26/Aug/2008
Special Person – Director of the Zachary Historic Village Museum Lois Hastings
Many people have done a whole lot to make Zachary such a very special place. One of them is Zachary native Lois Hasting, director of the Zachary Historic Village Museum.
A Zachary native, Hastings never held a student government office when she was in school, but she was always heavily involved in school activities. “I guess that’s where it started,” she said.
At a young age Hastings began attending meetings of the Zachary City Council. She also attended school board meetings and planning and zoning meetings. “I guess I just wanted to know what was going on,” she said.
Hastings says she always thought community work is what a person is supposed to do. “My dad had a big cow pasture that he cut so the town could use it as a baseball field, and he mowed the grass at the church every week, even though he almost never attended, but my mom was always very active in the church.”
When her children were growing up Hastings served in parent organizations and took field trips with them. One day it just seemed to naturally follow that she should become the first and only Director of the Zachary Historic Village Museum. “I led field trips while my kids were in school but when the last one graduated I told them I would not be back,” she said. “I did not know it then, but I guess I was ready for a new challenge.”
The Zachary Historic Village began when Hastings worked as a volunteer on the McHugh House Committee. “We went to see the mayor and got him to help us buy the home across the street. Next we began teaching school groups about the history of Zachary.”
Before long another house nearby was added that had been an old one-room school. And then came a parking lot, and next a barn was built along with a pavilion. “When the school groups come now the kids pull water up out of the well with a bucket on a rope,” said Hastings. “The other day we were showing them the privy behind the houses. One of the youngsters explained that people didn’t have toilet paper in the old days so they used pine cones. We had to straighten that out right away.”
School groups learn about washing clothes with scrub boards at the Historic Village and they tour the Indian area where they see cooking pots made of clay and cooking stones and cooking pouches made from cleaned out animal stomachs.
“We do hands on history here. The girls crack corn and make corn meal. The boys make a canoe, and we teach them how the Indians chopped down trees without tools by burning through the tree trunk and then scraping it out with a turtle shell,” she explained.
Hastings explained that her husband grew up in a family that lived in several the oil patch towns in Colorado and Wyoming. “He says he got all the cold weather he needed when he was young, so we agreed early on that we would just stay in one place,” she said. “He worked for Exxon and then Turner Construction in Chalmette following Katrina, but he is always home on weekends.
“Right now he is helping restart an oil refinery in Norco so he comes home on Friday and cuts the grass.” Of course she does not mean only the grass at home. “He has the contract to cut grass for the city of Zachary.”
Both Hastings are retired Exxon employees. During her 20-year career Hastings’ experience with Saudi engineers made her know they were doing the right thing by turning down proffered assignments in Saudi Arabia. “The Saudis had no respect for women,” she said. “We needed their oil, so I was always nice to them, but it was tough.”
Now after 20 years with the city of Zachary, Hastings is thinking about retirement once again. “I have been a chaperone at every dance at the church and after every football game for more than 20 years. My son played baseball and we hauled truckloads of kids to every tournament for many years.”
Hastings said she really gets a lot out of giving back to the community she loves. “My son lives here and my daughter works at the hospital but lives in St. Francisville,” she explained. “When I do something for Zachary I feel as if I am helping my family.”
Recently Hastings was named to a 16-person committee that is planning the future of Zachary. “Someone has to take responsibility for historic preservation and beautification in Zachary,” she said. “There are a lot of people who are willing to help, but few will accept a leadership role.”
Special Person – Zachary High Athletic Director Allen Walls
If you haven’t been inside the new Athletic and Academic Building on the Zachary High Campus yet you have a real treat in store. And if you haven’t met Zachary’s High School’s Athletic Director Allen Walls you’re in for another very pleasant experience.
“One thing for sure, being number one pays off,” explained Walls. “It feeds on itself. In the summer the best players in the region call me wanting to know how they can get into our program. That is very special.”
The School Board had a vision when the school tax was passed and it is wonderful to see it all coming together, according to Walls. “For years we traveled around the state and saw what the others had. We selected the best of the best and brought it home.
“Our new building is a lot like a similar facility at West Monroe High School.”
All athletics are in one place now at Zachary High except for baseball. The campus rivals many junior colleges from the standpoint of modern buildings that stand among beautiful trees and grounds.
“It makes it all worthwhile,” explained Walls. “When we host the jamboree, for example, we will have the members of the Zachary High Century Club who donate each year to our school meeting with elected officials from all the towns with schools participating in the jamboree. They will all gather in the big new ‘Bronco Room’ on the second floor that overlooks the stadium for a pre-game reception.”
