Monthly Archives: October 2019

Grooving at Conway

The Baton Rouge band Press 1 for English will perform during the family-friendly Grooving at Conway event from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 17, at the Conway development's town square, 7900 La. 44 Gonzales.

Admission is free; food and beverages will be available for sale. Ice chests and outside beverages are not permitted. For information, visit http://www.facebook.com/LiveConway.

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Festa Italiana, presented by the Donaldsonville Downtown Development District, will be from noon to 10 p.m. Oct. 19 in Crescent Park, 112 Crescent Park, Donaldsonville.

There will be a spaghetti sauce cook-off with three divisions meatballs, sausage and open class with the People's Choice winner to be chosen at 2 p.m.

DJ Fire Truck Chuck will set the beat from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., and the King PaKaYea Band will perform from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. There's no need to miss the LSU-Mississippi State football game, which will be on the big screen in the Elks Lodge, 113 Railroad Ave.

Clint Cointment and Murphy Painter, the two candidates in the running for Ascension Parish president, will face off at the October Ascension GOP Roundtable, sponsored by Ascension Republican Women. The roundtable will begin at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 23, at the Clarion Inn, 1500 W. La. 30, Gonzales.

Matthew Pryor, Ascension Parish attorney and chairman of the Ascension Planning and Zoning Commission, will moderate the forum. The cost for the lunch is $22, collected at the door. To make a reservation, call (225) 921-5187 or email ARWrUS@aol.com

The Dutchtown High School Band welcomes 15 high schools from across the region to compete in the annual Dutchtown Sound Marching Invitationalfrom 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Saturday.

Tickets are sold at the gate: $7 for adults, $5 for senior citizens, $5 for children and children 5 and under are free.

Commemorative T-shirts featuring the names of all 15 competing bands will be sold for $15 and commemorative patches for $3. Concession stands will be open.

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Around Ascension for Oct. 17, 2019 | Ascension - The Advocate

STEVENS POINT - Central Wisconsin Airport in Mosinee and Ascension Wisconsin Spirit Medical Transport Serviceshave reached a deal on a hanger expansion that was first planned for Stevens Point.

Ascension revealed earlier this week it was planning to move its Spirit 1 Helicopter and Stevens Point Municipal Airport base to Central Wisconsin Airport after negotiations fell apart in September between the health care organization and the city. CWA and Ascension came to terms on an agreement to bring the project to Mosinee on Friday, according to a news release from Ascension. Ascension approached the Mosinee airport in late September.

The project at CWA will build an 18,000-square-foot hanger on about 75,000 square feet of land leased from the airport. Ascension Spirit's lease with Stevens Point ends Nov. 30. Spirit will temporarily operate out of existing hanger space at the airport until the project is completed in August 2020, according to the news release. Spirit's relocation will be finished by mid-November.

Once the relocation is complete, work will resume on planning and development of the new hangar that will provide new permanent space for the helicopter and maintenance crew as well as sleeping quarters and office space, said Ted Ryan, director ofAscension Wisconsin Spirit Medical Transport, in a news release.

RELATED: Ascension Spirit Medical Transportation Services plans to move from Stevens Point to Mosinee airport

RELATED: UW-Stevens Point rainbow crosswalk vandalized by vehicles doing burnouts, police say

The project in Mosinee will accommodate the storage of two medical helicopters, a fixed-wing aircraft and ambulances. Spirit 1 has been located in Stevens Point since 2017.

Ambulances based at Ascension hospitals and facilities in Stevens Point, Weston and other locations in the surroundings areas will remain at their current locations. The Spirit 2 helicopter will remain at the Howard Young Medical Center in Woodruff and Ascension Spirit 3 airplane will remain in Arbor Vitae.

Ascension will also need the approval from Mosinee's plan commission and the state for the project.

Contact reporter Alan Hovorka at 715-345-2252 or ahovorka@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ajhovorka.

