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Ross Granger has been in the dugout for every LSU-E baseball game since 2016, and he was also a member of the team that secured their eighth national championship in June of 2024.
In March of 2015, Granger signed a baseball scholarship to attend LSU-E and play for the Bengals.
However, the Erath High graduate never threw a pitch for the Bengals. Two months after he graduated EHS, he was diagnosed with a brain stem astrocytoma. Then, on Nov. 11, 2016, he passed away at his house. He was buried on Nov. 14, 2016, in his LSUE baseball jersey.
During Ross’s battle with cancer, the LSU-E baseball team made Ross feel like he was part of the team. Ross was given jersey No. 11 (his high school jersey) at LSU-E. 
After Ross’s passing impacted the team, LSU-E head coach Jeff Willis began a tradition in 2016 that continues today.
At the beginning of the LSU-E baseball season, jersey No. 11 is awarded to an exceptional player who embodies everything that Ross represented.
Also, that player not only wears the No. 11 jersey, but is also responsible for bringing and hanging it in the dugout for every game. The player has to wash and iron the jersey.
This year’s player responsible for Ross’s jersey is Barbe High graduate  Crawford Courville.  Courville, a sophomore, is caring for the jersey for the second year.
Over the weekend, long-time LSU-E photographer Dwight Jodon captured an image of Courville and a teammate hanging No. 11 jersey before an LSU-E home game.
“I’ve been taking game shots at LSUE for many years. The jersey has been in the background of hundreds of shots. I happened to get to the game early Friday and noticed it being hung, so I grabbed the shot. It’s a very special part of Bengal Baseball,” said Jodon.
Ross’s parents, Nathan and Dana Granger, are well aware of the tradition of honoring their son, Ross.
“Coach Jeff runs a first-class operation at LSU-E,” said Nathan. 
Ross requested that a scholarship be awarded in his memory to a deserving student who exemplified and modeled strong faith, academics, leadership, and athleticism.
The Ross Granger Memorial Foundation has been established to raise money for his favorite charities and assist families of children with similar diagnoses to his own.
A scholarship has also been established in Ross’ memory to be awarded to a deserving student who exemplified and modeled strong faith, academics, and athleticism.
The foundation awards five scholarships to seniors throughout Acadiana.  This year, the Ross Granger Foundation will have given out 46 scholarships.
In September of 2017, Erath High named the baseball field at Ross.
Today, the EHS baseball team’s caps still have the initials #WUPKAR printed on them.
Those initials stand for Wake up, Pray, Kick A**, Repeat.

Former and current players, their families, and the VC community gathered in Kim Guidry Gym Saturday night to pay homage to the gym’s namesake, Lady Eagles’ head coach Kim “Gidge” Guidry, who’s retiring after 40 years at the helm.
Former player and current assistant coach and former player, Hollie Nelms Trahan, spoke first, officiated the event, and helped plan it. She admitted that until Guidry walked through the doors, they weren’t 100 percent sure she was going to show up.
“If you know Gidge, you know that this is the last place she wants to be,” Trahan said as the crowd roared with laughter.
“When I first told her we were doing this, she said I’m not coming. Two weeks ago, she told me she was on the fence. So, I want to thank all of you for being here tonight, but I especially want to thank you, Gidge.”
From 1985-2025, Guidry won 936 games, made nine Sweet 16 appearances, finished state runner-up twice, and won two state championships.
Those stats make Guidry one of the winningest high school girls basketball coaches in state history. But according to Nelms, it was more about building quality people.
“It was never always about the wins for Gidge,” Trahan continued. “I respected her as my coach, but quite honestly, she scared the bejeezus out of me. Coaching alongside her the last two years, I respect her so much more because of her commitment to her players having accountability and character.”
Former player (2006-2010), former assistant coach (2012), and Guidry’s niece, Lacy Dennies followed Trahan. She spoke about Guidry’s commitment to Vermilion Catholic and the impression she made on so many people’s lives. Then she explained who Guidry is to her, her Nana.
“She’s always been the biggest force in the smallest body,” Dennies said. “She’s always been the