Of 1,200 students at Zachary High some 400 are athletes. When you add to that the cheerleaders and the band it is easy to see that more than half of the student body is taking an active role every day in the athletic program that Walls directs.
“Of course, the new turf on the football field is just great,” he said. “Events won’t get washed out nearly so often and we now have a permanent Z in the center of the field. That is very important to me personally because before it was always my job to paint the Z on the field every Thursday.”
Walls has been the athletic director at Zachary High for three years. On staff at the school since 2000, from 2003 to 2005 he coached baseball. Prior to that, Walls was an assistant baseball and football coach at Baker High from which he graduated in 1987.
“These days I am not coaching kids, I manage people,” said Walls. “I do a lot of paper work and plan special events. I work closely with community leaders and the business community.”
For Allen Walls being the athletic director at Zachary High School is not just a job. “For me my job is not about ‘have to’,” he said. “It is about ‘want to’.”
In addition to his wife Georgiana, who is an accounting manager for UPS, the Walls family includes a four-year-old and a nine-year-old student at Copper Mill School.
Special Person – Retired Zachary High Principal and Former Chairman of the Board of Lane Regional Medical Center Jerry Boudreaux
If you don’t know Jerry Boudreaux then you are probably new to Zachary. He was the principal of Zachary High School from 1969 until 1995, and he recently completed a ten- year term as Chairman of the Board at Lane Regional Medical Center.
“I’m originally from Grand Pointe in St. James Parish,” he said. “There was no electricity in our home and no indoor plumbing. Water came from a cistern; my dad grew perique tobacco and trapped in the winter.”
The Boudreaux family spoke French at home. When he was old enough to attend school, he began to learn English. His first grade teacher (who is still alive) was Miss Amy Brady.
“My mother was a high school graduate, but my father had almost no formal schooling,” said Boudreaux. “Our household bills ran less than $200 a year back then.”
During World War II farming got pretty tough so his dad took a job with Ethyl Corporation. “We moved to Blount Road in Baker near the airport and started school. We were just about the only Catholics in the school and that made it pretty rough. But all five of us graduated from Baker High.”
The football coach in Baker back then was Raymond Didier and Boudreaux played for him for four years. “My first job after graduating from Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond (SLI) was as an assistant coach at Leon Goudchaux High School in Reserve,” he said. “I had been in Air Force ROTC, so I had to serve three years in the Air Force. I actually began my coaching career in 1960 at Baker High.”
Jerry and Cherry Boudreaux married in 1956 and in 1967 he became assistant principal at Baker Middle School. They moved to Zachary in 1969 when Marshal Bond a local pharmacist took him under his wing and sold Boudreaux some acreage.
“The Superintendent of Schools for East Baton Rouge Parish was Robert Aertker who had coached me in high school,” said Boudreaux. “I became the principal in Zachary at the time when it was decided that we needed only one high school with an enrollment that was 58 percent minority and 42 percent white.”
Boudreaux said he was appointed on July 14 and began work on July 17. “I had 38 teachers but only ten showed up that first day. We immediately got to work and hired 28 new teachers. One is still there.”
Getting the job done of building a strong integrated school system for Zachary took the cooperation of the whole community, according to Boudreaux. “We needed the help of a strong community of people who were ready to put their money on the line.” he said. “We needed the cooperation of the police chief, Mayor Jack Breaux, Jessie Spears and many average citizens.
“All the banks were wonderful,” remembered Boudreaux. “Don Browning at Guaranty Bank said yes to everything we asked as did David Addington at Louisiana National Bank. Georgia Pacific was just starting out back then, and Mr. Gregory the manager was wonderfully cooperative. Right away he called and told me he wanted to provide $10,000 annually for scholarships. He said he would provide the money and we would make the selections.”
Zachary had only two restaurants back then. There was Ann’s Restaurant and Leblanc’s Restaurant. Both gave the schools whatever they needed, according to Boudreaux.
“The sports program took money to start and to keep going,” he said. “If I needed something and the school board was hesitant, I would just reach out to the community. And I’ll never forget Marshal Bond’s advice: ‘Do what your heart tells you to do.’ And that is exactly what I did.”
The first couple of years were tough, and 14-hour days were common. With the support of the business community behind him, however, Boudreaux said he could not fail. “We survived despite threats to my life because the businesses and the people just pitched in and because everyone wanted good schools for their children. But there were plenty of times when we just did not know what was going to happen.”
Eventually the Boudreaux family included three girls and two boys. He is very proud of his children, but he is also proud of the school system the community built with forward thinking ideas such as: the academic letter jackets that Georgia Pacific paid for; the nationally recognized Beta Club program; the lights on the football field and the computerized library.
