Acadiana Profile - August-September 2013

Louisiana continues to be a hot spot for reality shows.

Before a publication becomes a publication, before it goes to press, it passes through the hands of the graphic artists, or the pre-press production people. They’re the ones who prepare and lay out the components – the stories, pictures and…

Hobbyist Wins Duck-Carving Awards ERATH – Grant LeBlanc went from a whittler of wood to World Champion in the course of a weekend. The 70-year-old hobbyist won two first-place distinctions for his wooden duck and pintail at the 43rd Annual…

One of my end-of-summer rituals is to take stock of what’s in my freezer. There are several quarts of smothered okra to use for seafood or chicken and sausage gumbo to enjoy during the blustery cold weather. Lined up neatly…

The meteoric rise of Lafayette landscape artist Kelli Kaufman parallels the almost-fantastical nature of her abstract portraits of Acadiana.

If only walls could talk. In 1886, a flamboyant New Iberia landowner built a unique, four-story columned mansion that was inspired by the fanciful steamboats of the era. With a grand entrance hall, thick curving walls, soaring French windows, two-story-high…

Swamp Stereotypes & Truths

 “The birds are real, real thick in here this year,” says Bryan Champagne, the owner and one of three tour guides at Champagne’s Cajun Swamp Tours at Lake Martin, a roughly 2,000-acre swampland between Lafayette and Breaux Bridge. Champagne, 49,…

Acadia Parish • American Legion Hospital 1305 Crowley Rayne Hwy., Crowleywww.alh.org This hospital hosts 178 beds, 38 of which are in the psychiatric unit, and it has multiple specialties along with a family practice, including emergency medicine, oncology, orthopedics, podiatry,…

ONE OF MY MOST DIFFICULT CASES The Girl With Too Many Infections After spending several years in Grenada and New York pursuing her medical career, Dr. Alisha Totina jumped at the opportunity to complete her pediatric residency at Tulane University…

ONE OF MY MOST DIFFICULT CASES The Woman with Chronic Schizophrenia Psychiatry is a unique specialty in medicine that blends medicine, philosophy, culture, sociology, neurosciences, psychology, spirituality and humanity such that it positively leads to search for self and purpose,”…

ONE OF MY MOST DIFFICULT CASES A Mother’s Last Wish Lessons learned from my father still guide me daily,” Thomas Bertuccini shares. The lessons ingrained in him by his late father have anchored Bertuccini through the highs and lows of…

Via traditional and untraditional methods, Roger Abshire of Kaplan combines tender care and strict technique to train elite police- and personal-protection canines.

“France once had, in North America, a vast empire stretching from Labrador to Florida and from the shores of the Atlantic to the most remote lakes of Upper Canada.” Thus begins Atala by François-René de Chateaubriand, a love story between…