Eighteen-year-old Rashelle Vandenborre, pictured here at her alma mater Chalmette High School, is making an attempt to become the St. Bernard Parish School Board's youngest member.

Most teenagers run for the hills when high school is over, but not Rashelle Vandenborre. The 18-year-old Chalmette High graduate is making a bid to become the St. Bernard Parish School Board’s youngest member and aims to bring what some say is a welcomed new perspective.

“It comes as a surprise because she’s so young, but on the other hand, it might be refreshing,” said Dirk Tillman, Vandenborre’s former English teacher at Chalmette High. “It might be nice to have a voice on the School Board who is so young and is connected with the youth.”

It’s that connectedness that Vandenborre said she hopes pushes her through.

“I feel like I know what’s going on,” she contends. “I feel like I know what needs to be done. I’m just fresh and new and I would know more about it. I’m not saying (older people) don’t, but they haven’t been in a classroom for a while now. I think they need a mixture of both in the school board.”

Vandenborre said her priorities reflect what she experienced in school, and few could argue with them: Curbing the dropout rate and reducing teen pregnancy.

“I have friends who’ve gotten pregnant all throughout high school. And not just seniors. It’s getting pretty bad, to freshmen and sophomores,” she recalled. “It’s going to affect their lives and everyone else’s life. It could create poverty in St. Bernard.”

Vandenborre’s no stranger to politics. At age 16, she campaigned with her father, Henry Vandenborre Jr., in a successful run for Ward C constable. And according to her parents, that’s probably when the bug bit her.

“She’s the one who got out there and walked with her daddy,” said her mother, Marina. “She walked door to door with her daddy.”

Though her campaign will soon be in full swing, Rashelle wasn’t the first Vandenborre seeking the position. When her brother, Henry III, decided not to run for the same office, Rashelle stepped in at the last minute, Marina said.

The intrepid 18-year-old graduated from Chalmette High in May with a 3.8 GPA. She participated in Future Business Leaders of America, Pride Platoon, Science Club and Beta Club, where she helped raise money for other students to attend Beta Convention, said Tillman, the school’s Beta Club sponsor.

“She has a real sense of morality and volunteerism, just doing the right thing, which is really special and I think we need more of that,” Tillman said.

Despite her youthful energy and eagerness, neither her father nor her former English teacher have any delusions about her lack of worldly experience. If she wins, Henry said, she’s in for a rough ride.

“To be honest with you, that first year is going to be a lot for her to take on, but she can do anything she wants. She can do anything she puts her head to.”

Politics can be a dirty business, but Marina and Henry said they told their daughter to take the high road.

“If people are out there knocking the other person, why would you want them?” Marina said. “Who else do you think they’re going to knock around?”

“I don’t want her to say nothing about nobody,” she continued. “As long as she keeps it a clean deal, she’ll go ahead and take it.”

Vandenborre will face off against Darleen Asevedo and Louis Wineski III for the District 3 School Board seat. Her opponents were not available for comment by press time.

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Jared beat out 110 other students to earn best in show for aerospace in the FIT Senior Design Showcase for his liquid-fuel aerospace advanced rocket engine concept.

He attended Andrew Jackson High School for his freshman and sophomore years before moving on to the Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts, where he graduated in 2006.

Jared is currently pursuing a master’s degree in aerospace engineering with a focus in propulsion. He intends to attain a doctorate in aerospace and become a college professor.

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Pictured here is The Heart of Chalmette Neighborhood Association's June 2010 Garden of the Month winner, Darlene Barras. Barras resides in the 300 block of West Urquhart St., where she enjoys working in her garden and tending to her family dogs.The Heart of Chalmette Neighborhood Association, Inc. is a non-profit neighborhood association bounded by Paris Road, West Judge Perez Drive, Packenham Drive and the Forty Arpent Canal. Anyone interested in joining may attend our monthly meeting on the first Thursday of the month at 7 p.m. in the Parish Council Chambers, or call Cathy Oster at 277-1968.

Chubby Checker

St. Bernard residents will soon have the chance to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Chubby Checker classic “The Twist” while also raising money to transform a St. Bernard Parish icon into a visual “thank you” to volunteers who helped rebuild the community after Hurricane Katrina.

Chubby Checker, born Ernest Evans in Spring Gulley, S.C., in 1941, and The Wild Cats will perform a 90-minute concert at the event. Doors will open at 6 p.m., with the concert set to begin at 8 p.m.