“I remember once we needed a receptionist and there was no money to hire one,” he said. “There were three ladies who I knew had hit it big in the Tuscaloosa Trend oil boom so I went to see them. They donated enough money for us to hire the receptionist and later we were able to find the money we needed to keep her on board.”
Boudreaux said he followed two simple rules: (1) If a teacher cannot teach we need to get him or her out of the classroom; and (2) if a student acts up so that the teacher needs to send him to the office then we keep that kid in the office for the rest of the day. “We didn’t keep him a little while and then send him back to class. He was sitting in the office for the whole day. Sending him back was an insult to the teacher who sent him to the office. And he can’t play in the ballgame on Friday night if he acts up, and that’s that. That is how we kept the support of the faculty.”
Sports were always important, however, and in the 1980’s Zachary had some wonderfully successful teams. “But as important as sports are, they must take a back seat to academics,” said Boudreaux.
Another thing that makes Jerry Boudreaux special in and for Zachary is the fact that he recently completed ten years of service as Chairman of the Board of Lane Regional Medical Center.
“One man we have to thank for our hospital is former Baton Rouge Mayor Woody Dumas,” explained Boudreaux. “He was from Baker and he said we needed a hospital in the northern end of the parish. He helped us form our hospital district which made it possible for us to pass a hospital tax which we have never had to do.”
Lane Regional Medical Center has been self-funding from day one. There has never been a need to pass a hospital tax.
“Our hospital saves more and more lives each year as the northern two-thirds of the parish grows,” said Boudreaux. “If a person has a heart attack up here chances are you would not make it to one of the Baton Rouge hospitals in time. The next stop heading north is either McComb or Natchez and traffic in Baton Rouge being what it is you might be better served to try and get to one of those if there was no Lane Regional Hospital.”
Boudreaux said the doctors and nurses are very special people who provide free physicals to all of the athletes at Zachary High School each year. The hospital has over 600 employees who currently deliver more than 300 babies every year.
“The thing the hospital and the schools have in common is that they both enjoy tremendous community support,” he said. “People in Zachary give me too much credit. They are the special people, the people in Zachary are what’s special.”
Boudreaux, who is 75, retired from the school board in 1995. He now keeps busy by working with the Louisiana High School Athletic Association and the LSU Tiger Athletic Foundation.
Many people have done a whole lot to make Zachary such a very special place. One of them is Zachary native Lois Hasting, director of the Zachary Historic Village Museum. A Zachary native, Hastings never held a student government office when she was in school, but she was always heavily involved in school activities. “I guess that’s where it started,” she said.
At a young age Hastings began attending meetings of the Zachary City Council. She also attended school board meetings and planning and zoning meetings. “I guess I just wanted to know what was going on,” she said.
Hastings says she always thought community work is what a person is supposed to do. “My dad had a big cow pasture that he cut so the town could use it as a baseball field, and he mowed the grass at the church every week, even though he almost never attended, but my mom was always very active in the church.”
When her children were growing up Hastings served in parent organizations and took field trips with them. One day it just seemed to naturally follow that she should become the first and only Director of the Zachary Historic Village Museum. “I led field trips while my kids were in school but when the last one graduated I told them I would not be back,” she said. “I did not know it then, but I guess I was ready for a new challenge.”
The Zachary Historic Village began when Hastings worked as a volunteer on the McHugh House Committee. “We went to see the mayor and got him to help us buy the home across the street. Next we began teaching school groups about the history of Zachary.”
Before long another house nearby was added that had been an old one-room school. And then came a parking lot, and next a barn was built along with a pavilion. “When the school groups come now the kids pull water up out of the well with a bucket on a rope,” said Hastings. “The other day we were showing them the privy behind the houses. One of the youngsters explained that people didn’t have toilet paper in the old days so they used pine cones. We had to straighten that out right away.”
School groups learn about washing clothes with scrub boards at the Historic Village and they tour the Indian area where they see cooking pots made of clay and cooking stones and cooking pouches made from cleaned out animal stomachs.
“We do hands on history here. The girls crack corn and make corn meal. The boys make a canoe, and we teach them how the Indians chopped down trees without tools by burning through the tree trunk and then scraping it out with a turtle shell,” she explained.
Hastings explained that her husband grew up in a family that lived in several the oil patch towns in Colorado and Wyoming. “He says he got all the cold weather he needed when he was young, so we agreed early on that we would just stay in one place,” she said. “He worked for Exxon and then Turner Construction in Chalmette following Katrina, but he is always home on weekends.
