimate access to Pistol Pete?

Well, I was I was a sportswriter at The Advocate, and I was the youngest guy on the staff.

And Pete now wasn't at four different at age ten, of course, he was a freshman.

So I got to meet him from the time he came, before he made his reputation and press.

And I kind of hit it off and Pete and I hit it off.

It features more than 40 photographs John Moose Mac took, including some of Pete's dad press.

Then LSU's head basketball coach kind of showed up with the camera in your hand, and then you kind of went with the flow.

At some point in time, Pete was going to be there.

He's going to do something that nobody had ever done before, and if you were lucky, you would catch it.

And if you weren't lucky, you just and stay until he had a pistol.

Pete was a sports and cultural phenomenon in Louisiana, where young boys dreamed of being just like Pete.

Kids were floppy socks, emulating the basketball star's signature look.

Former Lieutenant Governor Jay Darden was one of those young fans.

He clipped newspaper headlines and compiled a scrapbook on view at the exhibit.

I was in the eighth grade or thereabouts when Pete came to Baton Rouge, and I was a huge fan, as was every basketball player at that age who just adored Pete.

And I kept the scrapbook of all the news clippings from the Baton Rouge papers, the New Orleans papers, the magazines, and in just a regular little kids scrapbook, glued them all in.

And that that scrapbook is on loan to the museum, and it's part of the exhibit with John Mishmash, his great book, and all of his photographs that are.

And I just looked at that exhibit.

How did the museum come to have this collection of his photos?

We were fortunate that we knew John had it.

And quite frankly, Pete's profile has reemerged with the emergence of Caitlin Clark and women's basketball and the silliness that Caitlin broke Pete's record.

Caitlin set tons of records.

Caitlin's record is not disturbed Peach Records, but it's gotten a lot of attention on Pete, and it was the perfect time to do this and showcase a true Louisiana icon goes far beyond basketball because Pete goes to our culture, our personal city, and really our identity as a state.

as we went into the 60s and 70s, Pete Maravich scored 3667 points with the LSU Tigers and went on to play in the NBA for ten years.

He died in 1988 at the age of 40, while playing a friendly game of basketball.

He took his notoriety.

Use it for good.

I think at the age of 40.

Yeah, Floyd said.

Pete, you've done what I sent you to do.

And he took him in a church gym, and he died in the arms of an evangelist playing a pickup basketball game.

He was, I think the Lord wrote the script.

What would you say about Pistol Pete, the man?

Pistol Pete the man was way beyond Pistol Pete, basketball player.

Pete, I don't believe Pete.

Roland, life was really just being a Hall of Famer in college basketball and the most popular player that maybe ever played a game.

A Hall of Famer in the pros.

I believe Pete's real role in life came about after he went off the deep end as a pro, and then he turned his life around and found Christ and became an evangelist.

I think we cannot ever stop celebrating Pete Maravich and what he meant to our state and what he means and continues to me to a universal game, the game of basketball.

He was so far ahead of his time, but he was a normal college boy.

You'll get that sense in this exhibit and you'll see pictures nobody else has seen before.

Pete Maravich is also a member of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, inducted in 1986, just two years before his untimely death.

Be sure to tune in for our two hour special recapping the 2024 Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Induction celebration and other events over the exciting weekend.

Make sure to watch.

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

And finally, this week, LPB was invaded by a swarm of kids looking for a little fun over their summer break.

They took part in our annual camp LPB, and this year's theme was Around the World.

So the kids got to check out our studios.

They had loads of fun and hopefully learned a lot about other countries as well as their own.

Here's a look at all the action.

From the Importance of kids camp here.

And LPB is to provide kids with a safe, fun place to play and learn.

So this year we chose Let's Go Loona around the World.

So each day we visit a country and they've had a blast.

Yesterday we made Paper Dragons.

My favorite activity was making a dragon.

The Mexican had it.

I've really enjoyed making this rain stick.

All of the camps encompass digital video, digital media on the iPad.

So we play a lot of PBS kids games.

We do hands on activities.

It's just a big mix of all kinds of activities that we do.

My favorite thing about it is learning and making new friends.

Rosie roll Slime shop.

It's like you make slime and then you sell it.

The rain stick we're doing right now, we're putting uncooked macaroni in there.

We do really cool stuff, like around the world.

I want to come to this camp next year.

Supplies.

This camp is really fun.

I like how it's always a different theme every year.

It's like always fun learning.

So all the activities are based on PBS kids activities that can be found at PBS.

parents.org.

That got me thinking for kind of like the other studio, there's these little Japanese teachers and.

It's like her classroom, like what what what what year?

Hey, Charlie, that's our show for this week.

Remember, you can watch anything LPB, any time, 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 Loblaw.

Until next time.

That's the state we're in.

Support for Louisiana.

The state we're in is provided.

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 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 by Visit Baton Rouge.

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

Thank you.