DANIEL TYLER GOODEN / L’Observateur / June 27, 2000

LUTCHER – This Christmas the annual bonfires on the levee may attract a three million more viewers than it has before. Stephen Doiron, anindependent writer and producer, has created “Lights Along the Levee,” a program for broadcast on WLAE Productions in Baton Rouge.

Doiron received endorsement for the program from the St. James ParishCouncil April 5. Since then he has been researching the area and planningthe hour-long broadcast that will entertain Louisiana and national viewers on Public Broadcasting Service through about 250 television stations.

Seventeen minutes of the program will be broadcast live, hosted by St.

James Parish’s own famous chef John Folse. Folse has been chosen as theon air spokesman for the program and also as the celebrity grand marshal for the event. Folse has agreed to highlight the event on his nationalcooking show.

Doiron said the program will include history of the St. James area by localscholar John C. Rodrique, assistant professor from Louisiana StateUniversity; Wilbur “Bill” E. Meneray, assistant university librarian forspecial collections at Tulane University; Lester Sullivan, university archivist and assistant librarian of special collections at Xavier University; Joyce Marie Jackson, associate professor with LSU; and C. RayBrassieur with the Louisiana Regional Folklife Program at the University of New Orleans.

The public aspect of the program has grown, said Doiron. Two publicmeetings have been added to the schedule to keep local citizens abreast of what the program is about and where they are in the production. The publicmeetings are on Nov. 11 at the Louisiana Parish Hall in St. James and Nov.12 at the Louisiana Veterans Hall in Lutcher.

While gathering to record on-camera interviews of scholars and ethnic music performances, scholars will present 20-minute paper focusing on their work on the project and participate in dialogue with citizens in a public forum, said Doiron. Musicians who will be part of the broadcastproduction in Lutcher will perform specially selected music of early St.

James music, including Creole, German, Acadian and African-American.

Doiron will be filming the historical segments of the program while those scholars not on camera will present their papers on the history of St.

James for the public meeting. “This is a good chance for the public to askquestions about the history of their parish,” said Doiron.

Along with the public meetings, another addition to the production is the arraignment of a $2,500 scholarship for local high school students. Toreceive the scholarship to any desired college or university, the students will have to write an essay on “My St. James Heritage,” said Doiron.”We’re trying to make ourselves more available to the parish,” said Doiron.

The production has offered to turn over all documents and videos used for research to the St. James Historical Society. From the society, the St.James history is proposed to be edited into a video that can be given both to parish schools and libraries, with assistance from Sullivan and Xavier University.

The live broadcast will travel via WLAE to the Louisiana Public Broadcast Satellite System. LPB uses digitally-compressed satellite delivery forbroadcast over Loral Skynet’s Telstar 4, distributing LPB’s signal statewide. Once statewide distribution is certified efforts to distributethe program may expanded to American and Canadian public broadcasting, said Doiron. Channels expected to carry the program so far are WLAE, NewOrleans, Channel 32; WLPB, Baton Rouge Channel 27; KLPA, Alexandria, Channel 25; KLPB, Lafayette, Channel 24; KLTL, Lake Charles, Channel 18; KLTS, Shreveport, Channel 24; and KLTM, Monroe, Channel 13.

Meneray and Brassier will act as evaluators for the program. They willreview the script before production and will watch the broadcast and complete evaluation forms for the production company.

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