Leadership Louisiana will be celebrating it’s 35th anniversary next year, and we send our thanks to The Advocate for helping us kick that off with a great news feature on the program in Sunday’s paper.
Yes, 35 years is a long time and that adds up to a diverse group of well over 1,400 alumni from every corner of the state. One of those is Jan Risher, from the class of 2019, who is now the Features Editor at the paper and the leader of its Louisiana Inspired section in the Sunday Advocate.
She thought it would be a good idea to highlight Leadership in the latest edition of Louisiana Inspired and the result is a great story from writer Lauren Cheramie that really captures the ideals of the program and the spirit of so many of the people who have participated over the years.
People like Dee Garrett from Lafayette who was a member of the 2018 class: “I never understood that what happens in Louisiana matters to the rest of the country and the rest of the world. Learning that Port Fourchon supplies 20 percent of the country’s oil supply, and couple that with Loren Scott’s economic lecture about what that means, I was for the first time a proud Louisianian.”
Nancy Crawford from the class of 2004 talked about the difference her experience made for her both professionally and socially: “The intrinsic value to me was making contact with people in all sections of the state that I still have. There were these business relationships that formed after the friendships formed in the class. Those that would’ve never happened had they not met and been in the same leadership class.”
And then there’s Friday Ellis from 2018 who was looking to broaden his commitment to community service. He was elected Mayor of Monroe in 2020: “We need to fight any kind of negative perception out there about the state of Louisiana, and we need to have a little swagger and a little attitude about us. If everybody could go through this class, I think everybody could get a little bit of that swagger back and show that we can win.”
CABL is excited about Leadership Louisiana’s upcoming anniversary, and we salute all our alumni across the state who collectively are working everyday to make Louisiana a better place for all. And thanks to The Advocate for helping tell their stories.