“Every big job I get brings both excitement and anxiety,” explains Randy LeBlanc. “There’s an equal combination of loving the challenge, and fear that I may have bitten off more than I can chew. “I know myself,” he adds. “I love that quote Do Good Work. While I do take risks, it’s always with integrity. I always finished the job… it’s not the clients’ fault it was harder or took longer. It comes down to having values.” LeBlanc is an award-winning blacksmith from Lafayette, Louisiana. He is the owner of Metal Head, Inc. The values, instilled in his foundation from different sources, have led the him to where he is today... a happy, healthy family man doing what he loves to do.
“I THINK IF YOU WERE DOING A DOCUMENTARY,” begins Mike Calkins, “you would want to tell the story of a young man who, with almost no education, from a rural
town in south Louisiana, came back from World War I and turned something into a multi-million dollar, 100 year-old brand that still produces a great product.” There’s a slight
pause, and then comes the smile of a proud grandson. “And of course, that man was my grandfather, Joe Huval, and that brand is Evangeline Maid Bread.”
A little over 40 years ago, four friends in the seventh grade were sitting on and around a bench in Our Lady of Fatima’s playground area waiting for school to start. They did this almost every single morning during junior high. This particular morning’s conversation involved a very serious topic… the subject of piercing their ears.
After World War II, rural Vermilion Parish had few options when it came to communications. But the Turnley family changed that when it bought a telephone company in the 1950s.
Gather ‘round boys and girls, and I’ll tell you a tale as old as time. You’ve heard this one a million times. Local boy goes to school, becomes a surgeon, and … buys an old grocery store and turns it into an amazing restaurant featuring house made charcuterie. Welcome to “The ‘Rette.”
New Orleans native George Oldenberg moved to Lafayette to attend USL (now University of Louisiana Lafayette) and never went back. After 21 years in banking, he left his career in 2002 and bought Zoosiana in Broussard, La., one of a handful of privately-owned zoos in the U.S. “It’s a labor of love,” he gushes.
“Today, we produce about 750,000 bottles a day.” The speed with which the company historian tossed out that number is proof that Shane Bernard knows his Tabasco … past and present. “And that’s the red sauce, the classic red Tabasco sauce.” But the red sauce’s origins came, not from a farmer, not from a chef, but rather from a banker from the eastern United States.
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