This year marks a half century since Chubby Checker released hits like “The Twist,” “The Pony,” “The Fly” and “The Hucklebuck.” Chubby Checker’s “The Twist” was named by the Billboard Chart as the top song of the 1960s. It also ranks 451st on Rolling Stone magazine’s list the 500 greatest songs of all time.

A portion of the proceeds from the concert will benefit the Tower of Lights project, which seeks to illuminate the Kaiser Aluminum smokestack in honor of volunteers who have traveled to St. Bernard Parish since Hurricane Katrina to aid in the recovery and rebuilding effort.

“Every light is going to represent a person, a church, a state that helped us after Katrina,” said Darleen Asevedo, who is helping organize the event.

The concert will take place Aug. 14 at the Fred Sigur Civic Center in Chalmette. Tickets are $40 and are available at all A1 Appliance and Electronic stores.

The event will include two twist contests – one will feature a number of local officials while the other will be open to anyone. The “celebrity” contest will feature State Senator A.G. Crowe, Sheriff Jack Stephens, Parish Historian Bill Hyland, Councilmen Wayne Landry and Ray Lauga, Rocky and Carlo’s Tommy Tommaseo, and more.

“Cruising with Chubby Checker,” a classic car contest, will be held prior to the concert, from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. outside the civic center. Chubby Checker along with representatives from the WTIX radio station will be judges at the car show.

The concert will also feature the Chalmette High School Jazz Band.

For more information on the event, call Asevedo at 504-271-9999. For more information regarding the Tower of Lights, go online to www.thetoweroflights.com.

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The contract is to construct a new sector gate across the Caernarvon Canal in St. Bernard Parish, new floodgates across Highway 39 and the Norfolk Southern railroad just across the parish line Braithwaite and a new floodwall to tie into both the Verret-to-Caernarvon levee and the Mississippi River levee.

The Corps of Engineers reports the $49.6 million contract was awarded to New Jersey-based Conti Federal Services, Inc.

The project will complete the “Chalmette Loop Levee,” which forms a ring around the parish. The system is designed to help protect against storm surge from a so-called 100-year storm, or a storm that has a 1 percent chance of occurring in any given year.

“This is one of the most significant milestones yet in St. Bernard Parish,” said Parish President Craig Taffaro. “This last contract award enables us to fully move to construction on the entire St. Bernard portion of the system. I want to thank our partners in the Corps of Engineers for all of their support in this rebuilding process.”

According to a Corps press release, construction on the project is expected to begin in July 2010 and should take about 10 months to complete. The official deadline set by Congress for completion of the New Orleans storm protection system is June 1, 2011.

“We have a tremendous task ahead of us in St. Bernard to construct three surge gates, four railroad or highway gates and 23 miles of floodwall in the next 12 months,” said Col. Robert Sinkler, commander of the Hurricane Protection Office. “We will be constructing two miles of concrete and steel floodwall per month to meet our operational goal of finishing all key features of the Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System by June 2011.”

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Nevada McPherson pictured in Hawaii, where she received a first place award in the International Honolulu/Waikiki Film Festival for her screenplay "Piano Lessons."

Nevada McPherson always enjoyed making up stories and writing fiction. Now, the Nunez Community College assistant professor of English has taken that pastime a step further, and she has been recognized nationally for her original screenplay “Piano Lessons”.

McPherson placed first in the 2010 International Honolulu/Waikiki Film Festival feature length screenplay competition. She flew to Hawaii to accept a certificate and cash prize and had the opportunity to meet with agents and producers. Douglas Day Stewart, author of “An Officer and a Gentleman” and “The Blue Lagoon” was the featured speaker and presented the award.

McPherson says the idea for the screenplay came after attending the first Austin Film Festival and Screenwriting Conference in 1993. She said the characters “appeared in my imagination, and I decided to tell their story.”

The screenplay is set in the rural south in the 1950s and is the story of a gay teen romance.

“Even though the script is set in the 1950s, I think it’s very relevant today, with all the controversy over gay marriage and ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ still raging. The main characters are young people trying to negotiate the emotional landscape all teenagers face when they begin having romantic relationships, but their lives are further complicated by the taboos and social mores of their time,” she said.

McPherson said she hopes the Honolulu/Waikiki Film Festival first place award “can be one more step toward seeing it (the screenplay) made into a film one day.” She is considering holding a staged reading of the screenplay.

“I’d like to see it up on its feet with actors speaking the lines. I’d be interested to see how people respond to it,” she added.