Read or Share this story: https://www.stevenspointjournal.com/story/news/2019/10/18/cwa-ascension-agree-terms-deal-move-mosinee/4021716002/

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CWA, Ascension agree to terms to move from Stevens Point to Mosinee - Stevens Point Journal

MOSINEE, Wis. (WSAW) -- We're learning new details about a proposal to build the Ascension Wisconsin Spirit Medical Transport hangar at the Central Wisconsin Airport.

The CWA board is set to review a lease in a meeting this Friday.

The med flight is currently based at the Stevens Point municipal airport and was set to expand there, but the spirit med flight hangar may move to this empty lot east of the main airport terminal.

Ascension Hospital said in a statement, "Unfortunately, we have not been able to reach an agreement with the City of Stevens Point on the value of services and infrastructure investment required for this project As a result we have submitted a plan to the Central Wisconsin Joint Airport Board, which will allow for the continued delivery of services to our patients and the communities we serve."

Ascension submitted a proposal to CWA for a ten year agreement which suggests it would bring an extra $20,000 a year to the airport.

They expect construction will cost an estimated $600,000.

In the original Stevens Point expansion plan, the new hangar was going to be 19,000 square feet with helicopters, an airplane, and lodging for staff.

Renderings show the CWA facility would have a 18,272 square-foot hangar facility, but specific plans for inside the hanger are not included. The agenda from the upcoming board meeting said, if approved, construction on the new hangar would start on Nov. 18 and finish next August.

Link:

Proposal would move Ascension Wisconsin med flight hangar to CWA - WSAW

The Ascension Fund recently awarded 45 grants totaling $50,000 to Ascension Parish educators at 18 schools to support innovative and creative methods of learning.

The nonprofit organization awarded seven school-impact grants of $2,500 each and 38 teacher grants ranging between $500 and $1,000.

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The Ascension Fund was established in 1991 as a project of the Rotary Club of Gonzales. The fund provided its first grant in 1992, and since that time has given 1,304 grants representing more than $1.5 million in awards to area public schools and teachers. The Ascension Fund is guided by a board of directors, and the invested funds are overseen by the Baton Rouge Area Foundation.

Serving on the board of directors are President Sally Diez, Treasurer Brad Walker, Secretary Lisa Dunigan, Michael Buturla, Holly Daigle, Sherrie Despino, Dale Dody, Malcolm Dugas Jr., Alsie Dunbar, Fritz Englade Sr., Sonny Graugnard, Amy Hathorn-Lambert, Kevin Hardy, Bret Hughes, Juanita Pearley, Cherron Philippe, Timothy Pujol, Paulette Rosamond, Donald Songy, Craig Walling and Buddy Wells.

The 2019-20 grant winners are:

For more information about the Ascension Fund's grant program or to donate, visit http://www.ascensionfund.com or call (225) 290-3322.

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Ascension Fund awards 45 education innovation grants totalling $50,000 - The Advocate

GONZALES Eight months removed from his acquittal in the October 2015 slaying of a St. Amant High senior, Jacob Westbrook testified Wednesday that two youths in the Ascension Parish Prison juvenile dorm raped him in early 2017 while he awaited his murder trial, saying the first of three sexual assaults by the two may have only gone on for minutes but "felt like lifetime."

During the first day of the first-degree rape trial of one of Westbrook's accused assailants, Tre'Anthony James, 20, of Baton Rouge, prosecutors and defense attorneys offered competing slices of jail life: a brutal one where the strongest dominate the weakest in cloistered jail cells with little privacy or another where young men behind bars find a jailhouse version of romance and engage in consensual sex.

Westbrook has also filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the Ascension Parish Sheriff's Office, James, his co-defendant, Kaglin Green, and sheriff's employees over the incident, but the suit is on hold while the criminal cases proceed.

Prosecutor Matthew Derbes portrayed Westbrook as fearful of stronger youths who gradually dominated him and said Westbrook initially was unwilling to be a "rat" as the threatening behavior worsened.

"It's not that easy when you're in jail," Derbes told jurors in his opening statement.