“Right now he is helping restart an oil refinery in Norco so he comes home on Friday and cuts the grass.” Of course she does not mean only the grass at home. “He has the contract to cut grass for the city of Zachary.”
Both Hastings are retired Exxon employees. During her 20-year career Hastings’ experience with Saudi engineers made her know they were doing the right thing by turning down proffered assignments in Saudi Arabia. “The Saudis had no respect for women,” she said. “We needed their oil, so I was always nice to them, but it was tough.”
Now after 20 years with the city of Zachary, Hastings is thinking about retirement once again. “I have been a chaperone at every dance at the church and after every football game for more than 20 years. My son played baseball and we hauled truckloads of kids to every tournament for many years.”
Hastings said she really gets a lot out of giving back to the community she loves. “My son lives here and my daughter works at the hospital but lives in St. Francisville,” she explained. “When I do something for Zachary I feel as if I am helping my family.”
Recently Hastings was named to a 16-person committee that is planning the future of Zachary. “Someone has to take responsibility for historic preservation and beautification in Zachary,” she said. “There are a lot of people who are willing to help, but few will accept a leadership role.”
Special Person – Zachary High Athletic Director Allen Walls
If you haven’t been inside the new Athletic and Academic Building on the Zachary High Campus yet you have a real treat in store. And if you haven’t met Zachary’s High School’s Athletic Director Allen Walls you’re in for another very pleasant experience. “One thing for sure, being number one pays off,” explained Walls. “It feeds on itself. In the summer the best players in the region call me wanting to know how they can get into our program. That is very special.”
The School Board had a vision when the school tax was passed and it is wonderful to see it all coming together, according to Walls. “For years we traveled around the state and saw what the others had. We selected the best of the best and brought it home.
“Our new building is a lot like a similar facility at West Monroe High School.”
All athletics are in one place now at Zachary High except for baseball. The campus rivals many junior colleges from the standpoint of modern buildings that stand among beautiful trees and grounds.
“It makes it all worthwhile,” explained Walls. “When we host the jamboree, for example, we will have the members of the Zachary High Century Club who donate each year to our school meeting with elected officials from all the towns with schools participating in the jamboree. They will all gather in the big new ‘Bronco Room’ on the second floor that overlooks the stadium for a pre-game reception.”
Of 1,200 students at Zachary High some 400 are athletes. When you add to that the cheerleaders and the band it is easy to see that more than half of the student body is taking an active role every day in the athletic program that Walls directs.
“Of course, the new turf on the football field is just great,” he said. “Events won’t get washed out nearly so often and we now have a permanent Z in the center of the field. That is very important to me personally because before it was always my job to paint the Z on the field every Thursday.”
Walls has been the athletic director at Zachary High for three years. On staff at the school since 2000, from 2003 to 2005 he coached baseball. Prior to that, Walls was an assistant baseball and football coach at Baker High from which he graduated in 1987.
“These days I am not coaching kids, I manage people,” said Walls. “I do a lot of paper work and plan special events. I work closely with community leaders and the business community.”
For Allen Walls being the athletic director at Zachary High School is not just a job. “For me my job is not about ‘have to’,” he said. “It is about ‘want to’.”
In addition to his wife Georgiana, who is an accounting manager for UPS, the Walls family includes a four-year-old and a nine-year-old student at Copper Mill School.
Special Person – Retired Zachary High Principal and Former Chairman of the Board of Lane Regional Medical Center Jerry Boudreaux
If you don’t know Jerry Boudreaux then you are probably new to Zachary. He was the principal of Zachary High School from 1969 until 1995, and he recently completed a ten- year term as Chairman of the Board at Lane Regional Medical Center. “I’m originally from Grand Pointe in St. James Parish,” he said. “There was no electricity in our home and no indoor plumbing. Water came from a cistern; my dad grew perique tobacco and trapped in the winter.”
The Boudreaux family spoke French at home. When he was old enough to attend school, he began to learn English. His first grade teacher (who is still alive) was Miss Amy Brady.
“My mother was a high school graduate, but my father had almost no formal schooling,” said Boudreaux. “Our household bills ran less than $200 a year back then.”
During World War II farming got pretty tough so his dad took a job with Ethyl Corporation. “We moved to Blount Road in Baker near the airport and started school. We were just about the only Catholics in the school and that made it pretty rough. But all five of us graduated from Baker High.”
The football coach in Baker back then was Raymond Didier and Boudreaux played for him for four years. “My first job after graduating from Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond (SLI) was as an assistant coach at Leon Goudchaux High School in Reserve,” he said. “I had been in Air Force ROTC, so I had to serve three years in the Air Force. I actually began my coaching career in 1960 at Baker High.”