definition of strength. Not only in the challenges she’s overcome but in the way she always carried herself. I’ve never seen her face an obstacle without grace. From her I learned to be the person I am today, someone who stands strong in my beliefs.
“I grew up watching her coach and patiently awaited the time I could be a Lady Eagle and be under her guidance and leadership. When that day finally came, I was so overwhelmed by the emotion, but also, the amount of running.”
Former player and assistant coach for the past 24 years, Angela Dubois Gallet talked about how it was to play for Gidge. She remembered how tough it was trying to do suicides, box jumps, line hops, ladder drills, stadiums, and distance running. She also remembered what it taught her.
“Those drills caused plenty of knee scrapes and shin gashes for me,” Gallet said. “But it all taught me and my teammates that if you work hard and put in effort for yourself and your team, you will be rewarded. Gidge used the game of basketball to teach us life lessons.”
Allyson Marceaux played for VC in the early nineties and was part of Guidry’s first Sweet 16 team in 1990-91. The Lady Eagles were riding high heading into their matchup with Oak Grove in Alexandria but lost 57-48.
“We were devastated,” Marceaux said. In true Gidge fashion, she comforted us and focused on what we were able to accomplish that year. History had been made.”
Ellen Eldridge was a member of the 1999 state championship team. Her claims to fame are playing 32 seconds in the championship game and being the funniest ninth-man in VC history.
“I’m so pumped to be here to celebrate Gidge,” Eldridge said. “Her servant’s heart created in us a love of the game. We still love it very much. I still play some, mostly while I wait for the bus. I try to be like Brooke Williams and swat my son’s shot into the grass.
“We had to run a mile on limestone in under 12 minutes. We didn’t want to do that, Gidge. But more so, we didn’t want to let you down and each other down. The whole idea of doing things you don’t want to do for the good of others builds virtue. You taught us virtue through the game and made us better.”
Rillee Guidry tore her ACL in the preseason her senior year. All her hopes and dreams for her final year were over, but Guidry didn’t let that be the end of her story.
“Gidge pushed me to train, show up, and contribute in every way that I could,” Guidry said, holding back tears. “I wasn’t able to help physically, but she made sure I knew my role as a leader and as a teammate was just as important.
“That kind of faith, believing in a player when they can’t help on the court, defines who Gidge is. She didn’t just coach the player; she coached the person.”
Lexi Venable played shooting guard for the Lady Eagles from 2012-2015. She was a member of the 2013 state championship team and a member of the 2015 state runner-up team.
“I didn’t know anything about Gidge when I got to high school,” Venable said. “The first thing I learned about her was that she’d get so angry at her players, she’d throw the locker room door open and dented the cinder block wall. I was terrified.
“My junior year I was the sixth or seventh man. I was so scared to be on that court,” Venable said. “I practiced and played scared. Gidge never gave up on me. By my senior year, I had confidence in my game. That wouldn’t have happened without her confidence in me.”
St. Thomas More head coach Danny Broussard came straight from the state championship game, which the Cougars lost.
“I’m a terrible loser,” Broussard said. “My wife said do you really want to go? I said I have to go. That’s my girl. I need to pay tribute to someone so wonderful who’s done so much for her community.”
After hearing the positive impact she’s had on so many people’s lives, Guidry gave the credit to God.
“I have to give that to God,” Guidry said. “Hopefully, He works through me to do His will. I’m humble. I didn’t play one minute of any game. It’s not me. It’s the girls.”
Even though Guidry’s days of patrolling the sidelines are over, she’ll still be teaching at VC. She’s not quite ready to leave the place she’s called home for 40 years.
“I’m going to stay and teach at least another year,” Guidry said. “I enjoy what I do. I just don’t have the energy to do it for 14 hours a day.”

