If you enjoy floating in deep blue water, watching stingrays, sharks and colorful fish gracefully swim by, find your way to paradise at Diver’s Destination, Lafayette’s go-to dive shop since 1986. Owner Greg Hidalgo started scuba diving in 1975 and taught diving lessons at Ski & Scuba before venturing out on his own. He describes lessons today as much less intimidating than in the past, due to more classes being held online.
Apollo King and Queen XLIV, David D’Aquin and Giulia Valentine, agree that the highlight of what they expected to be a one-year reign was the moment they stepped onto the stage at the 2020 Mystic Krewe of Apollo de Lafayette Ball Masque. “It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. I questioned whether it was worth it in the months of work leading up to the event,” said D’Aquin. “But that night, when I walked out on that stage, that’s why people tell you it’s worth it.” In the wake of the pandemic, the 2021 ball was postponed until 2022, extending D’Aquin and Valentine’s reign for a year. “I am the never-ending queen,” Valentine joked.
In the Savoy family, Cajun music roots run deep. At age seven, patriarch Marc Savoy learned fiddling from his French-speaking grandfather. At 12, he fashioned his own accordion using toilet float rods. By 25, he had launched his own accordion-making business, Savoy Music Center, in his hometown of Eunice, Louisiana.
On July 24, Joan Montegut Williams, founder of Pack & Paddle, passed away. But her legacy will never be forgotten. The wife and mother of five was truly ahead of her time. When she founded the outdoor store in 1974, few women-owned businesses existed. Yet, Williams made it work while rearing her family, until she retired in 1999, selling the shop to her son, John Williams, and his wife Becky. How did she do it? Her son, John, tells her story.
Most restaurants, in addition to serving food, serve an experience. Whether it’s the atmosphere, the decor, the menu, there is a purpose at work to enhance the dining experience and draw the customer back for more. Intentionally or not, Pat’s Fisherman’s Wharf Restaurant and Bar — better known simply as Pat’s — in Henderson, Louisiana, has done that. Since the first lunch stand opened 70 years ago, it has grown to shape the culture of the area rather than just portraying it.
Christine Balfa never knew her grandfather, Charles Balfa. But she did know about the legacy he left to her family – Cajun music. Born around the turn of the century, Charles Balfa was a fiddler. He didn’t do it for the money but for the pure joy of it. “In that era, a lot of people played,” Christine explains. “They didn’t have entertainment like we have now, so it was more common for people to be musical.”
Back in the early 1980s, Lafayette attorneys, Jimmy Domengeaux and Kyle Gideon sensed a problem — many Cajun mom-and-pop butcher shops were getting squeezed out by the explosion of grocery superstores throughout Acadiana. “The country butchers in Acadiana, in many ways, represent the best of Cajun and Creole culture, many of which have been run by a single family for generations,” Domengeaux explained. “A Cajun butcher knows how to make perfect use of the delicacies provided by a slaughtered hog, including making chaudin (the lining of the pork stomach stuffed with pork), hog’s head cheese, sausage, cracklins and our favorite — boudin.”