Jerry and Cherry Boudreaux married in 1956 and in 1967 he became assistant principal at Baker Middle School. They moved to Zachary in 1969 when Marshal Bond a local pharmacist took him under his wing and sold Boudreaux some acreage.
“The Superintendent of Schools for East Baton Rouge Parish was Robert Aertker who had coached me in high school,” said Boudreaux. “I became the principal in Zachary at the time when it was decided that we needed only one high school with an enrollment that was 58 percent minority and 42 percent white.”
Boudreaux said he was appointed on July 14 and began work on July 17. “I had 38 teachers but only ten showed up that first day. We immediately got to work and hired 28 new teachers. One is still there.”
Getting the job done of building a strong integrated school system for Zachary took the cooperation of the whole community, according to Boudreaux. “We needed the help of a strong community of people who were ready to put their money on the line.” he said. “We needed the cooperation of the police chief, Mayor Jack Breaux, Jessie Spears and many average citizens.
“All the banks were wonderful,” remembered Boudreaux. “Don Browning at Guaranty Bank said yes to everything we asked as did David Addington at Louisiana National Bank. Georgia Pacific was just starting out back then, and Mr. Gregory the manager was wonderfully cooperative. Right away he called and told me he wanted to provide $10,000 annually for scholarships. He said he would provide the money and we would make the selections.”
Zachary had only two restaurants back then. There was Ann’s Restaurant and Leblanc’s Restaurant. Both gave the schools whatever they needed, according to Boudreaux.
“The sports program took money to start and to keep going,” he said. “If I needed something and the school board was hesitant, I would just reach out to the community. And I’ll never forget Marshal Bond’s advice: ‘Do what your heart tells you to do.’ And that is exactly what I did.”
The first couple of years were tough, and 14-hour days were common. With the support of the business community behind him, however, Boudreaux said he could not fail. “We survived despite threats to my life because the businesses and the people just pitched in and because everyone wanted good schools for their children. But there were plenty of times when we just did not know what was going to happen.”
Eventually the Boudreaux family included three girls and two boys. He is very proud of his children, but he is also proud of the school system the community built with forward thinking ideas such as: the academic letter jackets that Georgia Pacific paid for; the nationally recognized Beta Club program; the lights on the football field and the computerized library.
“I remember once we needed a receptionist and there was no money to hire one,” he said. “There were three ladies who I knew had hit it big in the Tuscaloosa Trend oil boom so I went to see them. They donated enough money for us to hire the receptionist and later we were able to find the money we needed to keep her on board.”
Boudreaux said he followed two simple rules: (1) If a teacher cannot teach we need to get him or her out of the classroom; and (2) if a student acts up so that the teacher needs to send him to the office then we keep that kid in the office for the rest of the day. “We didn’t keep him a little while and then send him back to class. He was sitting in the office for the whole day. Sending him back was an insult to the teacher who sent him to the office. And he can’t play in the ballgame on Friday night if he acts up, and that’s that. That is how we kept the support of the faculty.”
Sports were always important, however, and in the 1980’s Zachary had some wonderfully successful teams. “But as important as sports are, they must take a back seat to academics,” said Boudreaux.
Another thing that makes Jerry Boudreaux special in and for Zachary is the fact that he recently completed ten years of service as Chairman of the Board of Lane Regional Medical Center.
“One man we have to thank for our hospital is former Baton Rouge Mayor Woody Dumas,” explained Boudreaux. “He was from Baker and he said we needed a hospital in the northern end of the parish. He helped us form our hospital district which made it possible for us to pass a hospital tax which we have never had to do.”
Lane Regional Medical Center has been self-funding from day one. There has never been a need to pass a hospital tax.
“Our hospital saves more and more lives each year as the northern two-thirds of the parish grows,” said Boudreaux. “If a person has a heart attack up here chances are you would not make it to one of the Baton Rouge hospitals in time. The next stop heading north is either McComb or Natchez and traffic in Baton Rouge being what it is you might be better served to try and get to one of those if there was no Lane Regional Hospital.”
Boudreaux said the doctors and nurses are very special people who provide free physicals to all of the athletes at Zachary High School each year. The hospital has over 600 employees who currently deliver more than 300 babies every year.
“The thing the hospital and the schools have in common is that they both enjoy tremendous community support,” he said. “People in Zachary give me too much credit. They are the special people, the people in Zachary are what’s special.”
Boudreaux, who is 75, retired from the school board in 1995. He now keeps busy by working with the Louisiana High School Athletic Association and the LSU Tiger Athletic Foundation.