She grew up in Nashville, a small town in south Georgia, and eventually went to LSU where she received a bachelor’s in creative writing and also her master of fine arts in screenwriting.

In 1995, McPherson moved to New Orleans when her husband, Bill, joined the faculty at Nunez Community College in Chalmette as a professor of speech communication. In addition to teaching English at Nunez, McPherson is an adjunct professor of film studies at Tulane University’s School of Continuing Studies.

McPherson is also the founder and director of the popular Pelican d’Or Short Film Festival held every spring at Nunez.

Parish officials announced at a meeting Sunday, June 6 that the fleet of local fishermen would be taken on with United States Environmental Services/United States Maritime Services as the St. Bernard Fishing Vessel Fleet Response.

Representatives from BP, the U.S. Coast Guard and St. Bernard Parish oil response operations briefed the fleet on the transition Sunday. Parish President Craig Taffaro and St. Bernard’s Incident Commander for Oil Spill Operations David Dysart gave the fleet a visual presentation showing how each vessel will assigned work based on its ability to do certain tasks. Officials then gave the fishermen the opportunity to choose which aspect of the oil clean-up/response they would be willing to join. St. Bernard Council Members Wayne Landry, Fred Everhardt and Kenneth Henderson attended the meeting as well.

The Recovery Group will be used to conduct skimming operations near shore to prevent the oil from getting to marsh and land. This will consist of Skimmers and Tow Boats. Skimmers must be a shrimp boat larger than 50 feet capable of trawling, which will be equipped with skimming equipment. The tow must be larger than 35 feet and will drag a single piece of boom between the skimmer and itself to divert the oil into the skimmer.

The Recon Group will be required to be on water for 48 consecutive hours and will continually search for oil in their assigned location. This vessel will typically be 40 feet or larger.

The Rapid Assessment Teams Group will be rapidly deployed at the sighting of oil to send the U.S. Coast Guard Assessment teams to review and determine the appropriate course of action. These particular vessels should be fast moving and able to conduct night operations and quarter. This vessel will be 24 feet or longer, capable of traveling at speeds of at least 40 miles per hour.

The Protection Group will deploy and maintain boom. Larger vessels, 30 feet or longer, will haul boom and supervise the placement of boom and act as a staging base for repair and maintenance operations on the water. The smaller vessels in this group, 18 feet or longer, will deploy, validate and maintain boom.

The Logistics Group will be used to resupply the entire fleet and jack-up barges in the area of operation. This group’s responsibility will be expanded to tow the fuel barges to support the Recovery Group. The larger boats in this group will be 30 feet or longer, smaller boats will be 18 feet or longer. Both size vessels need to be capable of hauling supplies.

The Tar Ball Test Group will be used to locate and detect underwater oil passing through the area of operation. This vessel must be 30 feet or longer and able to perform trawling operations with detection supplies.

A representative from USES/USMS explained that the cutoff work day for pay is Wednesday, and payments will be made available the following Friday. The fishermen who attended received proper documents so they can participate in the USES/USMS St. Bernard Fishing Vessel Fleet Response.

“We are committed to staying engaged and on top of our commercial fishing fleet continuing to serve a vital role in the oil spill response,” Taffaro said. “We welcome the partnership with USES as a local company for this event.”

“The meeting went well,” Council member Kenny Henderson said, “and it’s important that we get everybody to work.”

“I hope this meeting  will produce enough work to keep all the commercial fishermen in St. Bernard Parish working as we face the potential catastrophic devastation to our fisheries,” Council Member Wayne Landry said. “Everyone in the Parish is working hard with BP and federal agencies to assist us in our endeavor.”

Several pastors joined in prayer and communion on Lake Borgne. Shown from left: Pastors Craig Ratliff from Celebration Church of St. Bernard, Jimmy Jeffries from The Refuge Church, Keith Stone from Healing Place Ministries, Derek Buchert of The Assembly Of God Church and John Jeffries from First Baptist Church on the far right. Photo by Jen Belsom

Five local churches recently took part in what they called a “healing ministry” at the St. Bernard Parish Command Center in Hopedale. Pastors Derek Buchert of The Assembly Of God Church, John Jeffries from First Baptist Church of Chalmette, Jimmy Jeffries from The Refuge Church, Keith Stone from Healing Place Ministries and Craig Ratliff from Celebration Church of St. Bernard visited oil response operations to show their support in this time of crisis. The pastors took a boat ride in Lake Borgne to bless the waters and partake in communion and prayer.