LAKE CHARLES — Some have called Vermilion Parish native Scott Gastal a hero after he testified against former Catholic priest Gibert Gauthe, who admitted to sexually abusing more than two dozen children while serving in the Diocese of Lafayette.
Gastal was only 11 years old when he testified
His testimony back in the 1980s helped set in motion the exposure of widespread sex abuse and cover-ups nationwide.
Gastal, 50, died last week, nine days after being badly beaten in a parking lot on North Lakeshore Drive. Reese Iles Chaumont, 28, of Lake Charles, is facing a second-degree murder charge in connection with his death.
At the time, the diocese had already paid more than $4 million in settlements to nine families of victims, but Gastal’s family refused to settle, the Guardian reports. Their civil case was the only one heard in open court, and the family ultimately won more than $1 million.
In 1986, Scott Gastal testified in open court how Father Gauthe had abused him so badly, he had to be hospitalized.
In 2002, Gastol gave an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes about what he was still going through almost 20 years later.
“I don’t like to be around people. I just try not to feel at all. For the longest time I just tried to black all this out so it wouldn’t hurt me no more,” he said.

Gauthe was the first priest in the U.S. to be criminally indicted for sex abuse, and his trial was among the first to be widely publicized. His trial revealed that officials in the church knew about his crimes for 10 years before his indictment.
Gauthe served 10 years of a 20-year sentence after accepting a plea deal. Now 80, he reportedly lives in the Galveston area.In the following decades, many of the largest dioceses in the country were also investigated for covering up similar sex abuse.Lafayette attorney Cle’ Simon, whose father represented Gastal’s family in the ‘80s, provided the following statement to KPLC, a TV station in Lake Charles:
“Like all other sexual abuse victims, Scott surely lived a tortured, troubled and difficult life, having been robbed of his youthful innocence. My continued involvement in clergy sexual abuse cases has convinced me that there is probably no end in sight to the number of innocent children that were subjected to clergy sexual abuse in the horrible consequences resulting therefrom.”

Lane Broussard was surprised to discover that a letter she wrote in fourth grade at Mt. Carmel Elementary in 1993 had been buried in a time capsule in Magdalen Square.
On Thursday, to celebrate Abbeville’s 175th birthday, Mayor Roslyn White and city officials opened the 30-year-old white plastic time capsule buried in the gazebo floor.
Mayor White gradually removed all the items from the time capsule and showed them to the crowd.
One of the items the Mayor removed was a laminated letter written by a fourth-grade student from Mt. Carmel.
Abbeville City Council Brady Broussard read the letter to the crowd.

Why I Love
Abbeville!!

I love Abbeville because it’s a friendly town with nice people. It’s a beautiful little town with a big beautiful courthouse and two squares in the center of town. It has plenty of trees and clean fresh air.
Abbeville has always been home to my family. Abbeville has a lot a good Cajun cooking like hot boudin, cracklin, gumbo and jambalaya.
“It is the home of the Cattle Festival and the French Market Festival.”
Ya’ll come and see us in Abbeville!

Lane Broussard
Mt. Carmel
4th Grade

Lane remembers the letter because it won an essay contest, and she had to read it on stage during the Omelette Festival in 1993. Nancy Toups was Lane’s English Teacher in fourth grade at Mt. Carmel.
She graduated from Vermilion Catholic in 2002.
Lane was unaware that the letter had been placed in a time capsule.
Lane was not at the Square on Thursday, but she would read a copy of the letter later that day.
“The first time I read it, I cried,” said Broussard. “The second time I read it, I picked up my head and saw a red cardinal on the bird feeder. Seeing the cardinal meant my daddy (the late Donald Broussard) was here. He was proud knowing I accomplished something.”
Lane recalls drawing a happy face at the end of her letter, using two exclamation marks and a small tongue hanging out of the smiling mouth. On Thursday, her mother discovered the first-place plaque that Lane had won for her essay titled “Why I Love Abbeville.”
Broussard, 41, lives in Abbeville and works as an eighth-grade English teacher at Anderson Middle School in New Iberia.
Her letter and other items removed from the capsule will be placed in a new time capsule that will be opened in 25 years.