Monthly Archives: August 2017

Health Care Aug 09, 2017 Share

Dinger earlier this year led task force focused on population health

authors Staff Reports

The leaders of Ascension, the largest nonprofit health system in the country and the parent of Saint Thomas Health, has tapped Jason Dinger to be chief incubation officer at its Ascension Holdings unit.

Dinger had been CEO of MissionPoint Health Partners, the population health company launched under the Saint Thomas umbrella and now incorporated into a larger Ascension venture, since its founding in 2011. Earlier this year, he led an Ascension task force focused on population health capabilities and solutions.

In the Ascension Holdings role, Dinger will oversee the design and rollout of new solutions and innovations across Ascensions 2,500-site portfolio, emphasizing those that require incubational and entrepreneurial direction. He filled a very similar role a decade ago at Saint Thomas before moving into his MissionPoint role and holding a broader strategy position.

Jason will enhance our ability to deliver new tools and capabilities that improve the health status of our communities while fundamentally lowering costs, said James Beckmann, senior vice president of Ascension and COO of Ascension Holdings. Under his guidance, we will be able to more rapidly identify, develop and test innovations and new solutions, then introduce those with the greatest promise to enhance the care we currently provide and create new businesses to support our mission.

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MissionPoint leader given Ascension incubation role - Nashville Post (subscription)

Three new school leaders have been hired at Ascension Public Schools.

Rhonda Gillard is replacing Latatia Johnson as the principal of G.W. Carver Primary School. Johnson departed to become an instructional supervisor of elementary education.

Gillard has spent more than 17 years in education, coming to Ascension Parish in 2006 after teaching in New Orleans and Georgia. She taught at Dutchtown Primary beginning in 2007, became an instructional coach at Prairieville Primary and was appointed Sorrento Primarys assistant principal in 2011.

She has a bachelors degree in psychology and a masters degree in social work from Southern University at New Orleans, completed Xavier Universitys teaching certification program and earned a masters degree in educational leadership from Southeastern Louisiana University.

"I embrace this opportunity to work with dedicated students and their parents. My goal is to continue the academic success that Carver has achieved thus far. I cannot wait to kick off this school year," Gillard said.

Michelle Parr is taking over as Central Primary Schools assistant principal from Cynthia Jackson, who recently became the Early College Option program principal.

Parr has been with the school district for 18 years, teaching third and fourth grades at Dutchtown Primary for 10 years before becoming a fourth-grade teacher at Spanish Lake Primary in 2009, a teacher coach at St. Amant Primary in 2011, a mentor teacher at Gonzales Primary in 2013 and most recently as a master teacher at Central Primary.

She holds a bachelor's degree in education and a master's degree in educational leadership from LSU.

"It has been an honor working in our parish for the last 18 years," Parr said. "I am extremely excited to continue my journey working with Mrs. (Christina) Knight, Central Primary's staff, our students and their parents."

Galvez Middle School is welcoming Tachelle White as assistant principal in place of Mary Daze, who recently became the district's executive master teacher.

White originally is from Baton Rouge and has spent the past six years working in Ascension Parish, first at Lowery Middle, then at Central Middle. For the past two years, she has taught seventh- and eighth-grade math and Algebra I and served as a teacher coach.

She holds a bachelors degree in psychology from LSU, a master's degree in public administration from Southern University, a plus 30 certificate and is working on a doctoral degree in educational leadership at Southeastern Louisiana University.

"Thank you for this great opportunity," White said. "I am looking forward to becoming a Pirate."

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Ascension Public Schools announces new leadership at several schools - The Advocate

A long time ago....

Theres a pretty popular thing on Facebook called Throw Back Thursday that Ive participated in a time or two. The premise is to post a picture from the past that most folks might not be able to identify. Its pretty neat, and I like it a lot. What follows is my throwback Thursday, only its about the outdoors and a great friendship.

I grew up fresh water fishing. My dad, Jerry Lyle, was a world-class bass angler and brought all eight of us kids fishing with him at one time or another. Both of my grandfathers fished, and fly fishing was their passion, especially paw paw Marchand. He loved to catch bream on a fly rod, and he was good at it. So my fishing education was well rounded, to say the least.