The pastors said they met with President Craig Taffaro, a few weeks ago who welcomed their offer to give the blessing.

“We did this as a divine intervention of faith,” Pastor Jeffries said.

Three boats launched from Breton Sound Marina with communion and salt. They poured the salt over the water citing the following Scripture passage: “Then He went out to the spring and threw the salt into it, saying, ‘This is what the Lord says: ‘I have healed this water. Never again will it cause death or make the land unproductive.’ And the water has remained wholesome to this day…”

Those present took Communion and the leftover Communion was spread on the water as a blessing, followed by a prayer from each pastor.

Taffaro thanked the pastors for their support and prayers. “We’re grateful for the ecumenical support and recognize the importance of divine assistance through this crisis,” he said.

Future prayer services and Sunday church services at the Command Center will be made available to those who are interested in the near future.

Luke Marengo, a local shrimper and electrician, spoke to the council June 1, expressing concern over the use of the dispersant Corexit to combat the Gulf oil spill.

At the St. Bernard Parish Council’s meeting this week, Parish President Craig Taffaro reported that the parish has thus far trained more than 500 residents for oil cleanup and that about 200 workers each day are dispatched in oil cleanup efforts. In addition, the parish has spent close to $4.5 million to implement the cleanup, Taffaro said.

And six weeks into the parish’s efforts to keep oil leaking from the damaged Deepwater Horizon well at bay, those numbers do indeed stand out.

But for the scores of out-of-work commercial fishermen and their spouses who crowded into the council chambers Tuesday, Taffaro’s words brought little respite. The fishermen lined up to offer a united voice of disgust with the parish-run Vessel of Opportunity program, which they say is putting too few fishermen to work.

Citing apparent favoritism and a perceived disregard for the parish’s hardest hit fishermen, those present called on Taffaro to make the system more transparent and fair.

There were claims that, despite the parish’s decision to hire only local commercial fishermen for the project, the parish continues to hire people who are not currently commercial fishermen.

“I know guys that ain’t been commercial fishing for five or six years, since after Katrina, but they’re down there working and I’m not,” said George Jackson of St. Bernard. I can point them out to you. The real commercial fishermen ain’t working and getting any money.”

Several speakers urged Taffaro to take whatever action necessary, including checking tax records and trip tickets, to ensure as much work as possible is given to commercial fishermen.

Another complaint brought to Taffaro was the fact that some oil spill personnel are working seven days a week while fishermen hired under the Vessels of Opportunity program work in four-day rotations. Many fishermen at the meeting reported only working one shift in the past six weeks, or none at all.

“Is it that you have to know somebody or do you just have to be in the right place at the right time?” Stacy Campo asked.

Campo then mentioned by name one of the steady, seven-days-a-week workers.

“Who hired these guys? I’ve asked Fred Everhardt, Wayne Landry and several other people, and I’ve been told to ask you. Well, I’m asking you.”

At that, Taffaro cast a lengthy glare toward Everhardt. Later in the discussion Taffaro revealed that Everhardt has recommended at least one person to a full time position at the staging area. At that news, the chamber erupted in yelling between Taffaro and Everhardt and between the crowd and Everhardt.

Campo asked that all oil spill workers be put on a rotation and that Taffaro form an independent committee to oversee the plan. Campo said she believed much of the problem stems from the fishermen simply being left out of the process.

“This is a problem – no one can get answers,” she said. “This is going to kill a community that’s been together for hundreds of years, only because we can’t get an answer.”

Taffaro waited until the end of the discussion to answer the crowd. Taffaro admitted the system was not perfect and he committed to adjust the program to allow a better rotation of workers.

“I own it,” he said of the problem. “I will fix it, and I will fix it immediately.”

Taffaro later reported that, by the end of the week, the Coast Guard and BP would be taking over from the parish the implementation of cleanup operations.

Pictured from left, bottom row: Elizabeth Mahler, Emily Lai, Kailyn Sartalamacchia, Jacob Hebert, Ashton Lafrance, and Jesselyn Dimaano. Middle row: Nicholas Cusimano, Blake Menesses, Allie Calamari, Tyler Chaplain, Ché Martinez, and Brennan Deogracias. Back row: Steven Juan, Jason Nguyen, Gabrielle Nguyen, Marissa Crotwell, Tristin Ledet, Todd Johnson, Marissa Florane, and Carly Clement. Teachers: Mrs. Joel Weibelt-Smith and Mrs. Bonny Loposser.

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