Attorneys for James, who is charged with two counts of first-degree rape of Westbrook, claimed the sexual contact, which is not disputed, was consensual. They attorneys also questioned why Westbrook didn't tell deputies or family, who had regular interaction with him, about alleged bullying.

Yet, in later testimony, jurors also heard prosecutors play a recording of James' initial sheriff's interview where James makes no claim of consensual sex but flatly denies raping or having any kind of physical or sexual contact with Westbrook.

"We don't even joke like that," James told an investigator.

Derbes pointed out that James' denials came before crime lab testing turned up DNA linking James to sexual contact with Westbrook.

James' attorneys also attacked several inconsistencies Wednesday in Westbrook's various accounts of the rapes and highlighted that Westbrook later told a psychiatrist that he played "homosexual games" with James and others in the days to weeks leading up to the assaults.

"I'm dying to know what those homosexual games are," defense attorney Shannon Battiste told jurors in his opening statement.

In February, Westbrook, who is now living and working out of state and has a young child, was where James is: at the defense table on trial trying to avoid life in prison. Ascension Parish prosecutors had accused Westbrook of second-degree murder in the stabbing of 18-year-old Todd "T. J." Toups Jr.

Westbrook, who was 16 at the time, claimed self-defense, testifying he had grabbed a knife only scare the larger Toups away, but, when the two youths faced off inside the trailer home of Westbrook's then-pregnant fiance,Westbrook said he reacted to a punch from Toups and fatally stabbed him, sending the kitchen knife deep into Toups' chest and upper heart.

Like the first-degree rape charge James is facing, a conviction for second-degree murder would have brought a mandatory life sentence for Westbrook, but a jury acquitted him.

Back on the stand at the Ascension Parish Courthouse Wednesday, this time as the victim, Westbrook, 20, described for jurors how the alleged sexual assaults by James and Green were the culmination of primarily James' gradual domination over him.

Westbrook said he and Green were initially friendly but Green started asking and then taking breakfasts, dinners,commissary items and the use of Westbrook's telephone code and had repeatedly beaten him in practice boxing something they call "slap fighting" and wrestling sessions.

Later, however, under rapid-fire questioning from Battiste, Westbrook testified that the homosexual games described by the psychiatrist were actually a similar kind of ratcheting up of aggression from James and others. Initially a game of hide-and-seek where Westbrook searched for others in the jail cell blindfolded and in the dark, the game led to his being blindfolded but having his butt slapped, his pants pulled down and his genitals touched.

Westbrook testified that in the first of three assaults on Jan. 10 he was pinned down over a day room table while Green got a razor for James, who cut open Westbrook's orange jump suit, pulled down his jail-issue long johns and underwear and raped him.

Under questioning from Assistant Attorney General Derbes, Westbrook estimated that the first of two alleged rapes by James took four to five minutes.

"It felt like a lifetime," Westbrook added.

He accused James of raping him again a day later again but this time without force because he knew James could beat him up.

On cross-examination, Battiste, the defense attorney, pointed out that Westbrook's lawsuit claims he screamed for help when he was being raped the first time but deputies never showed up. On the stand, Westbrook said he didn't say anything because he was afraid and acknowledged that the lawsuit wasn't correct.

Battiste also drew attention to Westbrook's testimony Wednesday that Green, 20, of Donaldsonville, also raped him in January 2017. Westbrook acknowledged he never told a sheriff's investigator or a sexual assault nurse that Green raped him but only later when he spoke with investigators from the State Attorney General's Office and a mental health professional.

Westbrook testified he didn't believe Green's attack was a rape because he wasn't physically restrained that time but that he relented, fearing Green, after Green's repeated asking for sex. Green is facing a charge of principal to first-degree rape.

Battiste also questioned how Westbrook could have been so afraid of James when he had been willing to stab Todd Toups in 2015. Westbrook shot back that he had only grabbed the knife to scare Toups and didn't have a similar weapon in jail.

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Rape trial offers two competing slices of life at the juvenile dorm of the Ascension Parish Jail - The Advocate