I met my wife-to-be, Deborah Guice, in my early 20s and as we dated, I developed a friendship with her brother, James Goosie Guice. He had what we could call a university-style education from his father, Sonny, so we hit it off quite nicely. Goosie was an experienced fresh water angler but had salt water experience, something Id never done before.

Ill never forget my first trip down, I mean way down, the road south to Venice. It might as well have been Venice, Italy, as far as it seemed but it was below Belle Chase, as far as the road goes.

Our plan for the day was to get some bait shrimp and fish with a shad rig hoping to catch some croaker. But Goosie assured me that we would catch something for sure as Venice was a fish haven. I was pretty excited but a little tentative because Id never been that far before.

We launched the boat in a small marina that is no longer open and idled out of the canal in Goosies Louisiana Traveler bateau, and I entered the land of the giants. To our left was the Mississippi River, full of crew boats, shrimp boats, tugboats and ships. To our right was Grand Pass that included all of the above less the ships.

It took a while to get settled in for me but soon I was pretty comfortable among all those big boats and concentrated on our fishing. Our day was not too productive for quite a while, and I dont think we actually caught any croakers, despite our best efforts.

The day was drawing to a close but our enthusiasm hadnt dropped a bit. We anchored the boat at the mouth of a canal that had some camps on it and began to cast those double-hooked shad rigs for the umpteenth time. We had a few bites, and Goosie finally caught a bass that weighed about 2 pounds, which surprised us all but got our adrenaline pumping. Then one of us made a cast out toward the middle of Grand Pass but that pair of shrimp never made it to the bottom before a 3- or 4-pound blue cat swallowed up the bait and it was on.

For the next 30 or 40 minutes, one big catfish after another hit the boat and into the ice chest they went. We caught them until we ran out of daylight as one of us would say, Its getting dark, but the other two answered, One more cast. We finally left but not before we filled our ice chests with catfish.

That was the beginning of something that lasted the test of time. Goosie, his dad, Sonny, and Thompson Brown obtained a duck hunting lease across the river from Venice on Batiste Collette that I was blessed to take part in for a long time.

Back then, Venice was pretty quiet except on opening weekends of duck season. We could spend the weekend back in the marsh and not see another boat. A pretty normal weekend would consist of six people staying at the camp to hunt and fish. We would return with 80 to 100 ducks (never exceeding the legal limit), a couple of ice chests of fish that would consist of speckled trout, redfish, flounder and those catfish.

But the icing on the cake would be the fresh oysters we picked by hand on wild reefs near the camp until they disappeared. We shucked them, ate some and usually brought back a gallon or two to enjoy at home. Our favorite way of eating those fresh oysters was grilled on a homemade pit topped with butter, Worcestershire sauce and pepper jack cheese.

A fire would always be going at night, and we sat around it for hours with Goosie, me or Dale Jackson Babin playing box guitars, singing country music. Thompson Brown was our percussionist usually playing drums on a variety of pots with spoons for drum sticks with the occasional harmonica thrown in for good measure.

Other regular visitors were Dave Leggett and Kenny Kuhlman. There are about a book full of stories that could be told about the adventures with this group of misfits and many great memories. Thompson Brown and Dave Leggett arent with us anymore but their memories will never fade.

Well, so how did the meeting of the girl that would eventually be my wife and my introduction to salt water fishing pay off in the long run? Pretty good for me, Id say. Forty years later, three kids and six grandchildren, Deborah and I will be celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary on Aug. 18. Goosie and I are brothers-in-law and have remained very close friends. We co-host a local TV show together.

In the time its taken me to put this Throwback Thursday together, looking through a photo scrapbook, Ive relived a lot of great memories. Life is short, so grab all the gusto you can because one day theyll be gone. And no matter how old you might be, its never too late to start making new memories with friends and family.

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Ascension Athletics for Aug. 10, 2017 - The Advocate